Retaliation?

For the first time in my life I was off work on medical leave. Prior to that time, I do not believe I had ever been off work sick for more than two or maybe three consecutive days at the most. So after a month off, I went back to work on 26 June 2013 and was told I was going to to work for Dan Wilson. OK, Fine.

Not unreasonably Wilson wanted to speak to my former supervisors as he hadn’t been briefed about what I had done before, so he met with Dzuro and Baldini and Dudley.

Wait a minute, why did Micheal Dudley have to turn up? A good question, but never mind….

Dudley began by asking what the meeting was about, and upon being told it was about my being reassigned, he proceeded to pitch a hissy fit about how the Director (Stefanovic) never told him anything.

Dudley, however, knew exactly why the meeting had been called. His reproval was therefore a phenomenon most professional investigators encounter quite frequently. It is what we call a misrepresentation of the facts. A terminological inexactitude if you prefer, or a falsehood.

An untruth.

Even just an outright lie.

How do we know?  Interestingly enough; Dzuro (who was present but elected not to say anything at the time) went back and told Dan Wilson afterwards. Dudley’s performance was all an act.

Not content with investing yet another excuse to vent his ire against his boss, Dudley then launched into a tirade about Dan Wilson’s new unit; the Proactive Investigations Unit.

As Dan rightly pointed out, everyone is entitled to an opinion but it is hardly professional to criticise senior management decisions in public, particularly as Dudley did it “with such vile.”  Oddly enough, Dudley seems to do this quite frequently, but in his case, it is somehow tolerated.

Now, I cannot speak for others, but as an investigator, I have had interviewees lying to me all the time, and that is something I was content to deal with. What I do not tolerate with quite the same degree of charity, is mendacity on the part of “professional” colleagues.

Investigators who worked for me and lied to me, never got the opportunity to work for me twice; and investigators who had lied to anyone I knew never got the opportunity to work for me once.   Dan “the Ethics Expert” Wilson did not seem to mind this dishonesty, and Dzuro does not have a problem being loyal to a dishonest boss either, so it is perhaps useful that the UN does not have a ‘zero tolerance’ policy on lying to ones colleagues.

The reason I had had to be reassigned to Dan Wilson’s unit stemmed from that famous PIP, so Dan asked if he could see it.

Dudley told him there was no PIP, and everything was in my Appraisal.  Oh really? Technically, that reply could be parsed in such a way as no to be considered incorrect – but it was the draft that caused the trouble and if that was indicative of what they considered I had done wrong poorly. The document could easily have been given to him, but Dudley would not allow it.

Never mind, if everything was in my Annual Appraisal, and Dan was now my Supervisor, he asked for a copy of that. What could possibly be wrong with that?

Dudley insisted it would be “inappropriate” for him – as my new Supervisor – to see the Appraisal that my previous Supervisors had written about me.

How does that make sense?

The meeting wasn’t really a constructive one, it was the sort of hatefest that would scare the living daylights of a bunch of ISIS hardliners.

Dudley and Baldini were not exactly diffident with their invective, but it would have been useful if they had been able to explain the reason for their hostility in terms of something relating to what I was actually employed to do….. Instead, they provided an insight into the OIOS psyche. My greatest sin, it seemed, was that I had “spoken to Florin Postica”.

…OMG!…… imagine that!

How DARE he!  The swine!

As far as Dudley and his clique were concerned, the simple act of engaging in conversation with Florin Postica was far more serious than making a complete mess of an OIOS investigation (like the Hashimi case, or Lubbad or any number of others. Speaking to Florin Postica was far more serious than murder, treason and arson in Royal Naval Dockyard combined.  Speaking to Florin Postica was far more serious than sending a psychotic serial killer on murderous rampage through a maternity ward, with a chainsaw in one hand, an axe in the other and a petrol bomb under his arm.

At that stage, even if they knew absolutely nothing about the history that was exposed in hearing in the Nguyen-Kropp & Postica case, most people would probably have the brains to realise they had stumbled on something of a vendetta here.  Even overlooking Michael Dudley’s tantrum and his complaining about the Director, anyone in a managerial position might even consider it just a tad suspicious that nobody could explain what exactly I had done that they claimed was wrong, but Dudley was insisting that the PIP no longer existed, and that my new supervisor should not see my Annual Appraisal for the last year….

Dan “the Ethics Expert” Wilson, however, knew the way to promotion in the UN involved the willing suspension of disbelief, and doing precisely what your boss wanted, without actually using your head.

The hostility demonstrated in that meeting raises a couple of mildly interesting questions:

  1. Why would Michael Dudley lie about not being told what the meeting was about?
  2. Why would Dudley not want Dan Wilson to see the (draft) PIP?
  3. What was in my Annual Appraisal that Dudley did not want Dan Wilson to see?
  4. Why was Florin Postica so important?
  5. Who cares if I did speak to him?
  6. What could I possibly have told him that was so serious?
  7. Why did Dan Wilson not just ask me for a copy of either the PIP, or my Annual Appraisal?
  8. How was Dan Wilson going to understand why I was asking for answers to questions if he did not see what had caused me to ask them? and
  9. When was Dan Wilson going to realise that there was something very suspicious going on here?

The answer to question 9, of course, was “never.”  Dan’s objective was to be the Director of the Ethics Office, so why would be jeapardise that by taking a stand on a simple question of ethics?  You can go far in life by being deaf, dumb and stupid, and nothing was further from Dan’s mind than the concept of “retaliation”.

 

Unperturbed by any of this, Dan received the first complaint against me the very next day.