the hammer drops

This blog has been in play for some months to gain the full story go to left hand side blog archive go to bottom post and read upwards




Approximately two or three weeks later on a Sunday evening (I worked a rotating shift of four ten hour days Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday) at approximately 7 p.m. I was called into a meeting with my Team Manager, Shaun HouIt to be presented with a retrospective of my performance over the previous four or so months in minutiae.

I was admonished for such pedantic things as being in a work email for eight seconds as I was talking to a customer.

I jokingly quipped "so I can multitask, that’s a asset isn’t it" I got a frosty reply .

I thought these people can’t be serious; this is micro management in the extreme, widely recognized as form of work place bullying. WTF

I informed Shaun in no uncertain terms, and with some colorful language of my concerns, as I was quite frankly, incensed.

I then left the office and the site telling Shaun I was in no state to be talking to customers.

I took the next two days off.

I expressed in an email to Bridgette Dalzell,
that I felt I was being ambushed
and that at most I had 90 days left in the company.

her reply

Bridgette DalzellSubject: RE: Investigation Meeting
Sent Tuesday, 14 April 2009 4:04 p.m.

Hi Paul,

Thank you for advising me that you are well enough to work on your Doctors advice.

I have advised Peter Cooper-Davies today that Telecom will be sending you another invite to an investigation meeting only.

You requested certain documentation from Telecom last week, reattached is the email from Michelle Young with the information that you required.

It is your personal opinion only that this meeting is a prelude to an ambush Paul. I hold Michelle and Shaun's ethics in high regard and I am fully confident that the correct process has been followed so far.

yeah right bridgette


Latter in this sad story I will show you that her confidence was ill founded and her ethics will come under scrutiny too.

So it was perfectly clear now what their intent was.

To come down this heavy, it had to be at Bridgette's wish passed on to Michelle
or Michelle's wish supported by Bridgette,
since Shaun had inadvertently mentioned THAT he was just following instructions.

ALSO Bridgette had expressed in an open forum of team leaders, “that no way is redundancy going to be an option” This I had/have been made aware of.

So was I being set up?

Ask yourself ?



I felt on the drive home that my time with the company was going to be severely limited, so what now ?

I set my mind to ways to trap them in their lies and behaviors, to show what was really going on, and thus extend my time in work

To be treated this way after 39 years was not justified and plain unfair ,these are people that should be helping me but they lacked the guts or the moral fortitude

Remember all that bullshit "we are all one team" have integrity, honesty, '' be spirited' grounded, blah blah and management were the people shoving it down our throats.

Here IS the reality.

What do you think of their actions now?

Well all, as you can see, when push came to shove, they stumbled at the first hurdle. Surprise, Surprise


So eventually I managed to last another eight and half months, had some perverse pleasure misdirecting them, probing them, getting angry with them, getting frustrated with them, frustrating them in return at times it was heart breaking and just plain sad.

What a sick place to work when they treat people like this.

I lost respect for the whole place and most of the people in it

As it became known what was happening ,very very few showed me any concern with regard to what was transpiring.

The ones that did earned my eternal gratitude and respect they showed their true character

The rest to me, are just shallow hollow individuals, not even worth my pity

I wonder what life values,they pass on to their kids

Hope their kids enjoyed their Christmas presents.

Did mummy or daddy tell you they earn their thirty shekels that brought them, unfairly sacking people. Doesn't matter, lets sing a lovely Christmas song, and we will all go to church so you know the real meaning of Christmas

Did you know that right from the outset their demeanor , their attitude ,their failure to answer our/my questions indicated to me, they where just following a process on someone instructions.

And as you will see later, with the complicit help of HR, pushing me down a path to the exit door

All the while I was watching and waiting for them to make mistakes.

Which they did.

Did any of you people from work .that are reading this blog, know that they read your personal emails.

Yeap they do including the ones you send home.

I asked my mate Nigel to pretend to be my lawyer which he was happy to assist with

I get an email from Bridgette asking for confirmation that he "Nigel" is my lawyer

refer below
Now she may have a legal right to read the email, I do not believe in law, she has the right to act on it, that's illegal.

She has definitely no right in law to act on private information, that to all intents and purposes is between my self and my "lawyer", even thought he was my pretend "lawyer"

In her mind by asking for confirmation that, he "Nigel " was my lawyer, she is of the perception, at that point in time that he is an actual lawyer


So going back to telecoms code of ethics do you think she should retain her job.


From: Bridgette Dalzell [mailto:Bridgette.Dalzell@telecom.co.nz] Sent: Monday, 6 April 2009 11:26 a.m.To: Paul McleodCc: nigel dick; Bridgette DalzellSubject: RE: breach of verbal agreement

Thanks for coming back to me so quickly Paul.

Can you please confirm that your lawyer is Nigel Dick and can you please confirm the correct contact details.

Now this is not a good look is it?

Not her best effort I am afraid.

Did you know that in one of their "bootcamps", they where instructed to get rid of the wheat from the chaff, so to speak by any means possible and they would get the full backing of telecom.

I have no issue with that, however it should be done on performance, we should all be rated against our peers.

If it can shown that my performance was lacking "against my peers" than that would be fair, but no I didn't even get that, they used "privacy issues" to prevent it.

I'm not the best on site anymore, but I'm not the worst by a long shot. About 30-50 people should have followed me out the door if they had used fair criteria

In life you don't get justice you get the law, in Telecom I once thought it was a goldmine but I ended up with the shaft

Yeap, we are all one team yeah right .
This is telecom fair and balanced yeah right.

I also did lots of other things which annoyed the hell of some people but they achieved the purpose I set out to achieve.

Sorry to be obtuse, but if you look at the whole picture, you may just perceive the actual intent.
Tell you what if someone guesses it I will confirm it.

You can gather from the tone of this email my "disgust meter" was fill to overflowing.

Go figure.

Would yours be?




Current telecom participants
Bridgette Dalzell current head of outsourced customer care at telecom New Zealand whom is Michelle Young's direct report at time of incident
Michelle Young call center manager Hamilton call center, whom is Shaun Hoults direct report at time of incidents

Shaun Hoult team manager weekend team Sat-Tues Hamilton

Iain Galloway HR representative spends a lot of time in Hamilton