Harassment Tactics

[TJOnline]

Hey everyone,

Just joining this board. I've been out of the community for far too long. I'd like to share a personal horror story with others in Georgia to see if anyone else has been hit with similar tactics. I was recently kicked out of a 15 year Georgia Tech career as a research engineer. Word apparently got around that I was a smoker and a gang of co-workers would do things like cough, rattle their keys, leave suggestive objects around for me to see, or sniff or suck air through their teeth when they would pass my office door or pass me in the hall. I caught one of them in the act:

http://www.afafa.org/Office1.mpg

When I would confront them, they would just pretend innocence and go right on doing it. Took the matter to management and was told that I was being paranoid. Eventually, management demanded that I enter into continuing psychiatric treatment and sign a waiver giving GT the right to talk to the shrink. I said no way to that and was terminated. No psych history. No criminal history. Lawyers said that their behaviors didn't qualify as harassment or that I didn't get enough proof. Management wouldn't investigate. I never told anyone in the workplace that I was a smoker. I eventually found that there's a whole lot more going on than just the workplace thing. Now I'm an activist.

You can read more about it here:

http://afafa.org (Please consider signing one or both petitions, because you could be next)

Has anyone else gotten treatment like that in the workplace or in public?

Anyway, glad youall are out there. If youall have a social in the near future, I'd like to pop by, if I may. I'm in the Decatur, Georgia area.

Ted

TJOnline Reviewed by TJOnline on 10-17-2006. Harassment Tactics Hey everyone, Just joining this board. I've been out of the community for far too long. I'd like to share a personal horror story with others in Georgia to see if anyone else has been hit with similar tactics. I was recently kicked out of a 15 year Georgia Tech career as a research engineer. Word apparently got around that I was a smoker and a gang of co-workers would do things like cough, rattle their keys, leave suggestive objects around for me to see, or sniff or suck air through their Rating: 5

[Hamlet]

Sorry dude, but everything I've seen looks like paranoid psychosis to me. If coworkers were harrassing me they would get it right back, or their ass whupped in the parking lot.

Why spend your life looking over your shoulder in fear? Tell them to go fuck themselves, and if they're feeling sneeky, let them sneek around all they want. It's better than fretting about it.

[birdgirl73]

TJOnline, I've got to agree with Hamlet. It does sound like you were being paranoid, even if your coworkers were behaving in a strange fashion toward you. And frankly, your AAFA Web site just confirms that impression of paranoia. Does that organization support the wearing of foil hats to protect from unwanted "surveillance" into their brains?

Have you ever run into situations like this before where you felt that your colleagues were out to get you or targeting you for some questionable reason? It might indeed be worth being evaluated by someone with professional credentials just to see where you stand psychologically.

[josh180]

maybe someone you know that knows you smoke knows someone at your work and told them I got a friend that works there to and he smokes buds. You know how people love to gossip. Just a thought

[Breukelen advocaat]

You ought to try working every day in a terrorist-threatened area or building. Maybe then you'll realize that a sneeze is just a sneeze, LOL.

At your next job, if you have a similar problem, see a shrink or let them put you in the bughouse for a while rather than get fired.

[TJOnline]

Thanks for the responses.

Hamlet, if I had created a scene, it would have just resulted in either termination or a demand to see the shrink that much more quickly. They were TRYING to induce a fight. Management used my much more diplomatic efforts to answer their antics as the basis for the demand to enter into psychiatric treatment. They had no real issue with my job performance or behavior, so they ganged up to create a slim pretext. GT is apparently determined to clear its offices of smokers like me. If I were a bar tender, I'm sure it never would have been an issue.

Just look at the video. He coughs right as he passes my door. I wouldn't have gone to the trouble and risk to capture it on tape, if he and others hadn't been exhibiting similarly obnoxious behaviors for weeks before that. At least you can see that what I was reacting to wasn't simply imagined.

As far as my AFAFA site goes, I'm sure that it would seem to the casual observer as being paranoid delusions. That just goes with the territory. The techniques (including the group pressure tactics in the workplace) are designed to seem in the reporting like paranoid delusions. And obviously, that aspect worked on you guys. Noone believes in them until they're hit by them. The sorts of harassments I described at AFAFA have been in use for decades. Gloria Naylor, author of The Women of Brewster Place, is also a targeted individual, one of many that I have met. Recently, she wrote '1996' describing her experiences. Ted Gunderson, former agent in charge of the Los Angeles field office of the FBI, is another targeted individual, one whom I have met. Julianne McKinney, another targeted individual and a member of the Association of National Security Alumni, is also an acquaintance. We're doing our best to lobby for exposure of the harassment techniques described at AFAFA and for laws protecting citizens from them. But our government is at least as determined to keep them.

Anyway, I'm glad to see that your average smoker isn't getting pounded with those sorts of harassments (workplace and otherwise). But if any of you ever are, you'll know where to begin to look for some answers. All the best.

[TJOnline]

I offer any of you this challenge. Study my Close Encounters analysis carefully, then watch the movie with it in mind. I think you'll see what Spielberg was up to. He uses allegory (and the aliens phenomenon) to marry inferences to sins, crimes and trangressions to some aspects of clandestine harassment. Ask yourself why Spielberg would include a moment with the Neary son whacking a baby doll (a symbol of his little sister) on the side of a crib, lines like "Just breathe deep and everything will look real pretty", "Let's watch the Ten Commandments!", "You're in the middle of the road, jackass", "M-Mary-10" while a leafy shadow appears upon a map, etc. etc.. Then ask yourself why "Where did the voices come from", Pinnochio metaphors, a train wreck metaphor, "Following traffic to destination", "Teach music to the deaf", "I've got you on my super video detecto set!", "Now I use my secret weapon" and other suggestive lines.

Why do Spielberg and other 'insiders' they do that at all? Because they believe in it. Why do they always do it allegorically? To avoid an outright admission (and a trail of responsibility) on anyone's part. The technologies and techniques of clandestine harassment are precious to some. The moment they become public knowledge, they begin to lose their effectiveness. Clandestine harassment is a paranoia game that relies on shock and awe (and fear). It is a game that is several decades old.

Believe what you wish, but I know what I'm talking about.

[Hamlet]

Why would your employer insist you see a shrink instead of sending you for a piss test and fire you for failing, if they wanted to get rid of you? The only rationale I can make out of it is that they really didn't care if you toked or not (because they probably do themselves?), and they were trying to be somewhat compassionate maybe?

But maybe my social-economic group just does things differently. Instead of video taping the dude, if he was harassing me, I would have marched him back into my office and had a little chat with him. People only dish out shit to those willing to put up with it.

As far as Spielberg goes, I love him. He gets off on making sly references to films that have influenced him, etc. But as far as him being clued into some clandestined conspiracy, I'm highly skeptical.

You said it yourself though. If there is some monkey business going on, it's only power is shock, awe and fear. You've got to learn the power of 'not giving a shit' what some sneeky asshole is up to, man. By doing so you've completely incapacitated any power they have over you. And if it is just paranoia, think of all the energy you've wasted fretting about nothing when there are very real problems in life to be dealt with.

Conspiracies are fun and mysterious for sure. But I've never known of anyone shrewd, resourceful and intelligent enough to actually pull a good one off. And even if they could, what would be the point?

[TJOnline]

Hamlet,

Why would your employer insist you see a shrink instead of sending you for a piss test and fire you for failing, if they wanted to get rid of you? The only rationale I can make out of it is that they really didn't care if you toked or not (because they probably do themselves?), and they were trying to be somewhat compassionate maybe?

Why not insist on a test? Good question. They had no wreckless, lazy or substandard performance criteria to act as a pretext and they may have been loath to be seen forcing a research faculty member to be tested willy nilly. I was being harassed at home and elsewhere since well before that final few months and had already had published AFAFA and shown it to other employees there, so management MAY have been clueless about the issues raised there (and the harassers' behavior) and thought me looney and just handled the situation unfairly. I managed two laboratories and a couple of small radioactive sources, which may have been a contributing factor as far as the feds are concerned (get that smoker AWAY from those NOW). But I think most likely is that management was knowledgeable about the harassment and was determined to turn a blind eye to it and to allow it to play itself out to its inevitible conclusion (a fork, as they say in chess). According to the 'signs' I was getting in the workplace and in public, far more provocative things than just pot smoking were being whispered about too. But there was no way to answer or resolve them.

But maybe my social-economic group just does things differently. Instead of video taping the dude, if he was harassing me, I would have marched him back into my office and had a little chat with him. People only dish out shit to those willing to put up with it.

Believe me, dude, I tried. But they would just pretend ignorance, paste an innocent smile on their faces and suggest that I was being paranoid. Part of the game. But you're right - having a research faculty position as I did, at that level things usually have to be handled diplomatically. Things like fist fights in a parking lot definitely are not tolerated, though you can be SURE that I amused myself with the thought many times while under the pressure.

As far as Spielberg goes, I love him. He gets off on making sly references to films that have influenced him, etc. But as far as him being clued into some clandestined conspiracy, I'm highly skeptical.

At least you have an understanding that 'sly references' are part of modern filmmaking. That's the basis of how he and many of his peers go about it. He also mocks and teases people on an individual basis. Even so, I like him too. I just hate clandestine harassment and am disappointed by arch conservatives who support it. Your skepticism is quite understandable. With all due respect, it is as though you are looking at a page of text written in Spanish. You have never learned a word of Spanish, so all you see in the text is some incomprehensible gibberish. I suggest that you learn Spanish, but that would take weeks of hard work before you could begin to read it. Who could expect you to go to the trouble of learning Spanish? You have little to gain as far as you can tell. At least take my introductory class and read my web page! :-)

You said it yourself though. If there is some monkey business going on, it's only power is shock, awe and fear. You've got to learn the power of 'not giving a shit' what some sneeky asshole is up to, man. By doing so you've completely incapacitated any power they have over you. And if it is just paranoia, think of all the energy you've wasted fretting about nothing when there are very real problems in life to be dealt with.

You're partially right. Group pressure tactics have only so much power and one CAN learn to submerge the Freudian 'id' and not react. We're all programmed to respond to a perceived aggression (particularly males) and it takes a LOT of self discipline to do so. As you yourself suggested, one's knee-jerk emotional response is to take them out and kick their ass. But there are other tactics too that noone can simply rise above. Migraine induction, getting mocked around the clock while at home, deprived of sleep, etc. With time and persistence, they can drive just about anyone batty.

Conspiracies are fun and mysterious for sure. But I've never known of anyone shrewd, resourceful and intelligent enough to actually pull a good one off. And even if they could, what would be the point?

The point? Dude, there are plenty of conservative and evangelical types out there who would like nothing more than to see you rotting in a grave just for smoking pot (much less sharing it with someone else). Spielberg and others have done a superb job of inculcating the public with the notion that those tactics are for use against predators and evil people - real dangers to society. But once you're a target of such techniques, it's too late to ask why you've been thrust into 'the pit' - the game has already begun and the only direction available... is down. No courts, no lawyers, no self defense. No nothing. Just pain. Unless you choose to obey without question.

[Hamlet]

Obviously TJ you're an extremely intelligent individual. Research Engineer? Geez, in a battle of wits with you I'm an unarmed man. (I do speak a little Spanish though..lol)

So maybe I can put your mind to work in helping me figure this all out. Seems I'm surrounded by people with psychosis issues. My brother-in-law informed me he is, in fact, the reincarnation of St. Peter. --could be worse. (At least he's not Jesus I guess.) But anyway, he's absolutely convinced the Government is putting spyware on his computer every time it goes on the glitch. The careflight hospital helicopter is flying over to watch him, etc.. The whirring of my ceiling fan is actually a frequency sound 'brainwasher'..(or something like that) No amount of talking to him, or evidence would ever convince him otherwise. He spends most of his waking hours obsessing on reasons why this is all true. What would you tell someone like this?

Check out the Politics forum. We have people who believe Illuminati are really reptilian aliens and every single thing imaginable, from dates to pictures on money are all part of some gigantic evil scheme.

What can you say to someone when you see they're living their lives drowning in suspicion and fear for no real reason whatsoever? It reminds me of when I was a kid, hiding under the covers at night, horrified of the imaginary monsters. I can understand how tormented they must be and it bothers me that there's nothing I can say to convince them to pull the covers back, face the darkness, and realize what they're afraid of just isn't there.

You've probably got an IQ like a phone number and there's no way in hell my meager little brain is going to be able to 'out reason' you on such matters. I'm foolish for even trying but it's tough for me to stand by and watch a life turn into a trainwreck when it's so unnecessary.

You're a scientist, right? Couldn't you apply Occam's Razor, or some sort of scientific logic to your beliefs to test their validity? Doesn't your research training demand that you question, and requestion your own conclusions?