It starts with an idea. The intention is usually unity, whether that is unity of a group, a race, a country or a company.
The idea in this case was to provide inspiring videos for a company full of people in a fairly isolating job.
Therefore, the answer would seem to be to create a ‘university’ of videos, from diverse places – which as it turns out were not all that diverse – and people would discuss their ideas.
It had not crossed the company owners’ minds that they were promoting ideals as they did so. Until the arrival of Ina, who did not want to talk to anybody after an initial attempt at visual communication (the problem and apparently ‘shock’ artwork was Rebekah Brooks is fit for work.)
Now, for the simple-minded, I do not expect people to think my work is particularly pretty, and the titles are usually about 40-50 percent of the story being told. I was however, a bit concerned when the first response of one of the genius staff of this company was to send me a green sick looking emoji and a rather infantile ‘What’s that?” No question of her actually using google, or anything that athletic, of course. Rather than pointing out the mannerlessness of this, her supervisor gently pushed the photo out of sight with some bland bullshit she had picked up in the USA, in case the moron was further upset by the sight of my work.
Such is the level of intellectual operation. So much for that, I thought, I just won’t bother speaking to them. I left all the rather futile social groups they insisted I was a part of since the conversations were a bit inane anyway, and got on with my job, which I would have thought was the actual point. The next time I met with my team leader, he then used this to say I was a monster, the poor girl insulting me was an angel, I was to do as I was told or he would be entitled to, and I quote ‘do what he liked to me.’
Now in case you think this is actual harassment, it is not. The people concerned are in their homes, and this is conducted over video. It does not make it any more pleasant. It went on for some time, whilst I pointed out that I am not young, do not require bullying to sit in a tedious group that I am not interested in, and am not really interested in status bullshit in a fairly low-level job. Basically the answer, as I said at the time, was not to interact with the other staff at all if it could be avoided.
This week, they started a brand new training programme off. As I have said, this consisted of corporate and meaningless inspirational twaddle from a variety of sources, and we were to consider it a privilege to be forced to participate in it. I was initially told that it was voluntary, and yesterday it turned out that it was compulsory, and that objecting to it was a MAMMOTH PROBLEM.
Now, I already knew that their ideas of training were not mine, since during my training I had been shown some badly researched American corporate propaganda, which to a British eye is very right wing to start with, although if you are a bit simple you could stretch it into being ‘positive.’ I watched otherwise apparently sane people sit and nod sagely and say every one of these videos were excellent as they, quite simply, needed an income.
The problem came when a genuine Tory voter, a braying woman from Nottingham, used their video on providing employment for disabled people to repeat her point about disabled people costing the UK too much money. The founder happened to come in that day, and she started trying to oil him up by making this point, for the umpteenth time in two or three days.
“Really?” I said.
I was already very tired and upset because the NHS and social work department had told me that if I tried to stop them killing my mother, I would be legally attacked and accused of not acting in her best interests because they were ‘medical professionals’ and were acting together. This is what happens when you unify stupid people in your Durkheimian fascist paradise. They use it to form groups and kill people to protect the societal ‘organism’.
Anyway, the founder decided that I was being political, apparently oblivious to the fact that the donkey was being not only stupid but political and extremely nasty into the bargain, and again ignored it when I provided him with links to the academic studies illustrating that Conservative austerity policy had killed 125,000 sick and disabled people by 2016. Far from costing the government too much money, disabled people were being killed and everyone is (still) ignoring it. WTF is wrong with people? And this figure is entirely separate from people like my mother who are medically killed so that stupid consultants and nurses can bond at work whilst spending money on pharmaceuticals. I am sure the hospital, district nurses and the social work department are killing someone else’s parents as we speak.
So, you would think from this that they would take the hint. That attempting to provide, even innocently, an education when you are the source of income is a bad idea, and that you are inserting ideals into people who think they have to agree with it in order to form a team.
Speaking to one of the other owners yesterday, he asked me what was wrong with people agreeing?
“WW2” I said. That is what happens when people agree and form a team under corporatism. “Don’t get the uniforms from Hugo Boss this time.”
I was told at least twice yesterday that I was permitted to voice my opinion. Since I knew from the earlier artwork incident and the incident with the disabled viewpoint that this was not true, I said so. He reacted like a spanked child. He lost face. Therefore I knew that it was likely that I would be terminated today.
So it came time to fire me, and the thug team leader turned up, salivating to see the spectacle of me losing my income. So I finally reported the incident over the artwork. Why had I not reported it at the time? I was asked.
“Because I’m a big girl and can take care of myself, and because I actually liked this job provided you left me alone. You don’t seem to be able to do that.” I said.
If someone else is treated the way I was treated, hopefully they are more likely to be listened to than I would have been. Instead of being asked about the artwork incident, it was used as a stick to beat me with even today as they fired me. I was causing problems by being creative or knowing anything.
Quite apart from these people being complete assholes, they lack any awareness of the dangers of consensus. To achieve consensus, you must refuse to tolerate questions, alternative opinions and different types of people. Consensus, as happened today, involves obliterating any irritants. Consensus is itself fascist, because it is against any idea of diversity of thought.
These people want to have an unhealthy, badly educated company of clones who do the job badly but agree about insipid bullshit. God forbid anyone have any ideas of their own. It would be against the Durkeimian organism they are unwittingly creating. The owners have no idea how many stupid beliefs they have already planted in these dull TV-tranquilised minds.
I was good at my job because I liked all the things they are now removing. I like being on my own. I like talking to people briefly, but cannot be bothered with distracting staff relationships, and I have little to no interest in being a high status phone jockey. I would have sat for years doing that job quite happily. Instead they have chosen to have a company of people who will turn over fairly quickly, be quite stupid, not know the details of several of the industries that they service (as I did, thanks to my very varied work history) and who most importantly will agree with anything they say. It is so nice to be right, right, right!
It is only a matter of time before they move from the disabled, the artists and the academics to the gays and the Jews. They are already following the same pattern of belief and behaviour, just by attempting to agree about absolutely anything at all.
God forbid anyone have a free thought. Fuck you very much!
(and don’t even get me started on the randy lesbian)
