Ills of society
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
P. J. O'Rourke
Read more at
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're... - P. J. O'Rourke at BrainyQuote
Re the senates estimates bullying discussion.
What is bullying?
People who are bullied find that they are:
- constantly criticised and subjected to destructive criticism (often euphemistically called constructive criticism, which is an oxymoron) - explanations and proof of achievement are ridiculed, overruled, dismissed or ignored
- forever subject to nit-picking and trivial fault-finding (the triviality is the giveaway)
- undermined, especially in front of others; false concerns are raised, or doubts are expressed over a person's performance or standard of work - however, the doubts lack substantive and quantifiable evidence, for they are only the bully's unreliable opinion and are for control, not performance enhancement
- overruled, ignored, sidelined, marginalised, ostracised
- isolated and excluded from what's happening (this makes people more vulnerable and easier to control and subjugate)
- singled out and treated differently (for example everyone else can have long lunch breaks but if they are one minute late it's a disciplinary offence)
- belittled, degraded, demeaned, ridiculed, patronised, subject to disparaging remarks
- regularly the target of offensive language, personal remarks, or inappropriate bad language
- the target of unwanted sexual behaviour
- threatened, shouted at and humiliated, especially in front of others
- taunted and teased where the intention is to embarrass and humiliate
- set unrealistic goals and deadlines which are unachievable or which are changed without notice or reason or whenever they get near achieving them
- denied information or knowledge necessary for undertaking work and achieving objectives
- starved of resources, sometimes whilst others often receive more than they need
- denied support by their manager and thus find themselves working in a management vacuum
- either overloaded with work (this keeps people busy [with no time to tackle bullying] and makes it harder to achieve targets) or have all their work taken away (which is sometimes replaced with inappropriate menial jobs, eg photocopying, filing, making coffee)
- have their responsibility increased but their authority removed
- have their work plagiarised, stolen and copied - the bully then presents their target's work (eg to senior management) as their own
- are given the silent treatment: the bully refuses to communicate and avoids eye contact (always an indicator of an abusive relationship); often instructions are received only via email, memos, or a succession of yellow stickies or post-it notes
- subject to excessive monitoring, supervision, micro-management, recording, snooping etc
- the subject of written complaints by other members of staff (most of whom have been coerced into fabricating allegations - the complaints are trivial, often bizarre ["He looked at me in a funny way"] and often bear striking similarity to each other, suggesting a common origin)
- forced to work long hours, often without remuneration and under threat of dismissal
- find requests for leave have unacceptable and unnecessary conditions attached, sometimes overturning previous approval. especially if the person has taken action to address bullying in the meantime
- denied annual leave, sickness leave, or - especially - compassionate leave
- when on leave, are harassed by calls at home or on holiday, often at unsocial hours
- receive unpleasant or threatening calls or are harassed with intimidating memos, notes or emails with no verbal communication, immediately prior to weekends and holidays (eg 4pm Friday or Christmas Eve - often these are hand-delivered)
- do not have a clear job description, or have one that is exceedingly long or vague; the bully often deliberately makes the person's role unclear
- are invited to "informal" meetings which turn out to be disciplinary hearings
- are denied representation at meetings, often under threat of further disciplinary action; sometimes the bully abuses their position of power to exclude any representative who is competent to deal with bullying
- encouraged to feel guilty, and to believe they're always the one at fault
- subjected to unwarranted and unjustified verbal or written warnings
- facing unjustified disciplinary action on trivial or specious or false charges
- facing dismissal on fabricated charges or flimsy excuses, often using a trivial incident from months or years previously
- coerced into reluctant resignation, enforced redundancy, early or ill-health retirement
- denial of the right to earn your livelihood including preventing you getting another job, usually with a bad or misleading reference
A favourite tactic of bullies which helps them evade detection is to undertake a "reorganisation" at regular intervals. This has several advantages:
- anyone whose face doesn't fit can be organised out through downsizing (redundancy) or transfer
- ditto anyone who challenges the reorganisation
- ditto, their job can be "regraded" or "redefined" to the person's disadvantage
- each reorganisation is a smokescreen for the bully's dysfunctional behaviour - everyone is so busy coping with the reorganisation (chaos) that the bully's behaviour goes unnoticed
- the bully can always claim to be reorganising in the name of "efficiency" and therefore be perceived by those above as a strong manager
From Tim Fields website
Most people only realize they're being bullied when they read this page; what is bullying, how to recognise bullies and injury to health
Some more jobs on casa website. One for entry control. Wasn't that what the service centre and permissions application centre were doing?