POST NUMBER WHATEVER on June 28 2014. A LOT has happened since my position was eliminated from Goodwill of Orange County about 5 weeks aqo. The topics today are feelings and fear.

This will kinda be a random mish-mash of thoughts and feelings and realizations for the past 10 days or so.

FEELINGS AND OBSERVATIONS:  

• I feel like I can't ever go into a Goodwill store, or won't, for a long time.
• I feel grateful that I have a lot of my ex-coworkers' personal emails and personal phone numbers, just to keep in touch. BUT I NOTICED when I called a coworker the other day, we chatted, then he had to get off the phone  after 10 minutes because he was concerned that someone would hear him talking to me.
• I feel like I can't look at any Goodwill Facebook stuff without thinking of being there or thinking of my friendly coworker Joe. I also can't get my mind into the 'Find The Good' in the Goodwill marketing, not just because he created it, but because it was true. WAS true. I've tried to find the good. It's not there anymore. It's not Goodwill anymore, it's GoodGrief. (ala Charlie Brown)
• I do NOT feel that the current organization is the 'we' or 'my' Goodwill that I felt before; I feel it's taken on a totally different personality, like when a person has a brain disease and changes from a loving, benevolent, empathic, sensitive and kind person to a malicious, vindictive, bullying and unfair entity. 
• I feel there was (and still is) no 'open door policy' anymore (except MAYBE in one or two departments): either the manager doesn't want to listen and shoos you out, or they're too busy. Time was we could walk into any manager's or Senior Leadership office and be listened to, even intra-departmental. Now, absolutely NOT. The thought is that if you're seeing this manager/senior leadership person, you're not going thru channels and are now considered a 'loose cannon'. The thought is that if you just go down to chat, you're not doing your job and so are expendable.
• I feel as my hubs does, that we'll find somewhere else to donate our items, since the Human Services Division's Reduction in Force (which laid off my coworkers including myself in that particular Division) means possibly that the thrift store monies won't be going to programs, if they're eliminating the people who RUN the programs behind the scenes. 
• I feel that for mgmt to go over budget for 2 years in a row and to make the Human Services/Education, Training and Employment Division cut back so terribly much, well, it speaks of bad internal management. Our Division had a budget: a budget of income, expenses, etc that everyone agreed on. All of a sudden in May, 5 people BOOM were let go from my department. So if the budget was so good and approved in December 2013, and we had to keep to it, what specifically did the Division spend to necessitate the laying off of my department's employees? The savings ended up to be I figure approximately $11,000 per month, or $75,000 total for the 7 months left to the year. Who was tracking fiscally and decided that these people had to go IMMEDIATELY? Others in the Division had been let go/quit since December 2013 and that added up to a nice chunk of change TOO, I figure to the tune of $24,000 per month or $165,000 for the 7 months until the end of the year. These employees were in different departments within the Human Services Division and had left at different times from December 2013 until May, so there were additional expense savings during the first 5 months of 2014 because those positions were never replaced. Hmmm, I figure that total of savings for the next 7 months is appx $240,000, JUST for those 7 months and not the whole year. WHAT did the Human Services Division DO to warrant this housecleaning? Did the Board of Directors and whoever, if anyone, is supposed to keep track of expenditures and overages, do so? I fear not. I feel that Goodwill of Orange County is VERY selective whose departments' expenditures they track. If the Board implemented some sort of internal thing, it's too little, too late. 
• FEAR is running the organization. Fear of talking even confidentially. During a text, an ex-coworker told me that 'Everyone has been quite shush about what is happening nowadays". When I texted another ex-coworker that my old department area probably seemed like a morgue, they wrote, "I don't even know cause i haven't really been there and i am not allowed there anymore! " When I asked them who decided, they texted, "it was my manager's decision. it's not a secret but only a few people know and i wana keep it that way. I don't want to make a big deal or anyhing... it's supposedly because of <one reason>. But the few people that know don't like it at all. Its actually been going on for a long time. Almost since they started being my boss, but my boss keeps going back and forth on their decision and its annoying! They say that they don't want me to be isolated from the department but doesn't want me to go to my old department area. My manager is a very nice person but I am a person that needs consistency from my boss." My ex-coworker's last text comment on this subject was, "I swear there gona end up fireing everyone and left with no one to do the job." 
• ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF FEAR: when a VP person was let go, he attempted to send an email to certain people to say goodbye and keep in touch. His email address had his name. WITHIN 10 MINUTES, all those emails disappeared within the Global Network of the employees he emailed, even the 'sent' emails that people sent in reply to his farewell email disappeared. Does this strike you as paranoia? 
• I feel senior management is selective in treating their employees to the point of, as they say in prison, 'mad-dogging'. Mad dogging is a term usually used for a type of harassment, but 'harass' is too strong a word. But you'll get the idea regarding how when senior management roams the halls away from their plush comfy caves, the FEELING seems the same. 'Mad-dogging' is a term used in the prison and corrections community, when corrections staff harass inmates to the point of creating non-existent write ups and punishments, plus now having the hopeless feeling of never being listened to, EVER. No more open door policy, you'll just get targeted. As an example, I quote from a website with the definition of 'mad-dogging', "another interesting observation about prison corrections officers is that every institution appears to have one person who was thought of as the "mad dog lieutenant". With a rank of lieutenant, this individual was a member of management, and someone who could act for the warden in the warden’s absence. The mad dog cop would act in seemingly irrational ways and appeared to enjoy harassing inmates with aggressive interrogations followed by a trip to the hole." There is Mad Dog Lieutenant 'MDL'-type person at Goodwill. Harass, however, is too strong of a word, although it could fit for the fear people there have about being seen on camera talking to others. I think that this person is 'rattling the cage', calling employees into the office on the pretext of gathering information, but without the employee's manager knowing about it, and deliberately lying when the employee asks if they're in trouble and answering 'no'. Frankly, if the employee wasn't in trouble, there'd be no reason for this person to be involved, it'd be handled by the manager. This I experienced twice within one week. Up until then I thought I had had a good relationship with them, even assisting with some of the administrative projects that were time-sensitive. After that, however, my dealings with them were in the form of 'gentle grilling' with the undertone of  'If you don't do this, you'll be in bad shape'. Hey, I ended up in bad shape ANYWAY, but by doing as they said, I kept my job for another few months.
• I know that in June 2013 for a Goodwill golf tournament, the press release from Marketing said that proceeds would go to programs for Goodwill, then all of a sudden one week prior to that, it was announced by SENIOR management that the proceeds would go to Enduring Independence aka our Veteran's program. The event I heard netted appx $10,000-$15,000. Where'd that money go?

Here are a few telltale signs of organizational fear:

1. DISTRUST REIGNS: Would this be your knife in my back? When employees have to stop and ask themselves, "Is it safe to tell Marybeth my idea?" you have a fear problem in your organization. 
2. Numbers rule. Sensible performance goals help people understand what's important. An obsession with metrics, daily, weekly, and hourly, and a world view that says an employee is the sum of his numeric goals, are signs of a fear-based culture. 
3. And rules are in the thousands. Maybe the most stereotypical yet valid sign of a fear-based workplace is an overdependence on policies in place of smart hiring and common sense. These organizations fear their own employees' instinctive reactions to everyday circumstances (the need to book a business trip, order a stapler, or schedule a vacation day), so they install lengthy, tedious policies to keep employees from thinking independently. A need to tout the trust and openness in the organization constantly can be another red flag. As someone said, "The more an employer drones on and on in the handbook and other employee materials about trust, the less trusting they are." The policies and procedures are changed constantly, and employees are responsible for them even though there's no notification that there's a new policy. Management's mantra is, "You're responsible for it whether or not you know about it". There is NO excuse for 'not knowing'. 
4. Management considers lateral communication suspect. Evidently sharing ideas and communications in organizations that don't allow employees to communicate openly with one another are places where fear has made inroads.
5. Information is hoarded. Closely related to the question "Can employees in my company chat freely?" is the question "How do people find out how things work around here?" If the sole answer is, "Ask your manager," or people are afraid to be seen talking to you for fear they're giving you some answers that they don't know if they're allowed or not, you've got some creepy-crawly fear bugs on your hands. Cultures that allow people to hoard what they know are cultures where fear has smashed trust under its heel. Likewise, if employees learn about a company layoff through the grapevine or in the newspaper vs. a frank sitdown with their managers and their teams, something is rotten in Denmark, and fear is a silent partner in your management roster.
6. Management leads by fear. When senior leaders make virtually all decisions in secret, dole out information in unhelpful drips, and the PA system all but blares "Be glad to have a job, stop whining, and get back to work," your company's fear problem is off the charts. When leadership is based on keeping people in the dark and keeping them off-balance, no one benefits except the tier of managers near the top who justify their existence by devising ways to solidify their stature.      

WHAT IS FEAR? 

Fear, at a basic physiological level, is the perception (thought or assumption) that an external threat to one’s well being exists.  This in turn mobilizes the body’s “fight or flight” mechanism.  The body’s fight or flight response is activated by the production of large amounts of the hormone adrenaline (the body’s stress hormone).  When experiencing a fear response, people are naturally more likely to exhibit defensive or aggressive behavior.
NOTE: not all of these apply to the organization: I just put them down to get you to think.

THE SYMPTOMS OF FEAR

The symptoms of people experiencing fear responses may be subtle or extreme, and they may manifest themselves at all levels of the organization.  Some common symptoms include:

§         “Us versus them” talk

§         Silence during meetings, but widespread talk outside of meetings

§         Political behavior

§         Rigid interpretation of policies, procedures, and standards

§         Widespread poor morale

§         Resignation, wish for retirement or layoff

§         Resistance to new ideas

§         Competitiveness among employees, management

§         Grievances against co-workers or management

§         External complaints to the media, lawsuits.

§         Overactive rumor mill

§         Lack of input or suggestions for improving working conditions

§         Lowered productivity, increased mistakes/waste

§         Increased absences and tardiness

§         Strained co-worker and/or supervisory relationships

§         Defensiveness regarding performance appraisal

§         Reluctance to admit mistakes

§         Tendency to blame the environment or others for a host of issues

§         Negative attitudes regarding the organization and/or its customers

§         Indecisiveness or reluctance to take risks

§         Over-emphasis on “writing people up”

§         Denial of tensions and conflicts which are at or near the surface

§         Important issues are rendered “undiscussable”
           When you notice that you walk around the other way to avoid going by your bosses' office.

Behaviors which Trigger Fear Responses

Behaviors in organizational leaders and employees which can trigger the development of negative assumptions, which can in turn trigger fear responses include:

§         Interpersonal coldness or abruptness

§         Rude or patronizing behavior

§         Insufficient or careless communication

§         Dismissal or minimization of diverse points of view

§         Delay or total neglect in responding to suggestions

§         Public criticism or ridicule

§         Emotional outbursts

§         Secretive communications

§         Gossip or other means of indirect communication

§         Withholding of important information

§         Staring or other aggressive forms of body language

§         Communication style which is inflexible to the styles of others

§         Failure to provide truthful information

§         Unwillingness to share personal information and experiences

§         Failure to give credit to others

I am not saying that all these attributes all are indicative of the atmosphere at Goodwill, but it does give one pause to think what DOES apply.

The answers to the above? Haven't a clue (ok, I HAVE a clue, but I won't spill it for fear of a lawsuit, and besides, I tend to do little or nothing to things I can or can't control, relying instead on Karma. Hey, karma's been VERY 

good to me!)