Finding meaningful interventions.

According to Marlene Snyder of Clemson University's Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life and the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, finding out that bullying is hardwired into the brain is an opportunity to "find meaningful interventions". Is she kidding me! This research has dicovered that when people who bully other people, or who are behaving in an antisocial way, do what they do a part of their brain lights up which proves that they are experiencing pleasure out of it.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081107-bully-brain.html


Not exactly a surprise to those that have been bullied or on the receiving end of the bad behaviour. At some level we all knew it was because this particular maladjusted personality was just getting a rise out of it. About a year ago I posted on a well known forum that bullying was hard wired into the brain, needless to say a couple of people disagreed with me, and if it is true that bullying isn't hard wired into the brain then maybe some of us are just waiting for the bully to 'develop a different mind set'. Hoping that something akin to humanity and integrity will kick in at some point. Dream on baby! Since when have people given up something they enjoy doing until such time as it becomes detrimental to their health, wealth, and well being. You try and get a smoker to give up his cigs or a substance abuser to give up their substance, their comforter, their mothers little helper. It's like trying to push butter up a porcupines arse with a hot needle.

So what interventions then. A cattle prod would be out of the question because the adminstrator is likely to get a rip out of it. Nailing them to a cross would simply make martyrs out of them. Sitting and reasoning with them is going to go a long way towards stopping them isn't it. About as helpful as trying to disuade a teenager from having sex before marriage. What next. Frontal Labotomy. I mean! Come on! how do people get paid good money for this stuff. Don't get it, they are bullies because they want to be. Because they are twisted and cynical and don't share the same values as the rest of us. Get real! Interventions. How about giving them a psych evaluation before you put them into positions of power. Thats your best intervention. Do you think Bernard Madoff is begging forgiveness for his sins. Not likely, apart from maybe lamenting a few years in jail, if it gets that far, after all he is 70. They will probably just give him a good talking to and send him home to die in opulence. Don't imagine him crying for the victims of those gullible people who trusted him. If this research it to believe his is probably getting his biggest hard on for years just imagining the pitiful look on their bewildered features. This kind of sociopathic narcissist understands nothing of other peoples pain and suffering. That your best intervention. To my way of thinking there is little hope for change. The only way of stopping a bully is to avoid them like the plague,

Chronicles from the cat

I have my contacts in my ex place of works. The word on the
grapevine right now is the new enrolment form that they have created
which contains a tick box by the number 15. This being the number of
hours contact with the student that the college should have done
before it qualifies for a certain level of payment. This number
directly contradicts the number of hours staff can do, the
management expects them to finish in which is 12 maximum, and the
targets make that many impossible if you calculate it. Staff are
being told that if they do not tick the box, they will have more than
the allotted 80 candidates per year to make up their financial target.

On a lighter note though. Princess Tippee Toes has been a naughty
girl. Recently a pool car was caught on speed camera, but no one
could identify the driver because procedure for filling in the take
out log were not followed. So TT got the college to pay the fine and
took the three points on her licence. tut tut tut. False
Decloration. Although bunch of us did have a belly laugh when we
recognised that if we all took out a pool car and didn't sign the
book we could have her licence off her in the next few
months.......or better still should we just dob her in.. Votes
please!!!!

Chronicals from the cat

This cunning plan that these supposed Icons of morality and educational standards had devized was a way of downloading money from the Treasurey in return for training the nations workforce and bringing them up to standards that rival those of the European Community, so to give the disunited kingdom a foothold in the global market place for years to come. But behind the scenes something sinister lurked. A covert operation give the name "Milking the cash Cow". This covert operation involved making claims to government from the number of ISQ's (Intermediate standards qualifications) delivered by this educational establishment.
Now for those of you that do not know how and ISQ works here is a brief explanation. An ISQ is assessed in the workplace by an assessor who travels from place to place visiting learners and assessing their ability to do their job within National Occupational Standards laid down by a governing body. The assessor will observe the learner doing their work, will asked them questions relating to their work, and will often ask questions of significant others such as Supervisors and Managers to ensure that the work and attitude of the learner is satisfactory. The learner is also asked to produce pieces of work that demonstrate their abilities. As with all matters pertaining to government and money. The assessing of these qualfications should be closely monitored. Registers of meetings, times and dates have to be compiled. Declarations have to be read and signed and there is a myriad of different tracking devices in place that are designed to prove that the assessor has spent a certain amount of time with the candidate, and has performed certain tasks with them. One of which is supposed to be training. Government, and particularly the government in the disunited kingdom have targets to reach. Such as the targets is ensuring every person working has a level 2 ISQ by the year 2010. These targets can be very demanding, so to grease the wheels and make things slicker the government devizes projects which are oveseen by the COLAS (Council of Learning and Skills). These projects are given special names such as. L4L (Learn for Life) or G8S (Great Skills). They even have advertising campaigns for them on TV, one popular advertisment offers employers the opportunity to train their staff at no charge. This is called Train without Pain. But what may you ask does this have to do with the covert operation "Milking the cash Cow".

Chronicles from the cat

Work-related stress costs society between £3.7 billion
and £3.8 billion a year (1995/96 prices).

If this is the 1996 prices of work related stress then I think you can reasonably add another million to this in the year 2008.

The question is. What difference has this report commissioned by the HSE made to the worker. In my consulting room I hear stories of lots of people that are working 80 hour weeks.
I am a member of a group of people who have been bullied in the workplace. Why exactly is it that employers seem to be taking no apparent notice of these guidelines simply wanting to get as much out of each employee that they can, so that they can maintain their foothold in the marketplace. Easy! It’s not compulsory. It’s just a recommendation. An ideal to be worked towards (or not, as the case may be). The HSE has drafted a wonderful document filled with wonderful standards of behaviour in the workplace between employer and employee and it has about as much practical use as a chocolate tea pot.

For my own part I can say that my experience does not bear out the philanthropic ideals espoused in this document. Why not? Well let’s just take each one at a time. I supposed to contextualise I should give my story some times, places, names and other details. So here I go.

Chronicals of the cat.

In a sleepy village called boot, in the rural country of Sheepshire there was a very powerful man. This man was the head of the largest college in the whole of the county. So powerful was he that he was visited by Royalty and government officials alike. Now, such was this mans disposition that he enjoyed being visited by those respected people, he felt that by virtue of their visit he most be a very important man in deed, this made him habit and made him bounce up and down on his toes, which occassionaly made him look like a bouncing clown, although for the most part her was oblivious to this.. This man had a vast number of Vice Principals and Managers working for him, and he had a board of governors from some of the most decorated soldiers in her Majesties Empire On regular occassions this powerful man would hold meetings for all of his employees and they would gather in a large sports hall and be shown mighty presentions outlining the new plans for the next financial year. Accolades would be passed out and when it was all over, the employees went into another large hall and ate some of the Masters food, prepared by his cooks and porters. One of the most memorable meetings was held in the year in which he received his OBE, on that occasion he feel enormously proud of himself and proclaimed it openly to all those who could spare the time to listen, not that they had much choice in the matter. He was after all a very important man. Let me introduce you to Bigfus Boingboing. A very important man indeed.

Now his second in command was a strange female called Anngri Slipiss. I say strange because she was the type who would dress up in tight skirts and blouses and strappy sandals all year round and yet beneath that Princess Tippee Toes exteria there was a Baracuda waiting to strike. Magpies and Barracudas share one thing in common, they are both attracted to shiny things and Miss TT was to seen proudly parking her audi TT in the disabled bay of the college or in one of the parking slots reserved form the automotive team who were so enamoured with her that had no resistence to giving her car a good servicing. Now and again they even got one or two students to give it a wash and brush over.

These two between them, although not excluding the other two VP’s Ellis Jameson and Thatcher Brix, devised a plan whereby they could build the college (which secretly Old Boingboing thought of as his own castle) into a bigger and bigger place. Financing more and more buildings and spreading it assets over tens of acres of land. How they were going to do this was quite a curious thing. One which will take a lot of explaining.

Anti Bullying at Work Day

Here is the UK the 7th of November was anti bullying at work day. The week beginning 17th of November is Anti Bullying Week.


Just to do my little bit I purchased fifty wrist bands at my own expense and stood under the clock in my local town to give them away. Along with an explanatory note. It was a very interesting a rewarding exercise. It only took me half an hour to give away fifty bands and although some people wouldn't take them (perhaps they were too busy or have never had the experience of being bullied) fifty other people were more than happy to wear the bright blue coloured bands in the name of the cause.

At first sight it may seem as though bullying is a non issue, but research has shown that in the UK 19 million sick days are taken a year and the HSE reckons that a lot of those are down to workplace bullying. This is a matter of great importance since the national cost rolls into the millions. Bullying is a problem on a global scale. From the invasion of one country by another to the dictators or heads of government to the common early exeperience of bullying in the play ground. Bullying can be easily defined at "a way of getting ones own way by aggressive or manipulative means without taking into account the targets feelings". Seriously folks, bullies are not well known for having finer feelings themselves so is it any wonder that they just can't empathise with how other people think and feel. We lose 16 children a year to suicide as a result of the stress that bullying causes. It's hard to stand up against. After all there is no actual law against bullying, especially not in the workplace where bullies are often protected by the management they serve by the excuse of over zealousy applying managment strategy.



Still I have done my bit this year. Next year I will get more nowse about me and invite the local papers to take a pic and maybe do a little piece on me. I am after all a lowly one person business desperately trying to scratch a living

War on malignance

Malignance can be found alive and well and prospering in the offices of those large corporations or government employers that have evolved to serve the needs of the public. Like the DoE. Or the halls of further and higher education. Where does the malignance come from? It comes from targetting, ruthless or otherwise. Targetting doesn't take into account the needs of individuals. It holds no sympathy for life or its crooked road. Targets are bald faced demands without finer feelings. You know your in trouble when your VP talks about "milking the cash cow". This breeds fear in those that have to live up to the targets and contempt in those whose job it is to make sure the targets have been hit. Managers today are those faceless malignant creatures who only have one master to serve. The master of capitalism. The face of education these days has two sides. There is the caring, sharing side. The one that would be educators have to comply with in order to be able to pass in their knowledge within the hallowed class rooms. The PCE or Cert Ed as it is known to those who have achieved its status. The Cert Ed is all about the student experience. Student centred learning. Student led learning not Tutor led. Then there is the other face. The cold hard face of business. The face where the only thing that matters are the numbers. Bums on seats, candidates on a register. Milking the cash cow these days means drawing down funding from Learning and Skills Councils in order to feather the nests of those peculiar creatures the malignant narcissists.

In case you are not familiar with the story of narcissus the abridged version is thus. He was the beautiful son of a the god Cephisus. He was so beautiful that all the women in the land fell in love with him. But he rejected them all. Among them was the nymph echo who could not speak for herself, she could only repeat the words of others. One day while walking in the woods they became separated. Narcissus cried out for her "Is there any one here" but she could only reply "here, here, here". She tried to step forward and give him her love but she could not proclaim it, so he rejected her. She ran away and hid in a cave until nothing was left of her but her voice. A goddess was so angry with him that she made him fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. So in love with his own reflection was he that he could not bear to leave the reflection and eventually turned into a flower, which is call Narcissus.

The war on malignance is a war on those narcissists in the work place that have nothing more to offer but the preening of their own reflection. Those shallow self absorbed creatures that are so wrapped up in their own status that they are willing to sacrifice what little integrity they have or indeed any person or persons who demonstrate that they have an ounce of integrity. Because integrity is the greatest threat to malignance. Integrity shines a beacon of light onto those that are afflicated with this incurable disease of malignance, so much so that it makes them feel incredibly vulnerable. For they know not what it is they lack. They have no aspiration towards having integrity. Oh no they are far too busy working towards getting as many glittering baubles of capitalism on their Christmas Tree as they possibly can. But somehow they recognise that the light shows them up for what they are. Shallow, fickle actors.

Education has lost it's marbles

It started on the 20th of March this year. I found a letter at 4.pm that told me to attend an investigation. Someone had dobbed me in and I was to be looked into for running a business while being employed by a college. I knew exactly who it was (although no secret was ever made of that) but before the I even attended I knew her, because I had seen her one Monday morning as I was coming out of my office (the one I run my business from). I had hoped she wouldn't tell but she did and the smelly stuff hit the fan that day. Anyway she told so hence the investigation. I was a little peeved that the letter arrived just as I was about to break up for Easter, but this was a pattern I became familiar with. Anyway, I promptly went off sick, and the letter kept coming urging me into a meeting. I tied up with my union rep and we talked about ways foward. They sent me for an assessment by the firm the use to monitor occupational health. He recommended I'd return after 7 weeks and that they treat me with kid gloves on my return. On the 7th May I returned to work and within 5 minutes my line manager came and invited me into meeting with the VP who is also my HOD. I refused on the grounds that I wanted my union rep with me. This was a wrong move, because from here all hell let loose. She got herself into a state and threatened me with the Principal. By this time I was feeling a little rattled. My hubby who with me at the time. (Long story) ran down to get my rep but it was too late, the P arrived and asked me to go with him to a meeting and when I asked for my union rep he suspended me. I was just about to leave when the VP barrelled up to me and started to demand my pass, my computer and my phone. I gave her my phone, and told her that she could have the computer the next day. (The hubby could deliver). I then began trying to get my memory sticks off my lanyard. At this point she began grabbing at them and kept saying give them to me. So I told her she was a bully. The P laughed so I look him in the eye and said in a very loud voice "and your a bully too, and now everyone knows that I have told you to your face". I pushed through them and tried to get some scissors from across the room but no one would give me any. I supposed I looked angry. Eventually I got my memory sticks off and collect my things and started to leave. By this time they were standing near her office door by the exit. As I passed I asked P if I was going to be paid while suspended. He said I was but she still kept trying to get me into a room. As I was leaving I dropped some plastic wallets full of learning materials, as I bent down to collect them the P snortled again. When I got up I said to him "you'll laugh on the other side of your face before this business is over"



Why has education lost it's marbles? Because of this. Throught my 7 year career with this employer I gave 110% of my efforts. I worked longer hours than they paid me for as a routine. I have even been know to give up my holiday to attend to a problem that they had. I put up with a myriad of minor bullying tactics by several people, and a major bullying period from my then boss who had an affair with a member of staff right under everybodies noses. When they eventually did come out there were rumours that they would never go anywhere with this college but those rumours did not hold out. They both got promoted, even though they had conducted the affair during working hours.



What did I get. Sacked for breach of contract for running a business on the side. It's not as though I was in competition with them. My other stuff is counselling and therapy. Not only that but they did me for "working during my allotted hours" which is untrue, and threatening behaviour because I got upset when they goose stepped me out of the office in front of 30 people. But nothing counts, non of the good work or the loyalty or creativity counts for anything. The college can treat me in this way because I breached my contract with them.