The Survey

When your life goes to the shit in a big dramatic way, its normal to spend many sleepless nights and anxious days trying to pinpoint where it all went wrong. Despite being an extraordinary boy, I am also an ordinary boy, thus not immune to introspective moments in the aftermath of my surprisingly frequent life implosions. After everything went to hell in a hand basket at KRONOS, I needed answers. In an attempt to understand what had happened, and to get a bigger picture perspective, I decided to survey former co-workers.

I went all scientific on it, designed a questionnaire and asked many of my former co-workers to fill it out. I can be quite impressive when I am focused, and honestly if I could more productively direct my focus, I would be unstoppable. I believe my focus was productive in this instance, no regrets on this one, but if I could bring that kind of A game to other areas of my life, I would be a total Alpha. Anyhoo, most of the people I asked to participate refused. You could smell the fear oozing from their pores. Did you know that fear sweat smells different? Fear sweat is biologically different to everyday sweat, the specifics briefly evade me, but animals and people with sensitive noses can literally smell your fear. A former co-worker of mine had a super sensitive nose. She could smell diabetics, hemochromatosis, testosterone and genuinely frightened people. It sounds like bullshit, but her track record was impressive and the medical nature of pathology means it was often appropriate to ask the kinds of questions that would confirm what her nose already knew.

I asked 30 people to fill out my questionnaire, only 6 agreed. That was the culture of fear that KRONOS had created. The vast majority of people were too scared to speak out of line, even anonymously. Of those that did participate, here are the stats. The 6 participants had a combined 39 years at KRONOS. I asked these employees to score KRONOS on a standard 1-10 scale, 1 being the lowest, 10 being the highest.

I asked how happy they currently were within the company. The average score rating was 4.3/10. Out of the 6 staff who participated, ‘Do you feel like your treated with respect?’ was answered no by 5, with the sixth answering respect?

When they were asked what three words, they would use to describe KRONOS’s culture the responses were more than concerning. (Editor’s note: Scientists weep. Our boy hero is a natural born social butterfly but he lacks the detached savagery for the world of science. It’s a genuine problem in the social sciences, and causes quite a lot of conflict when it comes to the reporting of social issues. It’s the facts vs feels dilemma. Feelings and concern matter, but nothing cuts as brutally and effectively as blunt science, and nothing triggers the predator in an opponent quite like blurring the line between the two) Words such as condescending, uncommunicative, discouraging, bullying, secretive, biased were used. (Editor's note: poor communication can be reasonably objectively measured and bullying can be legally defined).

When asked what is the least satisfying thing about your job? The answers were: Not getting enough praise or recognition, not being listened too, the inflexibility of the company, dealing with certain management and people in training positions.

When asked, simply, how do you want to be rewarded by KRONOS for your years of dedication, the clear answer was: financially in the form of pay rise, but also recognition for work well done, rather than focusing on punishing unintentional mistakes. Acknowledgement of a job well done, should be a no-brainer, but for some reason, people with no brains are deeply resistant to acknowledging the effort of others. (Editor's note: Here we see a universal truth. Well adjusted, intelligent people with good social competence recognise and acknowledge others. Insecure people with power issues and victim complexes either fail to notice the good in anyone but themselves or deliberately withhold praise from others as a way to keep others powerless.)

When asked: ‘hypothetically if you were going to quit tomorrow what would your reason be?’ Unequivocally the answer was David Brent. When I asked their general views on their supervisor David Brent, the following quotes speak for themselves. ‘She has something very wrong with her, she's damaged’. ‘I think David Brent is out of her depth, she has very little management skills...encouragement is not a word I think that David Brent knows the meaning of’. Another staff member had no words to describe the pain they had felt from David Brents wrath, rather they just shook their head in utter bewilderment that David Brent was still in the position that she was in.

When the questions turned to the training department, the tone of the responses remained negative. The question was asked ‘do you think the training department while being a great training source, treats new employees like children with a go fetch mentality?’ The answers were a very clear yes. ‘the training department treat us though we all have a low mentality; it can be quite rude at times. ‘The training department is ridiculously patronising and treats employees like they are retarded children’. ‘If they had a naughty corner, I should imagine it would be very busy’.

Other stand out quotes from the interviewing process go a little along the lines of ‘I feel the morale has always been quite low, pay rates suck, you can’t have holidays when you want. Inflexibility when it comes to personal issues and needing time off, never being congratulated on a job well done. Always feeling that when upper management come to see you that you are in trouble, which you usually are’.

‘The only recognition you will get from managers or supervisors is when you make a mistake or do something wrong, I don't think I have ever been told I was doing a good job’.

‘Have any of us been treated fairly with the company? Only the chosen few. Overall they have been ok with me as long as I do not cause any trouble and keep my nose to the grindstone’.

‘I do not like the bullying culture the company encourages. I feel very saddened by the treatment some of my fellow staff members receive and the lack of positive reinforcements. I hate the lying and deceiving and controlling nature that management seem to think is a normal way to treat their staff. The company expects loyalty from their staff, but do not believe in giving it in return’.

‘I feel that it is certain management personalities that have caused the mentality problems in the company. If bullying starts at the top it will filter all the way down to the bottom’.

‘I have continually seen many people treated unfairly, from bullying to lack of support, to unfairness in job selection, to being lied to, to rostering (both in the hours and travel) to secrecy, manipulation, not being paid accordingly. If you take on any position in this company above being a collector you will be constantly told to not talk about certain things and to keep secrets.

‘KRONOS does have the respect of the industry and their collection staff are a hell of a lot better trained than most other places. It's not the company that's messed up, it’s that they have some poisonous dead wood scattered about. They don’t always promote or recognise the right people and they sometimes reward shitty behaviour. There is not a lot of incentive for good people to do better when they are expected to carry others being paid the same amount to do less than their share of work’.

‘It is an inherently unfair system where the wrong people are placated...it's very dog eats dog...I have seen a lot of unfairness and I copped a hell of a lot in the beginning’.

I was attempting to understand what had happened to me and why. The problem is I was hurting very badly and had a very clear agenda when seeking other people’s opinions. It is called confirmation bias. The way the questions were worded directed the responses. The people who responded were aware of the situation, aware what I was seeking, and thus were predisposed towards certain answers.

Whilst in no way denying the above problems do exist within KRONOS, polling a group of people who agreed to participate because they were feeling bitter or angry does not create generalisable data. Once I sent out the surveys, the tide turned quite badly. Prior to the surveys, most people liked me and felt bad for my circumstances. Once I sent out the surveys, those who declined to participate did not throw them away, they showed the surveys to others and people who previously were on my side started talking about how ‘I needed to just get over it’ and that ‘they proved the right in firing me’ and those who didn’t get on with, gloated.

When you are down and vulnerable, the worst thing you can do is to allow your enemies to see your vulnerability. The worst thing you can do is to ask others to take sides. Quinn lost every friend she had and the respect of everyone when she tried to control the narrative about her fight with Buddy. I lost allies when I asked people to give me ammunition in my fight against KRONOS, at massive risk to themselves. I’m not saying it’s never OK to be vulnerable, or to seek reassurance, but in a dog eat dog world, and make no mistake we do live in a dog eat dog world, putting on a public show of indifference can be a far more powerful weapon against your enemies.