David Black - Spineless Twat

David Black, 10c Bruce Street, Stirling, FK8 1PB

David, my Database Administrator colleague, had some idea of what it is like to be singled out for bullying by a manager. Before joining the university, David had suffered a measure of bullying by one of his bosses while he worked at Prudential UK in Stirling.

He worked 18 hours a week at the university, and this allowed him to spend time on other interests. He worked in radio as a DJ on Central FM, and sat in on Council related meetings in Stirling on a voluntary basis, such as Mercat Cross Community Council, Stirling Boys' Club and Stirling City Heritage Trust. He portrays himself as public spirited; a man who uses his time to benefit the community. You would certainly think he would stand up for justice and what's right.

Kathy McCabe had been bullying me for some time before I was even aware of the term Workplace Bullying. Before that, I thought bullying only happened in the playground at school. The first effect it had on me was that I couldn't sleep. I'd spend most of the night worrying and thinking "Why is she doing it, and why has she chosen me to do it to?" We had got on fairy well, and she could always rely on me with any work, and I required almost none of her time. For about seven years I had sacrificed about 15 hours of my own time every week to ensure everything ran smoothly. I thought that I would have been the last person she would ever want to bully. However, I think it's for that very reason that I became her target.

To help get some sleep and reduce the intrusive thoughts, I increased my alcohol intake until I was eventually drinking more than a litre of whisky a day. I used to do a lot of running, but I had to give that up. When you're running, there's nothing to do but think. Playing squash was much easier because my mind was forced to concentrate on the game. Eventually I had to give that up too. Gaps between points were being filled with unpleasant thoughts. I gave up dancing too when it began to feel as though I was trapped. I only felt safe dancing with Ruth. If I sat down for a rest, I'd immediately be approached by a woman. It would be extremely rude to turn down a dance, so I'd feel trapped dancing and hating every second of it, and as soon as it finished, I'd need to grab hold of Ruth before any other woman came for me.

During the time I was suspended from work, I began to hyperventilate, and there were a couple of panic attacks. There were also a couple of times when I was outside and everything sounded much louder than normal, and it made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I literally had to run home with my hands covering my ears. For a while, I only felt safe at home.

One day I suddenly realised that I hadn't eaten for more than three days; yet I wasn't hungry.

It was effecting Ruth too. Once she said she was feeling overcome with worry. Half an hour later, she passed out. She had to spend the rest of the day in hospital.

Just as she had done a few times before, Jackie O'Neil screamed at me in the office and slammed her hand on her desk in anger. This was because a job she was working on failed, and she wrongly thought that I was to blame, when in fact, she was to blame. David was standing right next to us at Jackie's desk. He was also with me when I informed Kathy McCabe that Jackie had screamed at me again. Jackie had spoken to Kathy about it, and had told Kathy that she had to work till 10pm that night because of the failure. David told Kathy that the failure would have only held Jackie up for a short time. I then confirmed this in an email to Kathy who then passed my email to Mark Toole. Mark offered to arrange a meeting with me and Jackie to discuss the matter. I accepted, but that meeting never took place. Instead Jackie made a malicious complaint against me. She insisted that I was to blame for the failure, and denied that she had screamed. I had told Mark that David had seen the incident, and Jackie confirmed this. Mark carried out an investigation, but deliberately avoided speaking to David. He then instructed Graham Millar to carry out a formal investigation. Graham, who is an arse licker, carried out a fake investigation, and avoided speaking with David too.

Mark wrote to me to say he was arranging a disciplinary hearing. I wrote back saying it was obvious that by failing to speak with David or any one of about a dozen witnesses who had heard the incident that he had already made his mind up to dismiss me. If it had been a genuine mistake by the investigators, they could still have spoken to David. It wasn't a genuine mistake.

I had been suspended from work and wasn't allowed to speak to colleagues. So Ruth phoned David, and David confirmed what had happened. He said that Jackie had been very angry and shouted at me. He also confirmed that he hadn't been interviewed for the disciplinary investigation. He was very clear on all of this, and he had no problem recalling it. You wouldn't expect him to have forgotten, because thankfully it's not every day that you get screamed at by a colleague sitting four feet from you, and we had talked about it afterwards, and again with Kathy present. David had also discussed it with Eric. And you wouldn't forget being interviewed as part of a disciplinary hearing in a hurry. Ruth asked him to confirm this in an email, and he said he would send it to me that same day.

By the following day, we still hadn't heard from him. I began to worry because I knew that he had let me down very badly before during the role evaluation process. I had included a statement in the role description about planning. As full time DBA, our roles differed in that I would receive the work and would plan and allocate it between us. I checked with David that it was okay to include it. He agreed enthusiastically, saying it's what happens so we have to include it. I checked with him again two more times, including just before our meeting with Kathy to verify our description. He assured me it was absolutely fine and told me not to worry. During the meeting, Kathy challenged David about it, and he immediately backed down and agreed to take it out; making me look foolish.

I feared that David was going to let me down again, so Ruth sent him an email confirming what he had said on the phone. He couldn't deny saying it because I had been listening in when he said it. The following day, David wrote to us, and my heart sank as I read his email. He was now claiming that when he spoke to Ruth, he was tired and stressed. He was retracting his statement, and was now giving a different, false version of what took place. In his new version, Jackie wasn't "very angry", she was just frustrated; she didn't shout, she just raised her voice. In addition, he could no longer remember if he was interviewed for the disciplinary investigation. He did this knowing that Mark Toole was trying to dismiss me unfairly, because Ruth had told him. He also did it knowing that about a dozen people had witnessed what really happened.

When David clicked his mouse to send that email to me, he knew that he was damaging me just as though he was pounding on an open head wound with a baseball bat.

By lying, David has put himself in a situation where his account of the incident makes no sense. He remembers clearly, almost word perfect, what I said to Kathy. He knew that I wasn't trying to get Jackie sacked. He can recall what I said, so is he now saying that I told Kathy that Jackie had spoken to me in a raised voice? Hardly likely! Or is he saying that I dishonestly told Kathy that Jackie had shouted at me again and slammed her pen on the desk, and that he didn't correct me? There is no doubt that we were talking about the same incident because he took part in the conversation.

He knew that Jackie was dishonestly trying to get me sacked, and he was happy to let that happen. David isn't a boy in short trousers. He's a 42 year old man.


The telephone conversation he had with Ruth lasted 11 minutes and 44 seconds, and they discussed nothing but that incident with Jackie and my general situation. He even expresses his fake concern for me.

Is he going to claim in court, that when he told Ruth that Jackie shouted at me, he was asleep for that 11 minute and 44 second period?

What a mess he has managed to get himself into. I hope his sister and parents come along to the hearing and watch him in action.

Peter Kemp - Lying bully supporter

Peter Kemp, 10 Finlay Rise, Milngavie, Glasgow, G62 6EQ

Peter joined the university around the same time as me in 1997, but up until 2008, he would walk past me in the corridor without saying hello. He wasn't being rude; he just didn't know who I was, even though I held a senior position in his department. It's a pity it didn't stay that way because I found the interactions I had with him to be very frustrating. I could never work out for sure whether he was exceedingly stupid or if he was just pretending to be. Finally, I discovered it was all a pretence, and he's just a liar who, for whatever reason, supports bullies.

One of the things I complained to him about was Kathy McCabe criticising me in relation to matters where it would have been more appropriate to have thanked me. Peter ended up doing exactly the same thing in order to support Kathy and Eileen MacDonald. He also slagged off a well respected colleague who nobody, apart from Kathy, has ever said a bad word against.

When I first submitted a grievance against Kathy, Peter arranged mediaton for us. The mediation was almost completely useless because Kathy simply refused to participate properly. However there was one good thing to come from it; at least in theory. I had raised the matter of Kathy criticising me inappropriately, and I said that the cause of it was Kathy listening to gossip. She had even admitted to doing so when she criticised me about something she claimed she overheard in the corridor from nameless people. At mediation, Kathy agreed that, in future, when anyone complained to her about me, she was to get it in writing, then send it to me and ask for my response, and then hold a meeting with me and the complainant. For most managers, that would be the natural thing to do, but Kathy had to be persuaded by a mediator.

Just three weeks later, Kathy forwarded a complaint to me that she had received from Eileen MacDonald. At last it was confirmed that it had been Eileen who had been filling Kathy's head with nonsense about me. Although I spent huge amounts of time helping Eileen with her work, she had been jealous of me because I had been promoted. I was a man in a team dominated by women, and there was resentment that I was in a higher grade.

I was delighted to receive the complaint. Eileen was claiming that I was a poor teamworker, and that I was confrontational. However, the truth is that these were terms that described Eileen herself. At mediation, I had explained this to Kathy. I had also explained that Eileen had a very weak understanding of technical matters, and that she wasn't interested in improving. Kathy just denied this, claiming that Eileen had strong technical skills. That was either a lie, or it was based on work she thought Eileen had done, but which was actually done by me or someone else.

I replied to Kathy and included lots of evidence that it was Eileen who was the problem. As Database Administrator, I was responsible for database security, and for two years Eileen had been breeching security procedures and encouraging others to do so too. It's a sackable offense in most employers, but rather than report it, I tried to persuade Eileen not to do it. I had tried to find out from her why she was doing it. I had written to her a number of times explaining the correct procedure, and I said that if she felt there was ever a need to step outside the procedures, she should let me know, and I would work out what the problem was. I couldn't possibly have been more helpful, but the only reason she was doing it was to be bloody minded.

On this occasion, she had told one of her employees to breech security procedures and to log on to a database using an account that wasn't her own. I spotted this, and phoned her up to ask her to log off. Her employee agreed to log off, but Eileen told her to ignore me. After ten minutes I saw that she was still logged on, so I disconnected her. I then spent time helping them with the problem they were having, which was of Eileen's own making.

Realising that it was Eileen (Kathy's favourite) who was to blame, Kathy immediately cancelled the meeting. I submitted grievances againt Kathy and Eileen to Peter. Eileen found out and was worried about the grievance. Peter told her not to worry and that she was doing a good job. He completely ignored my grievance, and Mark Toole ignored it too. In fact, Mark criticised me for submitting it.

In her complaint, Eileen had asked for the database security procedures to be changed, and I had confirmed to Kathy that the problem wasn't with the procedures, but that Eileen, allegedly a Senior Programmer, needed to improve her skills. As a manager, Kathy should have tried to find out from Eileen what the real problem was and then spoken to me if she thought it was something I could help with. Instead, Kathy wrote to the entire team instructing us to debate whether or not the procedures should be changed to suit Eileen's preferred way of working. This was simply bullying by undermining me. I wrote to Peter Kemp to complain. To take the heat off Kathy, Peter said that it was he who had instructed Kathy to send that email. He went on to say that he would be asking for a report from the debate. He acknowledged the fact that I had to demonstrate to auditors that the correct security procedures were followed, but added that it was important that people are able to carry out their duties.

This was insulting, not just to me, but to the auditors too. Firstly he was implying that I was so stupid that I didn't know that people needed to be able to carry out their duties. He was also implying that I was so bad at administrating databases that I had set up a procedure that prevented employees from carrying out their duties. I wrote back to him confirming that everybody was indeed able to carry out their duties. It was an absurd situation where the Director of Information Services for a university was considering adding risk to data security for no other reason than to show support for Eileen MacDonald; a bully.

The team had the debate, and thankfully nobody wanted the procedures changed. During the meeting, I was explaining a technical matter when Eileen, who really needed to be listening, repeatedly heckled me with "You're inconsistent! You're inconsistent!" I asked her what was inconsistent, and she said that security was different on the XYZ database. She was referring to a different type of database for which I had no responsibility, and which was the responsibility of Paul, an employee that she managed. You would think that when you make a fool of yourself as often as Eileen, you would learn to keep your mouth shut.

Peter was interviewed as part of the grievance investigation. He gave his full support to Kathy and Eileen. He described me as someone who just doesn't understand that sometimes procedures have to be changed to allow people to carry out their duties. Of course, Peter had already learned from me that everybody could carry out their duties within existing procedures, but he would also have received his report confirming that everybody was able to carry out their duties. I don't think Peter will be happy until students are able to access the databases and amend their own grades.

Karen Stark was aware of all this as she was included in the correspondence. She carefully avoided raising this with Peter during the interview. A good question would have been "Please describe a situation whereby an employee could not carry out their duties within the agreed security procedures." Answer "Well there might be an occasion where a bloody minded woman could decide that it's just not her style, and that she is special and needs to be treated differently from everyone else. Obviously the security of the University of Stirling's data is nowhere near as important as that woman's feelings of superiority."

How stupid of me and the auditors not to have spotted that flaw in the security procedures!

I wonder if Peter ever told his wife, Joan what he really got up to at work.





He describes me as demanding that things are done my own way. Anybody attending meetings in our team would know that I was the one who would rarely even offer advice, because I knew it would be ignored. I was merely trying to ensure that the University's security procedures were followed correctly. That was my job. The person who was out of step with the university and the team by insisting she do things her own way was Eileen MacDonald.

Peter obsessively defends Kathy who obsessively defends Eileen. So the person who was proving to be the biggest risk to security was being put in charge of security; just like putting a lunatic in charge of the asylum. Meanwhile I'm criticised for merely carrying out my job with great patience. Peter says that I don't understand that the job has to be done, but the only person being prevented from doing their job was me.

Peter then claims that he didn't know why I was off sick for five weeks in 2008, despite the fact that I had written a lengthy letter to him explaining it was due to Kathy's behaviour, and when he received it he arranged mediation for me and Kathy.

Then he slags off a well respected colleague, and in stereotypical fashion he slags off people whom he sees as good programmers.

Oracle Database Administrator (DBA) Stirling University

Some people are finding their way to my blog following searches they have made in relation to the above job that is being advertised on line.

I can provide additional information to those people who may be thinking about applying for the job.

This is the job from which I was dismissed. I have lodged a complaint with the Employment Tribunal about, among other things, the unfairness of my dismissal. I hadn't intended to discuss that complaint on here, but I think it can only be helpful for those particular people who may be thinking about applying for it. Without wishing to prejudge the outcome of my complaint, one of the options open to a Tribunal is to award the employee reinstatement to their old job. This can happen especially with a complaint of the type I have made, and especially if, as in my case, the employee seeks to be reinstated.

The University appears to have prejudged the Tribunal's decision by advertising this job as permanent. Or possibly they are stating their intention to refuse to comply with such an award if it were to be made.

If I was currently employed, I would certainly think twice before giving up my job to take up this post which may be of a very temporary nature. As you may know, employers can quickly get rid of an employee within the first year, and the employee has very limited rights in those circumstances.

Secondly, the advertisement states that the University is an equal opportunity employer. Do not believe a word of that. In fact I firmly believe that any employer should require agreement from a regulator before being able to make such a claim. Further, if a Tribunal finds that an employer unlawfully discriminates, I would strongly argue that they be forced to disclose this to prospective employees until they can demonstrate to the regulator that they have learned the error of their ways.

Thirdly, you would be working for Kathy McCabe, as described within my blog, and you would be part of a team which has become dysfunctional due to twelve years of her mismanagement. Thank me later.

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I've just realised there's a flaw in my argument. If an employer is allowed to describe itself as a non equal opportunity employer, it may attract the type of employee it wants.

It would be far better that people were taught from birth that discrimination is wrong. However, it is possible that people are born with no natural discrimination, but that they learn it from people who do.