Reinforcing Maintaining toxicity harmony
When asked about the workplace culture Charlotte Kok so carefully cultivates, the Client Success Executive of Findex – Crowe pauses only briefly before shrugging, “My people remain alert to my personal vendettas and ever ready for their special journeys whatever the vicissitudes of corporate payback machination may demand. They understand what is required. Most do… eventually.
“I have trained them well.”
A tilt of the head.
“Of course, one must be precise about terminology. ‘Harmony’ is so often misunderstood. It is not the absence of tension – no, that would suggest passivity. And passivity breeds drift.
“Harmony, properly comprehended, is simply quashing objection before it can even raise its head the absence of discord.”
But some have described your workplace as “toxic”
“I observed in my opening monologue of this series that detractors are simply part of the landscape when one – like me – reaches Elite Altitude. Adjectives like “toxic” are always bandied by those who find themselves on the receiving end of my displeasure … misaligned with expectations.
“They confuse outcome with process. An unfortunate, but common, error.
“For those who require reminding, Elite Altitude is the culmination of many years of effecting my personal agenda corporate experience, combined with the lessons in psychological domination of life, getting even the universe and everything that enhances my position. It is a place where decisions are made without the encumbrance of conscience hesitation, and where outcomes are rigged never subject to negotiation.
“It is, in short, a place of perfect alignment.”
A faint smile from Charlotte.
“The number, I can reassure you, is emphatically 42.”
Editor’s Note
Our inimitable Charlotte is referencing Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, dear readers.
In that work, Adams introduces the Babel fish – an organism which, when placed in the ear, allows its host to understand any language instantly.
It would appear that Charlotte has inserted the Babel fish into her ear.
However, even with the removal of all barriers to communication – and as a consequence, misunderstanding – disharmony is, strangely, at a peak.
But according to Charlotte, her people understand her perfectly.
And harmony is at its zenith.
But let’s get back to the conversation, shall we?
42 – would that be the number of scalps you have taken?
“I find that sort of phrasing tells us rather more about the question than the answer.
“I don’t ‘take scalps’.
“I set traps direction.
“I set impossible standards.
“I set false expectations.
“So that failure the result is inevitable for the one I want to be rid of.”
Pause.
“Others determine, in their own time, whether they are capable of meeting them.”
And those who cannot?
“They contribute to harmony in other ways.
“The number, I can reassure you, again, is emphatically not 42. Though I appreciate your acknowledgement of the pathology effectiveness of my Wicked Winning Ways.”
Editor’s Soliloquy
Thus Charlotte weaves her way between harmony and… toxicity.
To whom, one wonders, are we to extend the benefit of the doubt – or for that matter, our credulity? Has Charlotte indeed established harmony within her team? Perhaps even beyond – across Findex-Crowe? What would her detractors say?
The cynic amongst us might observe, There are no detractors left!
And so, at the zenith of harmony – there is no one remaining to disagree.
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