Something I have been forced to realise, as I reflect on my former career, is that there were people in some workplaces who went beyond being incompetent as human beings, beyond being narcissistic or workplace abusers who are enforcing neoliberal cruelty, to actual, outright evil.
There has been one person I consider a psychopath, and the others I thought of as suffering fatal human flaws, but ... there were actually a lot more who fit the category of evil.
I have been struggling to finish an article that includes the trope of forgiveness, which is used by people who are evil to manipulate others into letting the evil doers get away with being and doing evil.
Actions speak louder than words: if you DO evil, there is a very high probability that you ARE, in fact, evil - even if you feel compelled by circumstances to do those despicable acts of bullying, enforced compliance, humiliation, psychological or psychosocial abuse, or other acts of evil ...
PS - after posting this, I responded to a Parliamentary report on workplace surveillance (available at https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/49a40c/contentassets/5232a88edcc34487aa0223bcbb2c8974/laeic-60-02-inquiry-into-workplace-surveillance2.pdf), and sent my local MLA the following (I’ve excluded the salutations and signature block):
I wish to endorse the recommendations of this report, and in addition suggest that it extend to making sure that businesses do NOT collect data they do not genuinely require (which is a MAJOR data security problem for workers AND THEIR FAMILIES - as I saw during one company data breach), and ensure that such data is properly kept safe by means such as one-way storage.
As I reflect on my career, and the trouble I am having recovering from the damage to many aspects of my health that it caused, it has become clearer how many people were narcissists, petty bureaucrats, and sub-clinical psychopaths - all people who used power to feel powerful, not out of any valid need, let alone any care for the good of the company or to act as a steward of the companies' resources (i.e., its people) or as servant leaders.
(There also were those decent people who were stewards and/or servant leaders.)
This included people who wanted to use technology in abusive, petty ways to simply feel more powerful than others - and one young cisgender male in IT was notorious for doing this in as misogynistic manner as possible.
Any laws about managing surveillance must be drafted with the need to manage bullying and psycho-social safety aspects kept in mind.
Although I do not wish to provide specific names (many of the events - although not their damage - are long past, and the people involved may have overcome their flaws - as I know some of the companies have), I am happy to discuss this further if you wish.
As always, no reply to this email is necessary.
I also feel the disconnect between the savagery of workplaces and home life verged on what is shown in the streaming series “Severance”, at times.
If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also other options.
Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here.
(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)
Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).#PsychicABetterWorld and may all that I do be of value and actively BPM used for and by the nonphysical BPM
Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2025 NO AI
I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence
(AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or
other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to
reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise replicate any part of
this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s
may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.
Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative
Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
.jpg)
