Comments on: A Reflection, of a Sort

By: sarahartburn

sarahartburn — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:03:51 +0000

I have no idea of the particulars of your circumstances, but it does put me in mind of what I’ve been going through for the past year-and-a-half (and you do know some of the particulars of that).

Idiots abound! Unfortunately, most of them left their identification cards at home and leave it up to discerning people to discover their driving motivations. If you’re a person who tends to take others pretty much at face value, you can be in pretty deep before you realize what’s really going on. The worse half of this problem is that you may be the only one who either recognizes the problem or is willing to take a stand against it, irregardless of cost.

And that’s what gives these idiots confidence! They manage to put others in a situation where the others have to count the cost of the fight in realistic terms and then decide what to do.

If you’ve lived all your life without having encountered anything like this, you are truly blessed. With all that, my prayers are with you. I do know the kind of stress you’re under.

By: jd

jd — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:07:59 +0000

I agree with Robert. An institution is a name and a set of buikdings plus the people who belong to it. It changes when the people change. What you have now is not the same institution you had 15 years ago.

By: Mique

Mique — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:41:03 +0000

Praying for MAB’s lightning bolt. :-)

Hugs, Jane.

By: mab

mab — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:09:16 +0000

My heart goes out to you. Not long ago there was a woman who was, I see now, determined to get rid of me (get me out of the field we were working in). One of the mysteries to this day is why she wanted to do that; there was plenty of money, work and fame – if you want to call “fame” being recognized at obscure conferences attended by a tiny group of specialists. But she did, and she lied about me to bosses who were two or three levels over me. The lies just made be gasp. And the thing was, she did it so cleverly that there was no way I could get to the big bosses and set the record straight. I had the famous “paper trail,” but paper trails are only useful when you are confronted directly and asked to produce a paper trail. I couldn’t write to someone I’d never met and say, “It has come to my attention that X told you Y, but in actual fact that’s not at all true.” I would have looked like an idiot. I tried to protect myself with copies of emails to higher-ups, but this woman just lied about things that were not covered in emails. She was a kind of genius at deviousness – I could never anticipate or protect myself. In the end she succeeded and getting me out of the field and sullying my reputation. Robert, you write that “people who believe lies don’t matter,” but that isn’t my experience. A lot of people who matter a great deal easily believe lies about people, or they believe that “there isn’t smoke without fire.” And they don’t call you up and ask you what happened, so you never ever get a chance to make your case or defend yourself.

I wasted a long, long time obsessing about her and the situation. I just couldn’t understand why she had done what she did. I mean, she won and got to be Queen, but she was Queen of such a tiny little world – why would anyone put such effort into that? And risk getting caught? Maybe you’re right – she did it to be Important.

Don’t you wish a lightning bolt would come down and smite these people? It makes me long for the Old Testament God.

By: cperkins

cperkins — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:13:17 +0000

I hope that the situation works itself out in a way that you can live with, even if it means putting the memory of the institution-as-it-was away safely and cutting ties with the institution-as-it-is. And that means mourning what was and what might have been.

I don’t know if power is the only thing that motivates vicious backbiters and gossips and manipulators; they frankly baffle me. And they do a lot of harm without ever appearing to realize what they are doing. I think sometimes they know what they’re doing but they don’t care. Sometimes you can walk away from them and the situation they dominate; sometimes, they are so damaging you have to go further. Like Lymaree, I hope you get the best lawyer around.

Living well is the best revenge. Keep going, get through this and live well.

By: Lymaree

Lymaree — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:47:57 +0000

I hope that your troubles are less than you fear in the immediate aftermath, and more easily resolved in a new day.

Lean on those who are truly loyal to you. Remember that anyone who truly knows you will not believe lies, and those who do believe lies don’t matter.

Since you need a lawyer, I hope you find the absolute best.

By: robert_piepenbrink

robert_piepenbrink — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:23:24 +0000

You owe loyalty to individuals, not organizations. People can’t leave your trust and loyalty to their successors like the keys to the supply closet, and the good ones wouldn’t want to.

I’ll steal from an author you won’t read here: your reputation is what others believe to be true about you. Your honor is what you know to be true about yourself. Of the two, guard your honor.

Non illegitimus corborundum.