Bullying and suicide - Bullycide

I believe bullying is the single most important social issue of today, for the study of bullying provides an opportunity to understand the behaviours which underlie almost all conflict and violence.
Tim Field

Bullying can lead victims to utter despair. It's not just the bullying itself, but victims can find themselves isolated when friends desert them for fear that they too will be victimised. Friends and bystanders can also lie and deny that there was any bullying. Even worse, friends may believe there is something to be gained by toadying up to the bullies, and to join in with bullying their former friend, or to falsely claim that the victim is the bully. Believe me, it happens, and it is far from pleasant.

In addition, if you've been unfairly dismissed after complaining about being bullied, it can be difficult to get another job with no references, even if you are in a mental state, and have the confidence to work again.

I would love for me and my team, and others I've mentioned on my blog to spend a morning on the Jeremy Kyle show on TV to answer questions while we are hooked up to lie detectors. It would be a real eye opener for the public. Tim Field was correct; bullying has far reaching effects, and the public has to be made aware of it.

Here is the story of a young girl who was beaten up on a bus. Her screams were ignored by the other passengers pretending it wasn't happening because they didn't want to get involved.

Here is the story of a young girl who was gang raped in view of 20 bystanders for over two hours before anyone informed the police.

"I don't want to get involved" is the same as "I'm all right, Jack". You are sick in the head if you enjoy watching people suffer. You are also sick in the head if you add to the suffering by lying.

In desperation, victims may consider suicide. Undoubtedly, more victims would kill themselves but for the fact that it isn't easy. Sure, a lot of people have succeeded, but I suspect that many of them will either have had great courage, or they were so desperate that they didn't give enough thought to how difficult it really is, and may have suffered unbearable physical pain before they eventually died.

If you have found this page because you are thinking of killing yourself, then I am not going to discourage you, but I won't be encouraging you either. Obviously, councelling (Samaritans and Pieta) may help you make your mind up, but ultimately the decision is yours. However, if you eventually decide that the only solution is to kill yourself, then you ought to be fully aware of what you are doing.

Do not attempt suicide unless you are 100% certain that you want to die. I do not say this to discourage anyone who is already completely sold on the idea, it's just that if doubts creep in, they will increase the risk of failure. If what you want is for the pain to go away, councelling might be worthwhile. If you obtain some relief through harming yourself, be sure that it doesn't develop into something that can put your life at risk or cause you serious damage.

If you attempt suicide and fail, you could leave yourself a lot worse off. You could be permanently disabled or disfigured. You, or someone else, could be financially worse off. Your failed attempt may result in you being prosecuted due to damage or distress you may have caused. As well as the problems you already have, people will learn of your attempt to kill yourself and some will think that you have mental problems, and of course, they will be right.

I would certainly discourage you from attempting suicide as a cry for help. You could easily end up dead, and nobody can help you when you're dead. Get councelling now. I genuinely feel for you, but this page is not for you. God only knows how many apparently successful suicides were, in reality, unsuccessful cries for help.

You must consider the people you leave behind. Who will find you, and how will it effect them? What will the scene be like when you are found? If you have dependants, what will happen to them? You must make it very clear why you are doing it, otherwise innocent people may blame themselves. If you write a note, read it back to make sure it is legible and makes sense. Provide contact details of people who should be informed, and put your note somewhere it is sure to be found in good condition.

If you haven't thought about it already, you need to consider the best method for yourself. If you are like most people, you will want it to be quick and painless. You definitely do not want half an hour of excrutiating physical pain, even if you do attain your ultimate goal at the end of it. So if your chosen method is to slit your wrist, you need to give it a helluva lot more thought. By using that method, you could be in terrible pain for a long time during which you will be tempted to call for help. When you eventually return from hospital, you may find your home and belongings covered in thick, deep red blood. You would also have cost taxpayers the expense of saving you, which is the opposite of what you had in mind. You would also have the scars that announce your mental illness to everyone.

You need to be aware that you will be fighting against your natural human survival instinct. For example, if you can swim, it would be almost impossible to drown yourself, because you would instinctively come up for air. Other methods could have horrendous consequences if you instinctively change your mind at the last moment.

As well as considering the time and pain factors, each method has a success ratio. So you need to investigate which methods have low failure rates, and consider if you have the courage to employ any of those methods. You may need to do a fair bit of research.

I'm writing this in the UK where it's difficult to gain access to firearms. Even if you do manage to get hold of one, you may be surprised to learn that some people have made botched attempts with a gun, leaving themselves in a dreadful condition. I say this because you may believe that pulling a trigger is an option that requires less courage than others.

People who survive after jumping from a bridge frequently admit that while they were falling, they wished they hadn't jumped. Often they go on to live happy lives. So maybe you should try to visualise yourself plummeting to your death and wondering if you made the right choice.

Apparently there is a suicide pill available in Mexico. That might sound attractive for its simplicity. It's not risk free though, because it has a shelf life, and there are people who sell these pills knowing that they have gone past their sell by date. Yep, there is even profit to be made by keeping suicidal people alive.

If you are religious; you may wish to consider what comes after death. It might be 72 virgins or it might be an eternity of burning in maggot infested fire. Although I'm not religious, I still wonder if there might be something after death. I also wonder if people who kill themselves are punished for it. It used to be against the law to attempt suicide, and the bible says "Thou shalt not kill." In modern language, that means "You must not kill." I haven't read a whole bible, but I doubt if it says it's okay for priests to sexually abuse children. Maybe it's time for somebody to write a newer testament that clarifies the rules and penalties on these matters.

In almost every country, men kill themselves far more often than women. Instead of killing yourself, perhaps you should first consider a sex change?

In the UK, farmers and people in the medical professions have the highest suicide rates. I don't think that it's because they have depressing jobs, but because they have the knowledge and weapons required for the most efficient suicide methods. It's much more difficult for the rest of us. You could become a farmer; but what if you enjoyed it? What a dilemma!

Perhaps one day in the future people will be able to arrange an appointment with their doctor for to be killed humanely and painlessly, just like a vet kills a lame or stray dog. Or maybe Tescos will sell DIY suicide kits.

There is a strong case for a risk free, private, quick, painless, clean, dignified suicide. It would be far less expensive in terms of damage to property, searches for bodies, police investigations, clearing up the mess, medical staff and families having to care for permanently damaged relatives, etc; and children wouldn't be traumatised by finding pieces of human bodies while out playing. However, there is no sign of 'drop in suicide shops' coming soon, so people have to come up with their own home made plans.

None of us receive training on how to commit suicide; you have to teach yourself. It won't help if you're a slow learner; you'll just have to think longer, or rule it out.

I'm not a doctor, and I haven't attempted suicide. I don't have all the answers for you. You have to find out all your answers for yourself. Once you come up with your plan, you should run it past the Samaritans just in case there is something you have not thought of.

If you decide to kill yourself as a result of bullying, it means that the bullies get their ultimate victory. Don't think for a second that they'll feel any guilt. More likely they will dance on your grave, make up stories about you, and make fun of you on facebook. Where's the justice in that? Why should YOU die to please THEM?

Best wishes and lots of love
Allan

Eric Hall - Brown Nose

Ever since Kathy became the team manager around 1998, she began filling just about every vacant position either with a friend or with someone she knew. I can only think that she did this in the hope that those people would be beholding to her, and support her. That's not to say that none of them were any good, but there were certainly some who could not have been selected on merit. Almost all of the people who she took on by this method were women; the one exception that I can think of being Eric Hall who happened to be a friend of an existing female colleague, Suzie, who in turn was a close friend of Kathy's, and who Kathy chose to include on the interview panel for Eric's interview. This was a new post that Kathy created for a Project Manager, and it was slightly odd because we already had the luxury of a full time Project Manager. Added to that; whenever a high profile project came up, Kathy would take it for herself to manage. We all felt that the Project Managers were under occupied, while for years I was doing the work of one and a half employees.

This recruitment method resulted in the formation of a clique, but it also created a millstone round Kathy's neck. She's a very poor people manager, and she had only made things worse for herself by creating a team that was difficult to manage. Those in the clique felt it was their right to receive favourable treatment, and to keep them sweet, Kathy gave them it. On the other hand, at one point it felt like 80% of the work was done by 20% of the team; Jaana, me, Marco and Bruce - all non clique members. Later, Stephen, Suzie, Paul and David did more than their fair share.

Kathy desperately wanted to be liked, but that shouldn't be the main goal of a manager. Ironically some of the clique strongly disliked her, and in the case of Eric; hated her. "I hate the fucking bitch!" he told me one day while he was with me and Lynn. Just as ironic, Eric also intensely disliked Suzie after she divorced David Gardiner; his chum from schooldays. It became an obsession with him, and he would work it in to just about every conversation.

Lynn had made Eric aware of a meeting that Kathy and I had with Mark Toole where Kathy had behaved like a lunatic. She had gone on an astonishing rant where she desperately invented reasons to criticise me. This was because at a similar meeting a few weeks earlier, Mark had got her to agree to stop criticising me unjustly and publicly. My union rep who witnessed it, strongly agreed that it was serious bullying. He advised Mark to take action to stop it, and he made him aware of Kathy's mistreatment of a former colleague.

Although Eric hated Kathy, he knew which side his bread was buttered on. He defended Kathy's behaviour and said that she was entitled to behave that way because I had submitted a grievance against her. He then added that if I was ever to submit a grievance against him, he would kick my "fucking" head in. I commented on his aggression, and he quickly apologised, but he'd shown just how irrational he was on the topic. His experience in the team was the complete opposite of mine. Kathy treated him with dignity; he was never overworked, or anywhere near it; he was allowed to attend training courses and conferences; and there's probably more that I don't know about. I told him that during my grievance, I was asked what outcome I wanted, and I said that I wanted Kathy removed from the team. If that were to have happened (and it SHOULD have happened), it would have been a shock to Eric's system to have a new manager that treats everyone equally, and expects a day's work from him. A new manager might even decide that there just isn't enough work to justify having two full time Project Managers, and that the team needed people with development skills. Every year, Kathy would present the team with a list, several pages long, of development work that had been requested, and every year we barely scratched the surface of that list. Mark Toole got rid of a whole team to meet his staff budget cut. In my opinion it would have made far more sense to have looked at each role in the department and considered what it was actually accomplishing. I know that Lynn and Eric had both been nervous about the cuts. And how could Mark justify getting rid of Alison, Oron and Rob while keeping Eileen, Jackie and Selina?

David had told Eric about how Jackie had screamed at me a couple of weeks earlier. I said it was ridiculous, and Eric tried to play it down by saying something like "That's just how Jackie is. You're never going to change her." I said that Kathy had had 12 years to do something about her. He again defended Kathy by saying that she had attempted to sort Jackie out a couple of years earlier when Jackie had been sending out overly aggressive and overly technical emails to other (non technical) teams. Kathy had told Jackie not to send out any more emails without checking with her first. Jackie then went off sick on work related stress because of it, so Kathy backed off and dropped the matter.

There was an improper, unhealthy work relationship between Kathy and Eric. The deal was that they would support each other even when they were wrong or being dishonest. One time at a full team meeting, Eric, who is non technical, made a suggestion. It would have been an excellent suggestion except for the fact that it was technically impossible. I pointed out why it couldn't work, and how if we attempted it, we would simply cause ourselves more work. Kathy completely ignored me, and said it was a good idea, and that we would implement it. This was in a room full of technical experts. It wasn't rocket science, but nobody backed me up. Two minutes after the meeting, Eric came to me privately to say that after he had thought about it, he realised his suggestion wouldn't work. It was never mentioned again, but I was left to look like an idiot.

On another occasion, Kathy had sent me a cheeky email criticising me for not knowing the time in lieu procedure. She was wrong, and this was just more unjust criticism. I'd had enough of it, and I booked a meeting with her to discuss her behaviour towards me. On my way to Kathy's room, I asked Eric what he understood the TIL procedure to be. He said there was no procedure, and that it was taken on trust. I asked Kathy to explain her criticism. She said that I must follow the correct procedure like everyone else, and she said that Eric always does it correctly. I told her that Eric had just told me that there was no procedure. She quickly changed the subject. It transpired that I was the only person following the correct procedure because I was the only person she had told to follow it. I suspect she was planning to get Eric to say that there was a procedure, but I had accidently spoilt her plan. The reason Kathy had asked me to follow a TIL procedure was because Jackie had been spreading rumours claiming that I was taking TIL I wasn't entitled to.

It demonstrates how warped Kathy's mind is that she would unjustly criticise me for something she has dishonestly invented like not following a non existant procedure when I am the only one following the correct procedure for something as trivial as time in lieu, while someone like Eileen MacDonald can repeatedly breech university security procedures, and rather than discipline or criticise Eileen, she would rather change the procedure and reduce security. It's no wonder she desperately avoided discussing her behaviour. How could she possibly explain that?

Kathy also inappropriately involved Eric in matters that were private. For example she wanted him to attend my return to work interview. When I asked her if she did that with other employees, she told me it was none of my business, yet she wanted Eric to know all about MY business.

On another occasion, there had been a minor issue with a computer system. Normally she wouldn't have cared much about the issue. However, she wrongly thought that I was at fault, and decided to criticise me. She had criticised me a number of times before, only to find out she was wrong. This time she was sure. It wasn't sufficient to pop into my room and have a quiet word. She made a big song and dance about it, and sent a lengthy email. In order to gain further satisfaction, she copied her email to Eric, even though it had nothing to do with him. Sad to say; she was wrong again! Unlike Kathy who waited until after the event to appear clever and say that I should have anticipated the problem, I had actually anticipated the problem and done everything in my power to prevent it, and had even worked late doing so. Furthermore, I could prove it. Just like every other time she criticised me inappropriately, no apology was forthcoming. Kathy doesn't do apologies.

Kathy took part in a training course that was to last more than a year. Eric was one of four team members required to answer questions in order to rate Kathy as a manager. Kathy was rated very badly. She received scores of 2 and 3 while the others on the course scored 7s and 8s. Eric told me she received the worst scores that anybody had ever received on the course. When Kathy found out, she met with the four team members, and tried to persuade them that they hadn't understood the questions. They said that they had felt intimidated by this. At the end of her course, the same four were asked to answer the questions again. Eric admitted that he had lied in order to give Kathy better scores than she deserved, just for a quiet life. This angered Jaana who also answered the questions, because she felt the whole exercise was a waste of time if they weren't honest. It was worse than a waste of time, it produced inaccurate data that was intended to improve Kathy's performance.

Eric was one of he people that Karen Stark and Eileen Schofield interviewed as part of their fake investigation for my grievance. Some of those interviewed had denied things they had done to me, including things done in front of a dozen or more witnesses. Eileen took their denials to be proof that I had just made it up. In a fake investigation, that's what you do; you certainly don't ask the witnesses, and you don't ask the the complainant if they have evidence. You also ignore the fact that Kathy had already admitted that she was fully aware that the incidents happened, and that she had signed a document saying so. Eric went a stage further and made stuff up to help Kathy in her hour of need. He said that he felt I had "a problem with women". In the fake investigation, Eric wasn't asked to give any examples of this problem he felt I had with women. Eric knows I don't have a problem with women. When I first read his statement, I didn't see the point in him saying it. It wasn't something that Kathy had ever suggested. I found out later when I saw the notes of Kathy's meeting with Karen and Eileen. It was Karen Stark who, completely out of the blue, had planted the suggestion in Kathy's mind. Kathy took the opportunity to run with it. No doubt she passed the suggestion to Eric and Eileen MacDonald. The suggestion was then used in an attempt to get me sacked, and by the time Una Forsyth made her statement for the disciplinary investigation, the story had grown arms and legs, and I "only got on with two out of the eleven women in the team". Of course, in a fake investigation you don't ask those other nine women if they get on with me, and if not, why not. You also wouldn't ask Una why she cooked me a meal and asked me to be her Facebook friend when she didn't get on with me. Una didn't cook Eric a meal. They weren't friends on Facebook, and I don't think she showed him her photo of her stepping out of the shower with just a towel to hide her modesty. Maybe she has a problem with men?

Eric said "Kathy treats everyone professionally and equally", and that she had "an excellent way of managing the team". He didn't say anything about him "hating the fucking bitch" or how he only scored her 3 out of 10 then lied just for a "quiet life". If there was an award for the team's brownest nose, Eric's the winner!

To be continued...

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.

Gerry McCormac - Corrupt or What?

Gerry McCormac

Gerry McCormac became Stirling University's Principal in May 2010. He described the university as one of the most respected in the UK. He said his focus would be on providing leadership and "getting the best out of people".

In accordance with the university's grievance procedures, I wrote to Professor McCormac in September 2010 and sent copies of my letter to Alan Simpson, Chair of the University Court, and Dr James Naughtie, University Chancellor. I alerted them to the widespread corruption that exists within the university's senior management.

You might expect that someone who agreed to take up such a responsible position, and who accepts around a quarter of a million pounds a year to perform his duties, would be horrified to learn of this and would be eager to rid the university of corruption as a matter of priority. You might also expect that he would be eager to speak with me to obtain as much information as possible in order for him to fully understand and deal with the very serious problem at Stirling University.

However, you would be wrong. Professor McCormac decided that it would be best to sweep the issue under the carpet.

It is ironic that a university Cleaner earning around £15,000 a year would probably be sacked for sweeping dirt under the carpet. Cleaners are expected to work with integrity; Principals and senior management are not.

Corrupt or what? I see no evidence to suggest that Gerry is anything but corrupt.

Shame on you, Gerry!

Oh dear! Hot off the press; Gerry has been appointed by Education Secretary, Mike Russell to head up a review of teachers' pay and conditions. Labour and Liberal Democrats are worried that the review may be a sham, and that this is just a cost cutting exercise. With Gerry at the helm, I believe they have good reason to be worried.

Gerry is aware that Mark Toole had decided that I should be dismissed because he couldn't deal properly with my grievance against Kathy McCabe's bullying behaviour. It is likely that Kathy's husband, Liam, being the Finance Director was also a factor. I had made protected disclosures about the university's failure to comply with its legal obligations, so the heat was on for the Uni. Mark's lack of integrity caused him to call in well known 'arse licker', Graham Millar, to carry out a sham investigation which was to produce a report recommending a disciplinary hearing be held. Mark would have told Graham not to allow the facts to get in the way of the required report.

Despite all of the evidence that made it obvious I was innocent, Mark dismissed me, and other corrupt directors upheld his decision.

Immediately prior to this, Mark had arranged for Deputy Secretary, Eileen Schofield to carry out a sham investigation relating to my allegations that I had been bullied by my manager, Kathy McCabe, for several years, including bullying that took place in Mark's presence. Amazingly, despite all of the evidence, Eileen produced a report stating that I had not been bullied, but that I had bullied my manager. At appeal, University Secretary, Kevin Clarke upheld her incredible decision.

Gerry knew about all of this when he shrugged off my complaints of corruption. Interestingly, he offered no evidence to refute my claims that senior management is corrupt.

Not satisfied with being paid £250,000 a year and ruining an innocent man's career, Gerry will be hoping to be recommended for inclusion in the honours list for carrying out this review. In my opinion, he should be in jail.

Gerry has a wife and three sons. I suppose he is 'lucky' not to have a conscience.

I suppose it's unfortunate from Gerry's and other corrupt people's point of view, that we now have the internet. The world is becoming more transparent. Corrupt dinosaurs, like Gerry, will hopefully become a feature of the past.

My parents were born more than 70 years before most people had even heard of the internet, but that didn't stop them from raising me to be honest, hard working and ethical. Gerry is the type of person they warned me not to mix with.

I feel sorry for his sons who have been deprived of a normal non corrupt life in which they could achieve their goals based on their own genuine desires and honest abilities.

15 April 2011
He's not been in charge for a year yet, but as well as bullying and corruption, Gerry is now proud to add fraud to his list of skills.

Legal Action Imminent?

A little bird tells me that a Stirling University employee is considering legal action against me and my blog.

I can confirm that I have received no correspondence from anyone claiming that my blog contains any inaccuracies. I confirm also that I have written to certain individuals asking if there is anything I've said that they dispute, and to date this has not brought any response.

I hereby extend my offer to anyone who thinks there may be something inaccurate in my blog. Please let me know what it is, and if you can support your claim with evidence, then that would be useful to have.

For example, if you are University Secretary, Kevin Clarke and you think I've unfairly criticised you for having dismissed my appeal against Deputy Secretary, Eileen Schofield's handling of my grievance, then it would be useful if you were to respond to my questions dated 15 November 2010, when I asked for the facts on which Ms Schofield allegedly based her decision. I also asked if Ms Schofield, who was administratively supported by HR Partner, Karen Stark, gave me the opportunity to state my case. You described Ms Stark as "highly professional".





The University's Grievance Procedure states: At the grievance hearing, both sides i.e. the employee raising the grievance and the party against whom the grievance has been raised, will be given the opportunity to state their case.

It also states: Once all the details of the case have been heard, the chair of the hearing will decide on the outcome based on the facts of the case made available to them.





What's very clear and uncontested is that THEORETICALLY, Karen Stark is highly professional. There can be no doubt that she fully understands the university procedures to such an extent that she is prepared to communicate them in what could be regarded as a highly condescending manner to a less expert employee who seeks clarification on just how thorough the procedure is intended to be. There can be no doubt that Ms Stark definitely knows that the procedure is required to be carried out EQUITABLY and that allegations are to be investigated THOROUGHLY.

Although I do not dispute Ms Stark's knowledge of the requirements of the grievance and disciplinary procedures, I very strongly dispute that she ensured that those procedures were carried out in accordance with that knowledge. I can confidently say that Ms Stark's approach to these procedures was as totally corrupt. This would mean that all employees and former employees who have suffered at the hands of both yourself and Ms Stark should have their individual cases reviewed.

Both my representative and I had indicated to you that procedures had not been carried out equitably or thoroughly, and we gave several examples of this. Therefore I would like you to answer my questions from November 2010, and I would also like you to explain how your claim that there is no evidence of procedural flaw can be consistent with what was described to you in my letter of appeal as well as what was described to you during the hearing.

Here's a helpful reminder of the questions I would like you to answer.

You told the Employment Tribunal that the allegations I made in my grievance were investigated and rejected. For each allegation in my grievance, please state

(a) The allegation
(b) The date the allegation was investigated.
(c) The name(s) of the investigator(s)
(d) The form of the investigation, including the names of any witnesses interviewed, documents referred to, etc.
(e) The facts used in deciding to reject the allegation.
(f) Before the allegation was rejected, please state whether or not I was given an opportunity to provide further evidence to support the allegation, and if not, why not?

You also told them that Ms Schofield upheld Ms McCabe's grievance against me. For each allegation in her grievance, please state

(a) The allegation
(b) The date the allegation was investigated.
(c) The name(s) of the investigator(s)
(d) The form of the investigation, including the names of any witnesses interviewed, documents referred to, etc.
(e) Was it decided the allegation was true or was it rejected.
(f) The facts used to come to that decision.
(g) If it was decided that the allegation was true, was I given an opportunity to provide evidence to refute the allegation, and if not, why not?

You referred to the report produced by Ms Schofield. The report states that I was asked at the hearing to present my case. Do you now accept that I was asked to present a brief summary of my case only?

Any reputable employer would be only too happy to provide this information. Ms Stark of Chisholm Avenue, Stirling, was aware of her obligation to investigate my allegations thoroughly, but deliberately failed to fulfil her obligation. Instead she used the process to cause bad feeling between me and my colleagues. She was also aware that I was entitled to present my case, but she attended the hearing and knew that I was only allowed to briefly summarise my case. She saw Eileen Schofield's report which falsely states I was asked to present my case. She was aware that Kathy McCabe had presented a pack of lies at her hearing, but just allowed it. She attended interviews with colleagues who supported my case, but none of their statements were reflected in the report. She avoided interviewing important witnesses, including current employees, one of whom I had written to her with their name. All of the irrefutable evidence I presented was completely ignored, and Kathy wasn't even asked to respond to my allegations. The report also falsely states that Kathy was able to point evidence that supported her allegations and refuted mine. Yet Mr Clarke says he sees no flaw in the procedure.

Ms Stark then ensured that the disciplinary procedure was equally biased. She has absolutely no self respect. While she did all of this, she was fully aware that I had been suffering from stress for several years due to Kathy's bullying, and she knew some of the effects the stress was having on me. She also knew that my work was one of the few things that helped to reduce the stress. She also knew how Kathy's behaviour had damaged another employee's health. She is a moral vacuum. God knows what motivates her. She is pure evil!



I intend to have the corrupt bully supporter, Mr Clarke removed from his £150,000 a year job, and replaced by someone with integrity.

By achieving this, it is my sincere hope that, long after I'm dead, people in positions of power will think more carefully before abusing their power in order to protect bullies and to abuse innocent individuals. No doubt Mr Clarke never gave the slightest thought to any personal risk he may have been taking. As far as he was concerned, there was none. He probably still thinks that! He had managed to get rid of Kathy McCabe's previous victim without suffering any personal consequences. He certainly didn't give a damn what would happen to me. I was just an extremely dedicated, hard working employee; easily disposable.

My blog is possibly causing him some discomfort because it makes it fairly clear that he is corrupt, and I've been reliably told that, away from the university, his acquaintances had no idea what he's really like. His name is one of the most common Google searches that lead to my blog.

Watch this space...

Stirling Uni guilty of serious fraud

Martin McCrindle - A Comedy of Errors

Martin McCrindle, 4 Achray Avenue, Callander, FK17 8JZ

I was already suffering from stress due to Kathy's bullying behaviour towards me, when I was hit with a second massive source of stress; the role evaluation (Framework Agreement) process which was implemented by Martin McCrindle's HR department. I wasn't alone in feeling that stress; however I knew more than most just how badly the process had been implemented. Stress increases when you are subjected to a problem that you have no control over. My only outlet was to inform senior management of the massive problems I'd discovered within the process, and hope that they took me seriously, and handled my concerns appropriately. However, I was met with an equally massive attempt to cover up the problems, and therefore the stress merely increased.

When the process began, I was told that it was very unlikely that my grade or salary would be changed. We were asked to complete a questionnaire about our roles. The DBAs were told that our questionnaire would only play a small part in deciding our grade. Our grade was to be linked in some way to one of a small proportion of benchmark roles which were to be fully analysed. The Programmer role was one that was to receive a full analysis. This meant that the Programmers were to be interviewed by the HR team to obtain a more detailed analysis. As well as that, while the DBAs were restricted to a maximum of 100 words when answering questions, the Programmers were unrestricted. Naturally, at this stage I just assumed that HR knew what they were doing. I assumed far too much.

Alarms started to ring when the Programmers received some early feedback from HR about a partial analysis of their role. It included the phrase "Programmers deal with straightforward information". Plain daft! It was clear that the Programmers hadn't included enough information in their questionnaire. So Kathy wrote up more information to make it clear that Programmers have to deal with information that is far from straightforward. She offered it to HR, but they rejected it, and the Role Analysts continued to analyse the Programmer role and all of the other roles within the university with the information they had. They decided not to produce any more of the feedback which had alerted us to the problems within the process. It was at this point that HR should have stopped the process and investigated what was going wrong. Instead, their reaction was to reduce the tranparency which had highlighted the problem

HERA, the organisation which created the role analysis process, state in their web site that Role Analysts are trained not to analyse roles with incomplete information, and instead that they must always obtain that information from the role holder or line manager. It is HERA who display the words "must always" in bold characters. Yet HR were forcing the Role Analysts to analyse roles in the knowledge that the information they had was incomplete, and rejecting the information that the Analysts were trained to request.

After about eight months, the analysis of all of the roles was completed. It was a bigger job than originally planned, because Martin McCrindle's team had the astonishing idea that a full analysis be carried out on every role, and not just that small proportion of roles originally identified. It does not require a brain the size of a planet to see the flaw in the thought process. If every role was to be analysed and graded in the same way, then the method of data gathering should have been consistent too. I would later discover that there were even more inconsistencies.

The result of the role analysis was that each role was allocated a number of points. From this, and presumably the staff budget, HR calculated the range of points required for each grade. All of this was based on incomplete and incorrect data. Some roles were upgraded (green circled), some remained on the same grade (white circled), and some were downgraded (red circled).

The next major blunder was that HR decided to send letters to staff who were either green or white circled, telling them that trained analysts had decided what their new grade should be. The term "trained analysts" was obviously used to try to attach some credibility to a process that lacked any credibility. More accurately, the letters should have stated that, although the analysts had been trained, Stirling University had forced them to ignore their training, and that their erroneous analysis had been used to produce an erroneous grading. However, McCrindle thought it was worth sacrificing accuracy in favour of avoiding a riot.

The red circled staff were sent letters telling them that their grade was "inconclusive". These employees, which included the Programmers, were told that their grade could not be concluded without further information, including the further information that HR had rejected from the Programmers six months earlier.

What HR and management couldn't explain, and refused to attempt to explain, was how they could be sure that only red circled roles had insufficient information. It is very likely that the vast majority would have had insufficient information.

Every one of us who worked for Kathy was red circled, and some of us went down by more than one grade. On the other hand, not one person in Martin McCrindle's HR department was red circled. This was entirely different from the Information Services department where the majority of employees below manager level were red circled. Rather than admit that there was a serious problem with how the process was implemented, it was suggested that it was because IT staff didn't fill in their questionnaires properly. Quite insulting, but even if it was true, the Role Analysts were trained not to analyse queationnaires that were either incomplete or unclear. They were supposed to approach the role holder for clarification in those situations.

Soon after we received our "inconclusive" letters, my team had a meeting with Peter Kemp who was the Director of Information Services. He was very supportive, and was very critical of the way HR had implemented the role evaluation process.

Soon afterwards, my team had a meeting with Martin McCrindle. This was before we had become aware of most of what I've described in this post. However, we knew we had all been red circled, and he had some explaining to do. Martin emphasised that Stirling University had taken the extra time and care to ensure the process was implemented properly. He was very critical of other universities who he said hadn't done it as robustly as Stirling, and he predicted that they would very likely come a cropper because of it. I remember leaving that meeting thinking he was a decent, professional guy, and I genuinely believed and admired him. My opinion was soon to change as I gradually learned the truth; that Martin McCrindle is a bullshitter!

We were still in the dark about what had gone wrong. We didn't fully understand how the process worked. The union encouraged us to ask HR questions, and HR set up a special email address for framework questions. I found out that the analysts had dropped my role by two grades, or £11,000 per year. The red circled employees still didn't know prcisely what additional information was needed to have our roles evaluated properly. I was actually very pleased with our questionnaire which was mostly completed by my colleague, David and my manager, Kathy.

Some of my colleagues searched on the internet for help. Clare found a document that was to change everything; it was the Guidance Notes for Role Analysts. It showed you specificly how to answer the questions in a way that would optimise your score.

It was no wonder that my role was evaluated so badly. Although we had answered the questions correctly, there simply wasn't sufficient detail in our answers to allow the Role Analysts to properly analyse it. One answer we gave was extremely ambiguous, and was scored very badly because the Analysts had completely misunderstood our answer; but it was only after seeing the guidance notes that we could have known what the question was attempting to discover about our role. In addition, there is just no way that we could have provided the level of detail required within the 100 word limit that we were set. Those 100 words were supposed to include examples giving evidence that the answer was correct. On top of all that, it would have been impossible to have completed the questionnaire in the short time that HR had suggested it should take. I think we had been told it should take no more than a couple of hours.

My colleague, David and I had done ourselves no favours by trying to work within the limits we were set. We discovered that we were the only ones in the team that had done so, and we were penalised because of it.

There was a lot of concern among IS staff. Over 100 of us attended a meeting with Peter Kemp to hear him respond to our concerns. His attitude had now completely changed. Previously he was openly critical of HR's handling of the process. He had even written to me privately criticising a woman from HR on a matter that I felt was irrelevant. Since then, we had only learned of further incompetence, but he had obviously been told to support the process. His performance at this gathering was extremely poor. Some people were openly angry; some demanded that the Principal should apologise to us for inflicting this shambles on us; some openly laughed at Peter's bumbling attempts to support the process. I personally felt very embarrassed for the bloke. He had been put in a terrible position. There's nothing that could have persuaded me to change places with him. Even Kathy admitted that he was being dishonest due to his level of seniority.

There was one comment Peter made that particularly sticks in my mind. It demonstrated to me that he had no self respect, and that he thought that we were all so stupid that we'd swallow any crap that he could think up on the spur of the moment. He wanted all the red circled employees to start providing the additional information. Many of us were reluctant to do that because we had no faith in the process which could (and should) have been ditched. At the beginning of the process, HR had arranged sessions for explaining how staff were to complete the questionnaire. The concensus was that these sessions were useless, and that the people who ran them had been badly prepared. As a "carrot", Peter told us that HR were willing to run these sessions again. Someone shouted out that they were useless, and asked if they would be improved. Peter confirmed that they would not be able to improve them because that would be unfair to those employees whose grades had already been concluded. He stressed that it was important that the sessions be just as bad as they were the first time. Someone pointed out to Peter that it was already unfair because we all now had access to the guidance notes, and very few of those with concluded grades had them when they completed their questionnaire.

"They should have asked for them, and they would have been given them", said Peter, 'thinking' on his feet. He didn't explain how they could possibly have asked for something that they didn't know existed.

The University had to try to demonstrate consistency in the process. A bit late in the day for that I would have thought. The only thing that was consistent was Martin McCrindle's incompetence throughout the project; and that wasn't something that was about to change any time soon... or at least not for the better.

Another factor that the process failed to address was manager inconsistency. Managers were required to verify that their staff's role descriptions were correct. Some managers like to take the credit for everything that happens in their team while others give credit where it's due. Then, in the case of my own manager, Kathy was eager to boost the role description of certain colleagues, while doing her best to keep a lid on mine. As well as this, there was the matter of roles held by multiple employees who carried out different duties. How were these to be handled? Should the role description include a total of all of their duties? Should it only include the intersection of their duties? Should new job titles be created?

At the outset, Kathy was fairly reasonable in assisting us with the DBA description. We hit one big hurdle though, when David and I said we did X, and Kathy insisted we didn't do X. I decided it would be better to put this in writing, so I wrote to her with lots of evidence that would leave her in no doubt that we did X. She wrote back saying that it was never in doubt that we did X, but that we had claimed we did Y. I'm not sure if there's a word in the dictionary for that type of switch or u-turn, but if there isn't, then it should be called a "Kathy". Example usage: "I've made a complete fool of myself either by talking shit, or by telling an easily detectable lie. The only way I can possibly save face is to do a Kathy".

I wrote a program that allowed you to enter the likely Role Analyst decisions, and it produced your points score. Once we completed our role description, I calculated that we would easily receive enough points to take us up to Grade 9. Now, there is no way that the DBA role is worth Grade 9, but this just indicated how badly broken the process was. The ranges of points required for each grade were set at a time when very few employees had the guidance notes. With the benefit of the guidance notes, and the removal of the word limits, and the realisation of just how important the questionnaire was, it was now much easier to accumulate a far greater number of points. In other words, the "point" had been devalued mid process, and this was confirmed by the fact that roles that had already been red circled were now being green circled.

Just when we thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, it was about to get a whole lot worse. Thank God Martin McCrindle had decided that Stirling University would carry out the process very carefully, and more robustly than other universities!

When employees received their letters telling them their new grade, the letter included a chart showing their overall points scored broken down into 14 categories. Alison had written a very clever program which reverse engineered these scores to provide either the precise, or sometimes possible, decisions made by the role analysts. Helpful as this was, I felt it would be much simpler if HR just gave us those decisions. Under the Freedom of Information Act or Data Protection Act, we were entitled to receive the sheet of paper that the analysts completed while analysing a role. Armed with this and the guidance notes, we could easily work out the feedback (in meaningful English) that the process produced. You may remember that HR had decided to reduce transparency and hide that information from us. It soon became standard practice for employees to request this scoring sheet each time their role was analysed. The analysts' score sheet contained the names of the analysts that had analysed the role. However, HR blacked out their names before they sent us the copies.

Eric Hall's role was processed, and it scored just a tiny number of points short of what was required for Grade 9. He received the analysts' score sheet, and some of their scores had been crossed out and changed, resulting in a lower score than there would have been without the changes. He was absolutely certain that HR had done this to keep his score at grade 8. If just one score had remained unchanged, he would have been green circled and put on grade 9. He showed me one that had been changed, and assured me that the original score made far more sense than the one it had been changed to. I told Eric that it was highly unlikely that HR would do that. Somebody would have to take risks that would put their job and their career in danger. To make it more unlikely, I assumed that it would have needed more than one person to carry it out. Eric remained convinced that his score sheet had been changed fraudulently, and he said there was nothing that would convince him otherwise. Other people were just as convinced as Eric that scores were being produced fraudulently. While I was in no doubt the shambles was the result of extraordinary incompetence, I just dismissed the possibility that employees would be dishonest. In view of what I've learned since then, not only do I believe it was possible, I believe it is very likely that some scores were dishonestly adjusted after the Role Analysts completed their score sheets. I believe it also extremely likely that other methods were used to underscore roles. I believe that Martin McCrindle found this necessary to try to reduce the horrendous affects of his own incompetence. I think it's time Martin McCrindle gave a full explanation, and I won't restrict him to 100 words.

I made the mistake of telling Eric that my score was likely to take me to grade 9. He broke the news to Kathy, and she invited him to attend the meeting arranged for David, Kathy and me to check through my role description. She was determined to keep my role below grade 9, and she wanted Eric to support her. From the start, Kathy challenged several statements in my role description. Bizarrely, these were all statements that Kathy had typed up herself on our behalf just a few days earlier before hearing we were in danger of receiving grade 9. Her attitude throughout that meeting made the stress worse. It was just before I was due to go on holiday with Ruth, and that holiday was ruined because of it.

The analysis was completed just before Christmas, and HR passed our score to Kathy. She called me into her office to give me the bad news; Grade 7. I was just about to go on another holiday with Ruth. Again it was ruined because of the stress. How on Earth could it possibly have scored Grade 7? When I returned from holiday, I received my score sheets from HR. It had been analysed two times, as was the case when the result was either a red or green circle. The first time it was analysed, it came out at grade 6; three grades below my own calculation. It looked very likely that the analysts had been given our original questionnaire which was about a page and a half long, instead of our new 19 page version designed to make it as simple as possible for the analysts to allocate it the correct scores.

Up until that point, David hadn't been particularly concerned by the role evaluation process. He was a grade below me because he'd only joined the Uni about three years earlier, and he only worked half the week, so financially it wouldn't affect him as much as me. However, when he heard about the grade 6, he became very angry. He typed up a very strongly worded, offensive email that he was about to send to HR. He showed me it first, and I managed to persuade him not to send it. I was confident that the grading was just an honest mistake caused by the analysts being given the wrong document.

I wrote to Peter Kemp and arranged to meet with him and Kathy to discuss it. Peter immediately denied there had been any error, and insisted that the correct document had been analysed. Kathy agreed with Peter, yet strangely neither had asked HR if it had been an error. So how could they be so sure it wasn't? I pointed to several sectional scores that made it obvious that the wrong document had been analysed. Still they denied it. It was a pointless discussion because we really needed to have it confirmed by the role analysts which document they had analysed. Peter said they couldn't do that, but he'd speak to someone in HR. Later he said HR confirmed that the correct document was analysed. That was simply impossible. Now the stress was starting to go through the roof because I knew I was right, but I was being 'brick walled'.

I set out to prove this by taking my role description to one of the trained role analysts at the Uni and I asked them to score it. It scored grade 9, very much as I had predicted. So now, whichever way they chose to look at it, the uni had a problem with the process. Either the wrong document was analysed, and / or there were massive inconsistencies in the views of trained role analysts. Grade 9 pays roughly twice as much as Grade 6. It goes beyond any stretch of the imagination that trained role analysts couldn't tell the difference between a grade 6 role and a grade 9 role.

I now believe the reason they were so reluctant to admit that the wrong document had been analysed, was because it was done deliberately, and that they had probably done the same with other roles in an attempt to prevent staff costs from going through the roof. I think it is highly unlikely that any other role would have had two descriptions that were as starkly contrasting as the two that the DBAs produced. Therefore it wouldn't have been so obvious to other employees that the analysts had been given the wrong document in their case. Of course, any doubt would have been removed if Martin McCrindle had required the role analysts to sign and date the role description as well as their score sheet.

I wrote to Peter and Kathy informing them that I was finding the situation very stressful. Any remaining faith I had in the process had disappeared. Kathy told me that I should refer myself to the Occupational Health Doctor. I told her that I wouldn't do that because I didn't think a doctor could do anything to reduce the stress. I told her that the stress would vanish when the two issues that were causing the stress (her bullying behaviour and the flawed role evaluation process) were both addressed properly. She said that if I didn't self refer, she would refer me.

She did refer me, and I attended OH. I explained to the doctor what was causing the stress. He said there was nothing he could do to relieve the stress. He said that it was perfectly normal for me to feel stressed in the position I was in. He said the solution lay with management. He wrote a report for management which stated that I should be listened to, and taken seriously. When Peter received the report, he wrote to me to invite me to meet with him to discuss the problems. I thought that he was finally going to have to take me seriously and take some action to solve the problems. I showed the doctor's report to several colleagues, and they all agreed that it was very damning for management, and that they would have to take the matter seriously. I felt as though a great weight had been lifted from my mind.

I met with Peter and Karen Stark. To my disappointment, Peter stuck with his story that I was to blame for submitting a form that wasn't clear enough for the role analysts to understand. Utter bollocks! My disappointment was magnified because my hopes had been raised that he was going to stop talking shit. I told him that the process had been appalling, and that I had no faith in it. By the end of the meeting, I was visibly shaking due to the stress. The following day I was unable to attend work. My work was the one thing up to that point that had been able to reduce the stress. It took my mind off the nonsense. However, the stress was too great to even allow me to attend. I had asked Karen Stark for a copy of the letter of referral to the doctor. When I received that, the stress increased again. Kathy had lied in the referal, saying that I had been aggressive to my colleagues. It was so bad that I was off work for five weeks.

Peter had told me that the role analysis process would be professionally audited. I wrote to him to say that I would like to meet with the Auditors so that I could make them aware of my observations. Peter carefully ignored my request. Obviously I knew stuff they didn't want the Auditors to know about!

My letter also represented another protected disclosure because I stated my concerns that the process couldn't possibly achieve its purpose; equal pay for work of equal value. In addition, I informed Peter that the university had failed in its duty to care for me by allowing Kathy's bullying behaviour to go unchecked. Kathy had already caused a former colleague's health to detereorate due to mistreating him. University Secretary, Kevin Clarke was aware of that too, and was instrumental in getting rid of him.

Peter was anxious that I go through the appeal process for the role evaluation. I was already hearing how McCrindle's team were making a pig's ear of this with other roles. I held off as long as possible. One interesting feature of the process was that we noticed that two roles could have the same description for the same category, but be awarded different scores. Roles with a superior description could even score less than other roles. It was that random. For example, one of the categories was Knowledge and Experience. Our description included the fact that the DBA requires previous experience as a Programmer. We also stated that we had responsibility for providing Programmers with training. Yet we received something like 40% fewer points than the Programmers. Other scores were even more bizarre!

Martin McCrindle announced what, on the face of it, sounded like a good idea. He said that if employees could show that they have an equal or better description than a role that scored higher, then they could simply claim the score that the other role received. Excellent, I thought. Of course, in order to do that, you need to see the descriptions and scores of all the other roles. I asked HR to publish them electronically. They wouldn't agree to this. At first they put up a bogus argument that it would allow people to know what some individuals were earning if they were green circled, adding that if they only provided the ones that were not green circled, people would know that, simply by elimination, the others were green circled. I explained the flaw in this argument. You could only tell that a role had been green circled if you knew its previous grade, and I didn't require that information. McCrindle was desperate that this information was not made available. It would have shown up how massively inconsistent the process had been. The next objection was that it would cost too much. They sent me details of the costings. To inflate the cost, they multiplied the cost of providing the information for a single role by the total number of employees at the university, instead of the number of roles, which is obviously a lot smaller. They estimated the cost at £9000. I called their bluff and offered to pay for it. Then they objected by saying that the true cost would be much greater. It was a real life pantomime!

In reality, it wouldn't have been fair to allow this anyway, as the people who already had their grades concluded couldn't possibly compare their score with those roles that were to be analysed later.

With our appeal, we were faced with a dilemma. We were allowed to present the same description or we could add even further information. McCrindle's team managed to mess this up too. Instead of asking the role holders as a group, each role holder was asked for their preference. So I replied saying that I had no more information, and David said he had more information to add. In the end, we just presented exactly the same description that had been scored grade 6 and grade 7. We both knew that it was good enough for grade 9. What we couldn't know was what HR would do with it. They had a dilemma too. The OH doctor had suggested in his report that if the problem wasn't resolved, I should inform ACAS, and HR had seen his report. If our role was to score grade 6 or 7 again, I would definitely have had to raise the issue externally, either with ACAS, the Auditors, equal pay regulators or the media. If it was to score grade 8 or 9, it would be seen as an admission from HR that the process was a shambles.

Our role eventually scored grade 8, with points mid way between that required for 8 and 9. We could easily have argued that it was underscored, but I'd had enough of the whole process. It was an utter shambles, but I really needed to try to remove it from my mind.

Paul A from Information Services managed to successfully have his role green circled to grade 9. However, not long afterwards, Peter Kemp found some dodgy reason to sack him.

Throughout the process, it was discussed regularly at union meetings. However, because the process didn't really affect the academic staff who were largely white circled, it didn't receive the attention it should have done. I believe this was a serious mistake, because although it didn't have much affect on them in the short term, I think they were later going to suffer from the shambles that at the time may have seemed to be other people's problems.

When the process was completed, I believe there were no red circled roles; or at least vey few if any. There were a lot of green circled roles, and those staff were to have their salary increased, and the increase was backdated to the time the process was originally scheduled to be completed; years previously. So, without the benefit of a money printing machine, how was the university going to pay for all of this?

Very soon afterwards, staff were offered Voluntary Severence packages of a year's salary to give up their job in order to reduce the wage bill. Not long after that, compulsary redundancies followed. The university chose to carry this out unlawfully by not negotiating with the unions. Some staff were also told that if they didn't leave voluntarily, they would be made redundant. By refusing to negotiate with the unions, the uni lost an Employment Tribunal case which is likely to cost them in exxcess of half a million pounds; but they would have expected that. It will also cost them a fair deal in legal fees.

The reduced number of staff left many, particularly academics, overloaded with work because they were having to cover for colleagues who were no longer there.

To be continued...