Antonym: Sincerity

Image by ThenAndAgain via Flickr

ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French ypocrisie, via ecclesiastical Latin, from Greek hupokrisis ‘acting of a theatrical part,’ from hupokrinesthai ‘play a part, pretend,’ from hupo ‘under’ + krinein ‘decide, judge.’

None of this is true:
So a place I know make a big song and dance about their anti-bullying policy. And for reasons which are lost in the mists of time, some people who are to be found their on a  regular basis took it upon themselves to fall out. Two of these people then found themselves to be carrying much grievance, and caused by their words or actions at separate and individual times for Six of the other people also in attendance, to be reduced to tears: Their actions were vehement and unwieldy. During this process, the Six (or more) put in a formal complaint about the atmosphere and general culture that was leading to this clash of personalities. These complaints or statements were to be investigated and counter-complaints and statements were produced.

On a further occasion these Two effectively ganged up one One of the others, when they thought that nobody was about and were aggressive in the extreme, to such an extent that if I had seen this episode unfold on the street, I would have called the Police so concerned was I for the ‘victim’: As it was it was reported and escalated higher up the food chain. The Two went off with stress for many weeks, the Six or more were left to cope and carrying on the work of the whole team, despite the whole team not being present, as indeed they were off with stress.

And then there was a hearing and stuff was said, all the statements and documents which had been produced were given to the Two. And they took them home and showed their friends. And their friends came to said place, and not content with the fact that one of the Two has been moved to what has been described as her dream-job (so effectively rewarded) and the other of the Two is coming back real soon and everyone else is expected to have to work with someone who reduced them all to tears with ferocious words; their friends came around like petulant 12 year olds to point and say things like ‘we know what you said’. And a complaint was made about this. And shrugged off. And it the complaint was made in writing. And nothing was heard of it again.

So there has been another meeting, and the Six (or more) have been told that they should all play nice, and they have been given a definition of what is bullying and they are going to be given a notice board where they can make suggestions to the general environment of the place. And have in some way been made to feel that they really shouldn’t have bothered important people with such crassness, after the all the fact that we have a policy is enough, to have to implement it well that is just going to far. So given the anti-bullying policy seems to be utterly pointless, nobody is expecting much from the noticeboard.

But assurances have been made; such that some of the chairs which they sit on all day, aren’t appropriate, in fact they are broken. They don’t adjust, they have wheels missing and have repeatedly complained that these chairs are at best against health & safety requirements… and nothing has been done about it. They have been assured, that this is to be addressed. But don’t hold your breathe.

And the hypocrisy is that not long ago £1000.00 was found for some bar code scanners for a senior member of the team and his colleagues as it is considered to onerous a task for them to type in an 8 digit number a dozen times a day. But we can’t provide chairs for our data entry clerks with the traditional number of working legs. And the hypocrisy is that after all the screaming and tantrums and threats and anti-bullying policy waving, nothing has happened, expect the victims have been told to get one with anybody and everybody and one of the perps has a nice new job. That sour taste, is the gall rising.