Opined

At my place of employment lurks many dregs of society and it pains me to be among them. A worker from another department came in at the beginning of a shift and announced loudly after hanging his coat how he was going to go about getting "rid" of a co-worker, his superior, because that person was getting on his nerves. This person who blurted this statement has bumped heads with me when I was his direct supervisor. I always thought he was getting the "boys" together to come at me in attack mode under the premise I was unable to supervise he and his co-hurts because of lack of intelligence. I undoubtedly, in their minds, got the position as a fluke and he prodded those who thought the same to gang up on me and prove me incapable publicly. Often when supervising and needing to correct the many things he did wrong he would become loud and argue that I was wrong. I twice had to tell him to lower his voice as it was disrespectful and unacceptable. I would then continue with the explicit explanation of why he was wrong. His face often turned red during these types of encounters.

And so to hear him so boldly say to his co-workers that he was putting together a witch hunt and was essentially asking for participants, I was saddened to the core because it brought back memories of what he did to me. Also the statement helped me to know my thoughts were not paranoid internal rantings of mine but of an instinctual knowing and trusting that this guy, back in the day, was coming for me and had people he lined up via his vitriolic diatribes of hate to try to get me on the unemployment line. It was a chilling moment in that he stated it plainly and shamelessly and three others ran to him to strategize about the measures they would need to take to eliminate the presence of this targeted person from their existence.

The moment exemplified all that I fear about people, that individually they often can not act out hateful thoughts but simply think them, but when a leader of hate comes forth and utilizes leadership skills, s/he can whip the momentum of hate into swirls that solidify the hateful thinking individuals into a group comfortable only when in numbers to form a posse of evil seeking to destroy. It is a frightening sight to see grown people plotting evil. I shook my head and hoped the target of their evil will have the instinctual ability to know people are coming for him.

I believe a challenge such as this is only undone with grace. Every element of evil in the work place can be undone with the putting out of good work, documented work. I was able to do so when this posse came for me as everything I did was done thoroughly and precisely, and I documented my efforts so that no lie or falsehood could trump those efforts. Every transgression was visited with my proof of work done and sometimes presented in a closed door office meeting (always with a witness) with said transgressor(s) with my implicit statements that they were wrong and should they be wrong again in their accusations of my inability to supervise they would be pulled in front of human resources as being insubordinate and I would seek their immediate termination. They were forewarned that fire would be met with fire. I was able to beat them back and they moved onto another target. I know I lost five years off of my life in fighting such people as stress changes me physically and the evil I witnessed that was/is directed at me depletes my faith in the kindness of people. I have become cynical as I have witnessed extremely hateful things.

As they move on to other targets I sigh with relief. No longer for that moment in time is it me that is being set upon. And I hope whomever is next can meet the challenge. I now hope the guy they are presently targeting can withstand what I know is coming for him.