L'aura del Campo

Bullying at work. A pank-and-green blog. Love-Lies-Bleeding

L'aura del campo

WINTER: 2 'Ayyam-i-Há (27 February) 42º and raw.

'é a lua, é a lua, na quintana dos mortos'
♣ Federico García Lorca ♣

The colors pink and green are brought to you today as per a request by ridinghhood-p.boutilier .

Bullying in the workplace

Having been bullied in the workplace, I thought I'd comment on that for this entry. This following article provoked the muse but I won't comment on it directly:

http://www.livescience.com/othernews/061031_office_bully.html

What was bullying for me?

1. Being left out of the in-group. Whispered about behind my back and left out of decisions that directly involved me. I felt like everyone knew something important they weren't telling me.

2. Supervisors that did not value me enough to work with me, resorting to snipe comments and evil looks. And worse ... their supervisors who saw no problem in that behaviour toward me. I felt exposed. And twice injured. Once by the supervisor and then again by the boss.

3. Office jokes that created tension between me and my colleagues, reminding me of the name-calling from childhood. I rarely had a good repartée. I wasn't good in the schoolyard either. Far too sensitive for my own good.

4. At a previous job - having my schedule changed without my knowledge and not telling me. Being accused of harrassing the bosses when I brought this to their attention. This was serious. I could've been fired for not showing up. Changing my schedule was a vicious ploy. And probably illegal. I was incensed.

5. Being accused of a crime by a commissioner not based on fact or deposition, but on his own prejudices. Over 20 years later, I'd still like to hang the s.o.b by his balls. En serio, you do not know how angry I still am. The inuendos persist twenty years later. Once accused, I feel I'm still judged guilty in some eyes. The person in power went on to bigger and better things. I got the shaft.

Oh ... the nuances were worse. I was passed over for advancement without comment. I was called incompetent by a supervisor who wasn't in the know. An accusation of misconduct that was dismissed (of course, I was told not to talk about it, which made it even worse. I still don't talk about it). I was ridden like a jackass by one particular boss and everyone knew it, commented on it but didn't know what to do.

A co-worker of mine commented about how it was to be a visible minority coming into an office (to paraphrase) ... 'take a look around, if there is no one who looks like you, get a clue'. For 'invisible' minorities, it is no easier.

Things got drastically worse after there was a political change at the top. In order to hire his compadres when the budget was tight and no one was leaving their jobs, it was necessary to find scapegoats. I kid you not. I wasn't the only one in the line of fire.

Someone will say: "Sue their asses", "Fight them". With what? Our culture doesn't consider certain types of bullying a crime. Thems the facts. Also, who'll back me? And at this late date, why bother?

Better to be far far away. Still ... I had friends there once and it is good to occasionally hear their voices.

Love-lies-bleeding

Strands of soft red flowers adorn
the gate to the garden where beyond
we pose a pietà:
you the designated Madonna,
me?
dying in your arms,
looking up at fear filled eyes of what will come:
mourning for what I took,
for what I never gave you.
Here the photographer becomes an audience,
mere sympathy; she'll
never know our story.
This image tells its own lies,
none-the-less,
yet the picture remains a legacy
of love-lies-bleeding
at my behest.

[163.588]

A picture of the flower, Amaranthus caudatus:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/factsheets/annuals/loveliesbleeding....
A story about the flower and Saint Francis:
http://www.flowersociety.org/articles/loveliesbleeding.pdf


Excerpt of Prayer

Magnified be Thy name, O my God, for that Thou hast manifested the Day which is the King of Days, the Day which Thou didst announce unto Thy chosen Ones and Thy Prophets in Thy most excellent Tablets, the Day whereon Thou didst shed the splendor of the glory of all Thy names upon all created things. Great is his blessedness whosoever hath set himself towards Thee, and entered Thy presence, and caught the accents of Thy voice.

~ Bahá'u'lláh

The entire prayer is found here:
http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/c/BP/bp-143.html?query=day
I remember reading this prayer around noon on March 2nd, 1975 when I decided that I was a Bahá'í. On March 2nd, 1999 around noon we buried my father. For me March 2nd and this prayer have a special meaning.

Me, my friends and my family

Being sick wasn't fun. I had trouble reading and the internet connection sucked so I didn't get any of that done and I wasn't feeling well enough to write. I can write when I'm totally devastated emotionally, but headaches and chills stop me cold.

On Saturday, my sister took my mother over to the cemetery where my father is buried. Everything is still covered by 18" of snow but the grave is near the road and they know where he lies by a tree.

My friend Dennis Smith is burying his mother. I remember vaguely when she turned 90. Vaguely because it was so long ago. Olive Ann Smith (Legler) was 101.

Spoke with Chris Beard, a forward, #26, for the K.U. hockey club team today. He's taking creative writing and Swedish. I advised him to go to the university in Uppsala for a semester and write about hockey! But ... he likes short stories and music. I shared my hockey poems that were published and he even knew the cinquain form. Imagine that.

He was smiling today but not when they took this photo:
http://www.achahockey.org/player_profile.php?player_id=56743&team_id=13056

IMAGES and RAMBLINGS

From the 26th: Purple beads; Bud Light sticker; strong whiff of perfume (coming from where?); brown pine needles; yellow sponge; gold busted balloon; white plastic foam; spears of the daffodils buds; first crocuses, yellow and lavender at 1115 Ohio.

On the 1st: The sky a patchquilt of blue and white napkins, the wind bearing to the east by southeast, fleeing from the zenith of the sun, pushing the chill after yesterday's Spring.

~ "Japanese has more homophones than shaved chinchillas have stubble", Sam at Tea @ 3.

WATT'S GNU!

Okay ... to keep it brief. How many calories do you need? want? Let's see ... I love butter, adore chocolate and could live on bread and milk. And cheese .

A link about meals best referred to as "Angioplasta":
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070226/us_nm/restaurants_calories_dc

So I was sick. So my pus and blood burst like a pool of volcanic mud. So here's a link about a real mudpot in Indonesia:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070226/sc_afp/indonesiaenvironmentmud_070226113926...

Did anyone notice that this particular eruption was triggered by people drilling? Hmmmmm ... kinda like cutting the buried cables for half the city ... oops.

Indonesia has had a couple rough years of natural and not so natural disasters between the tsunami, flooding, mud ... I wonder whether Americans would cope so well. After the ongoing human disaster of Katrina, I have my doubts.

The weather has been fickle. Wednesday it hit 70º. Storms last night then down today (then up then down then up again). Winter is losing it. I mean really losing it. Since Spring is my favorite season, I shall not lament.

I will miss Orion in the wintry southern sky.

READING

Ruth Rendell's A Judgement in Stone. Vicious to give us the ending complete with who-dunnit. And then make us read to find out why! It has an odd sense of suspense and incipient horror to it all.

Read some poetry of Mary Kerr from Sinners Welcome and Araiane Sophia Kartonis' Intaglio. I loved the line "... in lieu of flowers          flowers." Also read some of Tod Marshall's Dare Say.

BLOGVILLE

Thanks to everyone who left little notes telling me to have my teeth checked. Of course, I should. So I didn't and probably won't. Avoidance and depression be my two middle names. Dying young be my game. 'Cept with these wrinkles and thinning hair no one would be fooled!

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 Kåre Enga
~ until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go. ~ Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish