Sherrif of White Rocks: [Hands Monco the reward money for Red Cavanaugh] Two thousand dollars. It's a lot of money. Takes me three years to earn it!
Monco: Tell me, isn't the sheriff supposed to be courageous, loyal, and above all, honest?
Sherrif of White Rocks: Yeah. That he is.
Monco: [Pulls off his sheriff's star and walks out] I think you people need a new sheriff.
I'm not really into westerns but I think most of them have some morals in their storylines. A couple days ago I had a long conversation with a friend who is watching a situation unfold in front of her eyes that is just dripping with skullduggery, fraud, backstabbing... if you can name it, it's in that work scenario.
The person she was griping about is quite a high profile personality and has made a few waves in the past that bolstered her position to getting where she is today. She is now the head of a department which has annual KPIs like most large corporates do. She, as the head of the department also has her own KPIs that need to be completed, some of which are in her own capacity and cannot be delegated to people down the chain of command.
This has created a problem for her because she isn't delivering on any of them and it's now becoming very apparent to not just my friend, but also to many others in that department (and in the head positions of the agency) that she climbed her way to where she is today purely on the coat-tails of others, her popularity as a fancy influencer type and not out of her own merit, but on the blood, sweat and tears of the 300+ staff members that she had working under her in her previous job.
𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐟𝐟 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠❗
My friend was explaining how this woman walks around screaming at her staff and colleagues, even people outside of her own department. That she blames everyone else for her mistakes, lack of work production and just generally treats everyone like shit. So my friend has started planting seeds in colleagues' heads to put in grievances and to blow the whistle on the tyrannical, unethical rubbish that's taking place. When I heard that, I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes before I spoke my next sentence.
𝑨𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒗𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒖𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒂𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒍𝒆-𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒔, 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒓𝒖𝒊𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆. 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒃𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒈𝒐 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂 𝒉𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒍𝒚 𝒊𝒏𝒇𝒍𝒖𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏, 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒔 𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒃𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒅.
There was a silence and my friend (who had stopped dead in her rant when she heard my words) replied "yes, I suppose I need to be strategic and think about this more". I think she suddenly came to the reality that blowing the whistle would be the end of her job and possibly her entire career if she took that next step.
The worst part of this whole conversation for me was the horrible choked up feeling I got in my throat when I uttered those words. Why? Because there is no glory in being a coward, but there's also a pretty shit road ahead for my friend if she loses this job because she really can't afford to. She's supporting her elderly parents and her god child as well as being the breadwinner. She also admitted to me that she doesn't really have the emotional energy to have that kind of fight right now.
I wanted to scream at the fucking injustice of it because I've been in a work situation that was similar and I hated every second of it. I ended up having panic attacks before leaving for work just thinking of what the day would hold. Nobody deserves that. But the worst of it is that this woman fraud is going to get away with not reaching her KPIs by shifting the blame onto anyone other than herself. I can see it coming a mile away and it fills me with rage.
Sigh. And I am absolutely powerless to help my friend other than to let her rant when we see each other and commiserate as much as I can while trying not to go insane in the process.
Sometimes I wish it was like the wild, wild west. People like that wouldn't last long and I wouldn't write posts like this which nobody will read.
Oh well, I suppose this is how the world works sometimes. Who knows, maybe she'll fuck over the wrong person at some stage and get a taste of her own medicine. Best served cold, with a slice of sour lemon. I'll be watching from the sidelines when her little empire crumbles and I'll probably buy my friend a bottle of wine. Is that mean of me? Yes, but some people deserve to lose everything they earned stole while trampling over those who paved their road to the red carpet.
𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒅𝒍𝒚 𝑨𝑰 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆. 𝑨𝒍𝒍 𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒐𝒘𝒏.