Hemi Horror

Hemi Welcome                                                                                                         

In case we haven’t met before, a very warm welcome. If we have, a very warm welcome back.

If we haven’t, I’m a right homonymous hemianopia, naturally hemi for short. My strange name means he can no longer see on my right hemi blank side except for a tiny bit as I’m not rectangular. “He” is the poor unfortunate who was landed with me.

All the hemi detail is in the hemi main story along with 307 hemi images. Paradise Lost 1 is where it all started, in a tiny island in the South Pacific with no medical facilities where fate gave him a brain abscess and me, ending up by winning him the jackpot three time in the same night at odds of a billion to one against.

Beyond the Scan is a bit different from the two Paradise Losts, outlining a medical condition that, according to a scan, doesn’t exist, making letter, word and number mistakes in creative ways and contributing to Paradise Lost 2.

Naming Paradise Lost 1 sounds confusing after having had his life saved. For him his loss was Uki, his tiny island in the Solomon Islands he calls “timelessness”. So remote life was complete in its own way.

There are only a few hemi images as almost everything happened in and around a South London housing estate. The centre itself [image 01] now looks abandoned, though isn’t. For years and years, he couldn’t go anywhere near it. 

Manageable Times

Disability

Fast forward to Paradise Lost 2 and what he expected to be his final job. It turned out to be the case and therefore this hemi story had a long fuse.

What’s about to happen was in and around a South London community centre [images 02, 03 & 04], as different from Uki as it could be. Though what he did at both was much the same, teaching and community development. Here, the centre provided adult learning along with employment support, advise, youth activities, activities for older people and much else. However, the centre as such played a minor part. It was his employer that was the issue, some local councillors at the very end as well.

Though perhaps he should never have been given the job. Not long before, he’d survived only a class and a half of Beginners’ I.T. spent searching for the cursor in the vast emptiness of a computer screen that his half-eyes couldn’t see due to me. Look at File and his half-eyes can see nothing more.

By the time he was appointed, he could manage the most computer basics in a “sort of” way, then having to rely on colleagues for anything more demanding – such as Sage, the soft-ware used by the centre’s bookkeeper.

Of course, his new employer could have tested his computer literacy and hadn’t - to his massive relief – and, as usual everywhere, hadn’t been asked anything about his disability after ticking he had one in his application.  

Adding to what he calls hemi computer phobia, a few years earlier his half-eyes started to get letters, words and numbers mixed up. Due to his abscess, for a short time he’d been unable to communicate. It almost completely recovered, then 30 years on his rewiring had started to fray a bit at the edges – my rewiring hemi companion.

Letter and word mistakes weren’t much more than an added nuisance to join my right hemi blank side. However, not so numbers. He’d first discovered what had started when he said £500,000 instead of £300,000 in a public meeting and denied it. Yet number mistakes were uncommon and numbers were the responsibility of the bookkeeper.

The Corporate

With no expectation of being back in this country, once out of hospital fate had established a “profession” for him, rescuing community centres at risk of closure.

All his previous centres had been long established charities. He was employed by their Boards and left to get on with it. This final centre was different. A corporate had used the offer of a centre as a sweetener to the residents of the area it wanted to take over.  

The centre that the corporate built was smaller than promised, badly build as the contractor had just lost all its other contracts locally, and with two health and safety and one child protection requirements missing. In addition, there was no long term financial planning – half the centre’s construction and running costs for three years came from Government regeneration programmes. He was brought in six months after the centre had been open as very little was happening.

Turning things around hadn’t been difficult. The corporate’s approach to running it had been 9.00 am to 5.00 pm weekdays with anything else by appointment. His approach was morning to evening seven days a week which soon worked.

The centre’s biggest problem, as with all centres, was how to meet its overheads. By establishing a charity, he’d access to funds the corporate couldn’t. By the end, the centre was most likely the smallest in the country running the Government’s two employability support schemes and a local authority adult learning contract enrolling 1000 students a year, and much else. Besides maximising its value to local residents, it was coping with the steady reduction in financial support from the corporate that would have had to pay in full had it not been for the charity.

When he established the charity, he set up the appropriate contracts and terms and conditions for its new staff. Yet the corporate retained the employment of the existing staff, the administrator/bookkeeper (now referred to as “the bookkeeper”), the cleaner and himself. It also failed to provide any agreement with the charity despite the charity having legal responsibility for everything relating to the centre’s operation.

He was aware of TUPE [image 05], under employment law protecting employees as they’re transferred from one employer and another. Nothing happened as far as the corporate was concerned and he assumed the corporate with its HR understood employment law better than he did.

At the time it hadn’t mattered as relations between the corporate and the charity were good. And as far as running the centre was concerned, he’d even thought of Paradise Regained.

Corporate Contempt

Trouble Brewing

Except the relationships were good personally. It was now no longer to be the case with the fourth of seven line-managers in ten years, one twice. And he had to perform duties as an employee of the corporate that were of no relevance to his job. Most disturbing of all, any replacement for him would have been employed by the charity, not the corporate. It was the same for his two corporate employee colleagues, though they were protected as he was their line-manager. 

“The Slug” [image 06]

His fourth line-manager was “the slug”, named as such by local residents - no interest in the centre while a member of the local arm of the corporate’s management team that was at odds with the residents. Some members of the charity’s Board were leading the opposition. He was in the middle, while fully supportive of the residents. 

The Bookkeeper

By now, he was becoming increasingly concerned at the bookkeeper’s performance. Originally excellent enough to be upgraded twice by the corporate, then things began to changed, this including delays in financial reporting. Internal and external audits continued to be satisfactory. Yet he remained uneasy, though unable to access the bookkeeper’s Sage.

The bookkeeper had always had care responsibilities which recently increased, this leading to a move out of London and then a request to work four days a week while continuing the same hours. He didn’t like the prospect with the centre operating seven days morning to evening. However, as a charity it had a responsibility for its staff as well as its users, though the bookkeeper wasn’t employed by it as “the slug” pointed out.

His bookkeeper concern became such that he knew he had to act. However, that would mean losing control. With the bookkeeper still employed by the corporate, he’d have to report to “the slug” who would pass it on to HR which had no interest in the anomaly of the bookkeeper’s employment.

The standard practice of corporate staff facing a disciplinary was to go off on long term sick leave of up to six months. With no formal agreement between the corporate and the charity, that would have left him at risk of having to run the charity on his own, while his relationship with the bookkeeper was such that he would have a fair chance of resolving the issue without having to take the matter any further. 

There was also a trivial matter relating to his bookkeeper that, in the end, turned out not to be trivial at all. The bookkeeper received copies of his non-private emails. Due to me, when he received email attachment his half-eyes always saw attachment 1, though not any 2 or 3 unless there was also an attachment 4 [image 07]. Early, he’d missed a couple of attachments that way. He knew he should always be double checking due to me, yet using the bookkeeper seemed a sensible backup.

Law and Betrayal

It wouldn’t have been intended, except before long “the slug” did what seemed to be an immense favour, hiring a consultant to “health check” the centre. The consultant reported the impossibility of his position, responsible for the charity while still an employee of the corporate, in addition the continuing informal relationship between the corporate and the charity.

To his amazement and delight, the corporate accepted the report, even coming up with a transfer date of only 14 weeks ahead. It meant he could hold his bookkeeper concern till after the transfer and then deal with the matter himself. There’d be no longer any risk of HR interfering. 

The transfer date came and went without any movement. No further date was fixed, though he was continually being reassured the transfer would still be going ahead.

Aware of the keenness of the corporate’s local management arm to further reduce its contribution to centre costs, he sent a letter to the parties involved in the transfer stating the three corporate transferees waved their TUPE financial guarantee in the interest of it going ahead. The bookkeeper signed with no hesitation. He never received any response from anyone.

After “the slug”, it seemed HR’s turn to be unexpectedly helpful. It recommended to the charity’s Board that it find out more about TUPE. He discovered a scheme that provided free legal advice to charities, the advice usually given by a trainee under supervision. As a result, he was alarmed to find himself silently hurtling up London’s Gherkin [image 08] to meet someone from a firm of international solicitors who introduced herself as the TUPE Queen of London. 

The solicitor’s advice was simple, brief and to the point. The three corporate employees had been automatically transferred from the corporate to the charity the moment the charity took responsibility for the centre. Under TUPE, staff were automatically transferred unless other arrangements had been made for them by their still current employer. The fact the corporate was still paying the three employees made no difference. Good luck to the charity if it still wasn’t having to pay them itself. The solicitor then swept out of the room without confirming in writing what he’d just been told.

He informed the Chair of the charity, now as good as his new employer, the outcome of the TUPE meeting and his intention of immediately writing for the missing confirmation. However, despite agreeing to the meeting in the first place, the Chair asked him not to do so after all, saying it would be in the charity’s better interest.

13 months after the consultant’s report came the transfer meeting. Except those present from the charity were informed by the corporate’s relevant Director that the meeting should be treated as informal. There was to be no change in the relationship between the two. Somehow, while 13 months ago everyone had agreed the impossibility of his position and nothing had happened since to suggest it was no longer the case, it should now be forgotten.

To Go or Not to Go?

The centre had been his second home for seven years, yet his treatment by the corporate was impossible, quite likely wrong in legal. Someone else should take over free of the corporate’s control.

Except where to go? He was coming close to the dreaded retirement mark and most likely at the centre he’d be able to stay for longer. Even more to the point, anywhere else would be checking his hemi computer phobia credentials, understandably never imagining his numbers unease.

Third Time Lucky?

Could it really be third time lucky? Amazingly, even the Government was trying to help him get transferred. It’d come up with a scheme to encourage charities to merge, the objective to reduce their overheads. Just before the corporate reneged on its transfer agreement with the charity, the charity had started negotiations with another local charity [image 09] under the Government’s scheme. 

The negotiations were in two parts, an outline and the detail if agreed to proceed after the first, nearly five months in all. In the end the other charity said “no”, the main reason being the lack of any formal agreement between the corporate and the charity and the corporate’s negative approach to this opportunity. Had the two charities merged, the new staffing arrangement would have seen the bookkeeper confined to administrative responsibilities and his bookkeeper concern would have been resolved.

Limbo-Land [image 10]

By then he’d been carrying the burden of his bookkeeper concern for 18 months and now had no option other than to inform “the slug”. He wondered what the response would be to his failure to do so before and without his being able to blame the corporate’s Director who was responsible. There’d been no change in the bookkeeper situation, insufficient financial information as far as he was concerned yet always sufficient to satisfy internal and external audits.

Except “the slug” had disappeared. Presumably, corporate records will show he’d had a line-manager throughout his corporate employment, yet on the ground it wasn’t the case. Sadly for the corporate, “the slug’s” absence couldn’t be hidden for long, purged with other members of its local management team. The corporate had to acknowledge the residents’ complaints had been justified.

Though even if he had had a line-manager, there would have been reason for some procrastination of his own. Anyone representing the bookkeeper at a corporate disciplinary would have pointed out the impossible position the corporate had put the bookkeeper under, waiting 12 months to be transferred from the corporate to one charity, then nearly six months to another, finally being expected to continue as if nothing had happened. There’d have to be yet another pause before taking action.

Yet, by now to be expected with fate pulling the strings, it didn’t work out quite that way. For a reason unknown to him, there would be a six month delay before a new line-manager was appointed. In the meanwhile, he was to have one of his previous line-managers, now the Director of the corporate responsible for the continuing impossibility of his position by ignoring what had been formally agreed.

Could he really risk accusing an up and coming corporate Director of breaking the TUPE law, at least making his job impossible? The prospect made him feel even more weary. All these years of centre achievement while having to carry the burden of such corporate nonsense, and knowing no one else would ever have to go through it when he finally left.

After four months the Director handed over the line-management responsibility to another corporate consultant, this time one brought in for a purpose other than the centre. As far as he was concerned, again he had no line-manager, not that he complained.

25 Months Later

His new line-manager, line-manager 6, arrived 25 months after the original consultant reported the impossibility of his position. He’d prepared a detailed report in advance on his bookkeeper concern, concern again for himself given his failure to report it till now.

There was more than enough evidence to justify taking immediate action as he would have done himself more than two years earlier in any other situation. Instead, the new line-manager decided to work directly with the bookkeeper. It still hadn’t led to anything when he finally discovered the fraud seven months later. Though that hadn’t caused the fuse to blow.

He’d stuck to his original decision not to share his concern with “the slug” and HR. As a result, he’d failed everyone, failed them due to his ridiculous naivety, refusing to make a simple demand for a hard copy of the information hidden from his half-eyes by the bookkeeper’s use of Sage, long since not wanting to know as he was already far too late to be able to do anything himself, nothing that could protect the centre from the consequences of whatever was to be found as the corporate had complete control. What about the auditors? The buck stopped with him.

The bookkeeper had been aided by a partner who was an I.T. expert and they’d been running two bank accounts, the real and the false, with him allowing them plenty of time off for the purpose. In the end, they were caught only by their becoming too greedy. The bookkeeper was given an 18 months prison sentence suspended for two years.

Instead, fate had had a special laugh just before he discovered the fraud. The charity was awarded the Matrix Standard [image 11], a national kitemark of quality assurance to add to its Ofsted [image 12] adult learning awards. The Matrix Standard inspects organisations, usually far larger than the centre, as seen through the eyes of their users. Did they feel welcome and safe? Did they get what they’d come for? Would they recommend the centre to anyone else? The Matrix Standard confirmed that the person at the centre who didn’t feel safe was the person making it possible.

Political Contempt Joining In

Everything Other Than His Job

Everything that follows relates to the fraud except for the racism complaint and towards the end the intervention of the ELSFA. Though the complaint would have been unlikely without the fraud as the Treasurer only became actively involved in the charity due to it. In addition, the Head of Adult Learning would never have treated the charity in the way the politicians did, in no way having the authority to get the centre instantly closed. Amazingly, the centre continued to perform much as always till the final moment, even without a key member of staff for seven months and after that a reduced staff capability.

Easier to Keep Going Than Give Up

He discovered the fraud on a Friday evening. He had the weekend to reflect. Or rather go numb. There was nothing to say.

On the Monday he reported to the Treasurer of the charity, not the Chair who was ill, apparently for the first time. And somehow his mind had already known what the Treasurer was going to do, something impossible for the Chair. Go to the charity’s bank to have its account frozen, then proceed to the Treasurer’s own bank and return with a large amount of cash, in fact £20,000 [image 13].

It was incredibly generous, yet did it make any sense? How could the centre still be run without a bookkeeper who was also its administrator, without a bank account and him unreliable with numbers. The current financial year anticipated a turnover of nearly £500,000, the adult learning contract worth nearly £200,000, the tutor and staff team totalling 23. It seemed mad to even consider continuing.

Yet his numbness was in control. It was easier to continue than stop. Collapse later. At least he’d have tried.

At least there were a few things on his side. It was early July, the adult learning programme almost over till late September. It seemed no one was accusing him of complicity in the fraud, too naive to be risked. The fraud saved him from trying to learn some Excel – while in no way imagining the fraud, he’d recently asked his line-manager for some funding so he could hire some 1 to 1 training to help reduce his finance dependency on the bookkeeper.

Overall, what was a complete disaster to him didn’t seem to disturb anyone else. Not even the corporate, though any complain would have to be muted as the bookkeeper had been its own employee. And under the charity’s Treasurer, it was already planning to sue the corporate.

Phony War [image 14]

Life continued remarkably smoothly all things considered till the end of November. Tutors and staff quietly got on with their jobs as usual, highly efficient and effective as ever. And the breakdown in the relationship between the corporate and the charity meant he was largely left alone except for an increase in line-manager supervisions.

The police were charming – visiting the police station became the equivalent of having time off and it was good to talk to someone who appeared to be listening. New auditors were appointed straightforwardly as if fraud was an everyday affair to them, which most likely it was. The Charity Commissioners were informed, the charity given plenty of time to explain what had happened and show how things were being changed. The charity’s bank reopened its standard account surprisingly quickly, only the online had been affected. It meant he’d very seldom had to pay anyone or anything using cash.

New to him as a stand-in administrator/bookkeeper included updating the timetable, supervising the receptionist – till now a volunteer - who also had additional duties, sorting long outstanding orders and payments, and chequebook embarrassments as numbers kept refusing to cooperate in a way never before.

His main unease was having to see his line-manager fortnightly instead of monthly as before, and again he could hardly point to the corporate’s contribution to what had happened. The supervisions could never end early. As a result, he found himself sharing information he otherwise wouldn’t have done.

Meanwhile the Board continued to deliberate suing the corporate, the Chair – now recovered - and the Treasurer at loggerheads, while he, an employee of the corporate, was in effect running the centre informally on the charity’s behalf. Perhaps he was entitled to some form of legal protection, though he was hardly in a position to start finding out.

The corporate, as to be expected, was now in a hurry to transfer the cleaner and himself under TUPE. It informed the Board that it was prepared to transfer its savings till the end of the financial year from no longer having to pay the bookkeeper if used for the same purpose, though obviously only if the two parties were talking to each other once again.

Fate Windup

It was then that fate added a new dimension to its entertainment. There’d been mention that some local politicians of the party now in power were going to use the fraud as an excuse to have the centre closed. The charity’s adult learning contract with the local authority was such that the centre would be unable to continue if the contract was lost.

The strange notion had nothing to do with the centre itself. The Chair of the charity who’d previously been a local politician of what was now an opposition party dismissed the matter when told of it. Nothing happened, so he did as well. Then he realised that nothing would, if there was to be anything, till the end of the academic year. Leave the centre alone to do its job as usual, then act.

Beginning of the End

“Phony war” was the wrong expression, rather the calm before the storm. The calm for him ended when the Boa decided not to sue the corporate. The noise at the meeting had been such that he would have asked anyone else to leave. It was something he foolishly mentioned to his line-manager at one of their meaningless meetings. He was told he should have done so as he didn’t work for the charity. Yet another example of the impossibility of how he was having to work.

The Board’s decision not to sue instantly turned things upside down for him. One moment the only link between the corporate and the charity, next interference or being ignored. Towards the end and unbelievably, he even found himself wondered whether he’d be better off staying with the corporate in the way some of the charity’s Board members were behaving.

Hemi Horror Warm-Up

The real hemi horror started when a last-minute employability support maternity cover complained of racism against the charity’s Treasurer – he’d had to bring in the cover overnight as the long agreed cover had pulled out the day before a contract with Jobcentre Plus was about to begin. It was much the nastiest incident the centre experienced. It ended with the Chair of the charity apologising on behalf of the Board. However, the incident lingered unpleasantly well after the Treasurer had resigned and the maternity cover's contract had ended. With so much else building up, the issue was never addressed organisationally in the way that it should. 

14 Week Contracts

At the same time, with relations restored between the corporate and the charity, the corporate transferred to the charity its savings from no longer having to pay the ex-bookkeeper. There was now a rush to recruit replacement staff before it was too late to make it any sense.

A full-time administrator and a part-time bookkeeper were recruited, employees of the charity as long term agreed. Inevitably, the interest in the positions was extremely poor as the contracts on offer were for only 14 weeks and without anything to encourage the prospect of continuing.

At the same time, as the funding came from the corporate his line-manager required copies of his fortnightly supervision reports on both new employees, even after his own working hours had been reduced by HR.

Disciplinary

With the new staff appointed and however unsuitable they might be, it was time for HR to discipline him due to the fraud. The letter arrived just before Christmas, the event immediately after.

That year Christmas fell on a Sunday. With the centre now the home of an Alcoholics Anonymous Sunday meeting, apparently the largest in Europe, he was asked to open as Christmas was the hardest time of the year for anyone with alcohol unease. So, he walked to the centre like the meeting’s attendees for one of the best Christmases he ever had, wishing only that someone from the corporate was present to experience what community centres are truly about.

He’d never been associated with a disciplinary before and never imagined he would. Given what had happened over the years, shouldn’t his best form of defence be attack - the TUPE Queen of London, the corporate’s consultant who’d stated the impossibility of his position, the Chair of the charity who’d been told by the consultant as well, also pointing out the performance of one of the corporate’s Directors along with his line-manager now playing prosecutor?

He might even have reminded HR that he’d rescued the corporate from a failed centre and made it a success at very limited cost to itself. Remind it as well that he was disabled – on one occasion he’d tested HR’s interest, it offered him something that showed him it hadn’t understood and immediately forgot.

However, he did nothing of the kind. It wasn’t his way. He was being disciplined as the employee of a corporate, meaning HR, that had no interest or awareness of the centre and how he was being forced to work. He’d already been crushed. The Head of HR was already getting annoyed that the disciplinary was taking so long.  Why hadn’t he left long ago, his replacement running the centre without any interference. 

Disciplinary Aftermath

The only punishment he can remember resulting from the disciplinary was being told to immediately take two weeks annual leave. Pretty generous and fair enough as he hadn’t had a holiday for goodness knows how long. Then his line-manager stepped in to suggest it wouldn’t be helpful just now with two highly inexperienced temporary staff only just employed.

Instead, a 28 hour corporate working week instead of the usual 35 was imposed to last for 10 weeks. Working at home on Mondays was forbidden, though at least no one ever came to inspect, nor the local library, nor anywhere else. Presumably HR never imagined working in the evening or weekend, most certainly his real working hours by then coming up to 80. What would it have done if it had?

Praying for a Fit

It didn’t happen precisely then, more like a month or two later, yet before long he found himself praying for an epileptic, a left over from his abscess. They’d only ever been very seldom, though usually in inappropriate places - a swimming pool, smashing his head along the pavement very early in the morning when no one was around, crossing a major road without any intention or awareness. He didn’t want anything to stop him from returning to work next morning as he’s always done. Just remind everyone that he was human as well. Fate refused to play ball.

Entertainment HR Style

Though it did for its own entertainment. Shortly after the disciplinary, something happened he’d forgotten, asking his line-manager eight months earlier for some Excel training money as a pointer to his bookkeeper concern.

Perhaps no such help could be considered while waiting for a disciplinary. In any other situation he’d have informed his line-manager he didn’t want what he’d asked for any longer. Yet by then his relationship with the corporate was such he reckoned it foolish to do so.

A very nice person came from somewhere to assess him for what he didn’t want. The person apologised for not having any experience of visual impairment. However, their report took him to central London to meet a clinical psychologist. Naturally the psychologist took the matter very seriously, though the questions asked were laughable if he could remember how to laugh.

Two weeks later he was on the Victoria Line to see a private G.P., except he never made it to the appointment. Or rather he got there, though far too late as the Victoria Line had had a problem somewhere along the way. He needed three buses to get there and was never at his best when taking me along to unknown places in a hurry and without any form of A to Z. At least the third wasted journey was completed on time.

Board v. Staff

The part-time bookkeeper had to be replaced at contract end, a replacement arranged with encouraging ease as at last the corporate hadn’t had to be involved. Also, the administrator in ordinary circumstances, except they weren’t. It would have been irresponsible to go back three months and with even more issues building up, though regrettably the administrator was contributing to them as well.

The administrator was competent, though appeared never to have retained a job for long. And for a reason almost immediately apparent, a personality that didn’t blend in an operation where everyone belonged even though several staff never met. Add a new member of the Board with a similar challenging approach and he found himself having to waste time trying to arrange things to avoid the two meeting.

Similarly, a Head of the local authority’s adult learning service had introduced him to its team leader responsible for employability support. Before long the Head retired and joined the charity’s Board. At the same time, the team leader he’d been introduced to was providing some support to the centre’s own staff. He hadn’t realised how they disliked each other.

Board Alone

Things won’t have been easy for the charity’s Board members, especially those who were on the Board at the time of the consult’s report that highlighted financial scrutiny.

Though he became increasingly concerned at the Board’s lack of understanding of the way ahead. The centre already had a programme and manageable budget despite the fraud that the Board had long agreed, with further developments held back only for lack of funding. With the fraud discovered, it should now be possible to proceed once the financial position had been fully clarified. Yet there was an attitude of starting again, the Chair already making a financial commitment that would cause further problems before long.

TUPE Again

HR organised a meeting to described TUPE to the cleaner and himself, regardless of the fact they’d already had one three years before. The meeting can’t have been quite as easy for the HR staff had expected. The cleaner’s daughter had a similar job elsewhere and fully briefed by her mother.

Every month his line-manager assumed the transfer would have been completed, yet it never did. If it had, under TUPE the charity would have been responsible for his sick leave entitlement. Or more likely he’d have let the charity off yet again.

Playing Chess with Death

Despite everything that fate had been throwing at him, the centre was continuing to deliver. Then it remembered Ingmar Bergman’s classic, the Seventh Seal with the Knight playing chess with Death [image 15]. So, it brought in the Education and Learning Skills Funding Agency (ELSFA) to help.

The ELSFA [image 16] was responsible for funding adult learning as well as much else. Two years earlier, it’d alerted all adult learning providers across the country that there’d be major changes in the programme, then decided to hold back. The current year was the penultimate, the final one to include preparation for whatever was to follow. There was no suggestion of any change in contracts midway in its five years.

Except suddenly there was to be. The ELSFA decided well into the academic year some preliminary work was required of providers. In any other situation he would have been concerned. However, he was already so punch-drunk by everything else thrown at him that he simply absorbed it like the rest. In one sense it was easier than the rest, part of his regular work and therefore free of corporate or charity Board member interference.

First, providers were told to carry out some research into the likely implications of the planned changes. For the centre, there was only one question of relevance. As adult learning was no longer to be free to everyone, would those asked to pay actually enrol?

The research was something the ex-bookkeeper would have enjoyed doing and done well, not him. He received no complaint from the adult learning service at what he presented, though he was embarrassed by it and couldn’t imagine it being of any value to the ELSFA or anyone else.

After the research something seriously worrying. Even though the charity’s contract with, ultimately, the ELSFA still had two full years to run, there was to be a competition between local providers running similar adult learning courses.

It was completely new and confusing, contrary to all previous ELSFA practice. Two adult learning providers weren’t affected at all as they ran specialist courses. Among the five that were, three focused on mainstream provision, the other two, including the centre, students unlikely to enrol at a mainstream provider, or certainly not first time around. The two “locals” were intentionally well apart.

These two were specialists in their own right and encouraged their graduates to progress to the mainstream providers once they’d gained the confidence to do so if they wished to progress. Here at this centre, students also had immediate access to its two employability support services. Years of successful straightforward working together, now sudden competitors for no apparent reason.

At the same time, he was drafting a job description for an adult learning quality assurance position to start in the autumn, the post long promised to the adult learning service yet never delivered for lack of funding. The Head of Adult Learning was advising him and would be a member of the interview panel.

The competition was to be in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, complex as referred to at a special training event. Though however complex it might be, it was trivial in comparison with the main ELSFA application that had six sections and always took him several days.

Corporate Interference Yet Again

Now back to his struggle with his supervision overdose. Due to it, he’d mentioned the competition to his line-manager who offered to help. He’d said “no thank you” for five reasons, straightforward as far as he was concerned though apparently not to the corporate as later on.

To accept his line-manager’s offer would mean having to provide a full briefing on the centre’s entire adult learning programme. His line-manager had already missed the special spreadsheet training event. The only time he had for such detailed work was at the weekend when the centre was less demanding, while he was supposed to be working only 28 days a week. Even more critical to him, he would have to explain me, what it meant to have a hemi and how he had to work around me, worked very much slower than his line-manager. He feared misunderstanding or worse. Also, soon after he started at the centre, he’d accepted some assistance from the corporate and ended up having to start again once the assistance had left.

In addition and much the most important, he already had help from someone who knew the centre’s adult learning programme as well as he did and had also attended the spreadsheet training. It came from the centre’s adult learning administrator responsible for course returns, with the centre for more than four years, partner of one of the tutors. And something happened when they completed the spreadsheet that surprised and reassured him. For some reason that happened elsewhere, the administrator was short in confidence. So, when he asked the administrator’s thoughts on the application, the answer wasn’t the cautious response he’d expected, rather a highly enthusiastic one - partners together, no longer employer and employee.

Email Hemi Extension Trap

It was the complete opposite when he’d asked the adult learning administrator to take over from the ex-bookkeeper by receiving copies of his non-private emails. The answer was an embarrassed “no”. He considered asking the new centre administrator, yet there was still a confidence gap needing to be filled. As a result, he didn’t notice the email extension that arrived with the spreadsheet.

It was crazy he hadn’t triple checked every email extension, especially after his previous experience even if by then eight years ago. Utterly irresponsible at any time, now this……The only excuse, not that there could be one, was the stress and exhaustion he’d been under for so long.

As he’d assumed there would be some form of backup, he provided his own. It was five or six pages against the adult learning service’s one when he finally found it. It included all the information the adult learn service had known for years and the help the Head of Adult Learning was providing with the job description for the new adult learning post added. A single back up page against the ELSFA’s six sections of its contract application form.

Then he remembered what had happened with the most recent mainstream nationwide adult learning contract application. The old and the new Heads of Adult Learning had called him in as they thought he’d made a mistake with one of the sections. In fact, it wasn’t the case. However, the point here was the precedent. The Head who’d just spent so much time working with him had a precedent for intervening if something seemed odd once again. He received no call.

The adult learning service, like his corporate line-managers, was aware of me, that he was disabled. Though as always, he never appeared or behaved as if he was.

Fate Yet Again

He hadn’t completely forgotten the story in the autumn that local politicians of the party in power were planning to use the fraud as an excuse to get the centre closed. Having worked out then that, should anything ever happen, it wouldn’t till now, he wasn’t surprised to find himself at a meeting with the local authority’s lead officer responsible for investigating the fraud. 

Also present a bit surprisingly were the Head of Adult Learning and his seventh and final line-manager, along with the Chair of the charity and one other member of the charity’s Board. Yes, he understood the reason for the Head’s presence given the importance of the charity’s contract with the adult learning service. No, he didn’t understand his line-manager’s presence as the corporate had nothing to do with either the charity or the charity’s adult learning contract.

He can’t remember much of what the lead officer said. How seriously the local authority considered the fraud. There would be no recommendation in the lead officer’s report, the decision entirely political.

No one present asked why had it taken the lead officer so long to arrange a meeting on a matter, in the view of the local authority, was so important. By now, the fraud had been known for a year. Equally or even more to the point, the local authority hadn’t lost anything itself.

After the officers left, those remaining thought the meeting had gone reasonably well. He was beyond considering it, just holding on for whatever came next.

Local Politics Out in the Open

Shortly after, another meeting that was late. It was open to everyone, the Chair of the charity reporting on the fraud and what had been happening since. The Chair was good at such meetings, though as to be expected made no reference to the TUPE Queen of London and the performance of the corporate.

Everything was going well. The ex-Treasurer attended, its loan already re-paid, and the Chair answered the ex-Treasurer’s questions quietly and in full, with none of the game playing he’d feared.

A local politician of the party in power to ask the final question. The Chair’s approach immediately changed. No detailed answer, instead telling the local politician where to find the answer for themself.

After the meeting the Chair refused to acknowledge what had happened. So, he told the local politician he would send on the information requested, though he knew that hadn’t been the point. Not that he was as disturbed as he might have been. Once again, just one more of everything else and already waiting for the next.

Check-Fate

A couple of days later Bergman finished the film, the Chair of the charity playing Death as the fuse finally blew.

It was a Thursday afternoon in early July, a year after he’d discovered the fraud, three and a half years since it had been agreed that his position was impossible. The Chair had just come from a meeting with the same Director of the corporate who’d dismissed TUPE and reneged on the agreement, till recently the two in opposite sides with him holding everything together.

The Chair informed him his adult learning application had failed, and failed to such an extent the adult learning contract had already been terminated with no suggestion of any form of appeal. The Chair referred to some figures, perhaps three out of 80. Presumably not precise, yet certainly something immense. And somehow his own support paper with the spreadsheet and the correct paper had been different. Yet they’d both said the same year after year - not that it meant anything now.

It was completely over. He’d failed everyone, tutors, staff, users, everyone utterly. No thought at all about his years of living the impossible with the corporate. It was him alone and his failure. Years and years at it. Now this in an instant. It was time to go. The Chair agreed. He’d no right to remain.

It was one of those moments when two minds struggled with each other. Blankness, shame, dismay. Yet at the same time there was something not right, didn’t make sense – submitting an adult learning application to the Head of Adult Learning as always, the result being delivered to the Chair (of the charity) in conjunction with the same Director of the corporate. Again, not that it meant anything.

His head was on his desk. As soon as the Chair left, he got up. Melodrama. He’d never behaved that way before. He got going again as if nothing had happened.

That night he had his best sleep for goodness knows how long. The burden of his impossible position year after year was over and he hadn’t had time yet to wheel in the replacement. He turned up early next morning as usual, had a successful meeting, then headed to HR.

HR gave him two options to consider over the weekend – be gagged from saying anything critical of the corporate for £4,000 and a reference, or the sack. He was given half an hour at the centre to collect his belongings, his line-manager would then come to escort him away.

Destructively Absurd

He was surprised he’d been allowed back unsupervised. Imagine what he might have stolen or even caused a commotion? Though hardly likely after his performance at his disciplinary.

His line-manager was punctual as to be expected playing the role of illegal immigrant removal officer, except it was broad daylight instead of clandestinely early in the morning. Fortunately, it seemed no one noticed his leaving. Unsurprisingly, he remembered the Matrix Standard award of a year ago that confirmed everyone at the centre had felt safe - except for him.

Now the final reminder of the ridiculousness of it all, or perhaps there would be two more at the very end. As soon as he parted company with his line-manager, he returned to the centre to write a debriefing report for the Chair of the charity. Habit again, including habit on the part of the Chair to expect it of him.

He went back to the centre over the weekend. Yet more habit. He took away papers to support a major complaint that in the end he never sent. He left his set of keys in the post box – when the corporate opened the centre, it got the address wrong and took months to put it right. A kind of omen for the future as well as the past [image 17].

Price of a Hemi  

Best If There Hadn’t Been a Third Option

Monday was his decision day – the deal or the sack.

There was no way he could accept the offer. That would be betrayal of himself. Though easy to say as he was now of pensionable age and could avoid any need for a corporate reference. Goodness knows what would he have done had it not been the case?

Being sacked was what he wanted, the only way he could express his feelings, not that anyone would take any notice or even be aware. Except he’d spent all his working life running centres where the pay was always poor and only this last one offered a pension that was so small he hadn’t taken it. There’d still been no mention of his having to retire and he’d bills to pay. So, he did what even HR couldn’t stop him from doing, go on long term sick leave like everyone else working for the corporate.

Disgust and Disgrace 

He’d been holding himself together reasonably well. The enormity of it all still hadn’t fully sunk in. Till he went to see a G.P. for HR’s sick note [image 18].

His sick leave history had been excellent except for the abscess and a handful of other hospital stays, all brief. The corporate allowed one to three months off for a hip operation. He’d had two and after each gone back to work the day after his discharge. He was working for the charity, not the corporate. He’d done the same on his other hospital stays. A record he’d been quietly proud of and wished others would perform in a similar way.

The G.P. asked him to fill in something new to him, a depression score. Depression? It was something he’d never associated himself with, even questioning others who were. He can’t remember his score, unlikely 23 out of 26, though something as extreme as his adult learning application failure. Was he cheating in some way to make certain he got his sick note?

As he walked away from the surgery, the enormity of it all finally sunk in. Now on top of his centre destruction, he was using long term sick leave for money while tutors and staff were losing their jobs. He remembered Judas Iscariot in the Bible and what had happened to him.

“Timelessness” Silently Returning

In the daytime his mind was stressfully numb. At night, “timelessness” of Paradise Lost 1 returned. He’d never been able to share it with anyone. There was so much too it. No one could be expected to understand what it meant to him. He’d had his life saved. Now this.

He remembered the islanders who had nothing. The unknown friends who’d got him to Australia. In the tiny hospital in Honiara, the doctor who’d diagnosed what was wrong with him using almost nothing. His mother who’d come all the way to Australia and, if she hadn’t, he’d have stayed and been dead a few days later. His consultant there knowing another Australian consultant who’d just been headhunted by the Royal London Hospital. The miracle that G.Ps. were still responsible for their own “out of hours” calls and a stranger on a Sunday evening well out of London somehow pulled things together so he had his first operation at “the London” next morning.

It was as good as impossible that he was still alive. Though inevitably he’d left hospital with a massive debt to be paid. Now he wished his mother had stayed away. A good death after so much potential to be realised. A very bad death with his debt left unpaid.

What Was It That Made It So Bad?

Before, there’d never been enough hours in the day, now far too many. For years he’d seen something like 200 people a day, some only once, others for a time, yet others more like long term friends. Perhaps 5,000 centre users a year. One of his line-managers referred to a footfall of 25,000. Now no one. He hadn’t even been able to say goodbye to anyone. Though probably best that way due to what he’d done to them. Imagine how he would have felt if it had been the other way around?

At least a card from the charity’s Board, some members he’d known throughout. Though he’d heard that no one could contact him as he was considered under some form of discipline. Except once again, the Board had nothing to do with the corporate.

The adult learning service? Again, nothing and with no sense of explanation. Many of the officers and the other service providers had known him for years as well, good working colleagues, some more like friends. If anything new was to be tested, it was always the centre that came forward. And on the odd occasion a provider lost their contract, always a card from all the others - except for him. Or perhaps it was too late for the July monthly meeting to organise one and there wouldn't be a meeting in August. He’d have to wait till September, though by then he’d long given up.

Most disturbing of all was the response of the Head of Adult Learning, one of his long time colleagues, indeed as good as a friend. Applications had always been the Head’s responsibility, the strange final one as well. The standard practice after a contract failure – phone call, meeting, explanation, regret, appreciation, best of luck. Unpleasant, yet professional decency that the Head always followed as he well knew – except for him. What had he done that had been so bad?

On top of it, immediately after he left the G.P. surgery to get his sick note, he’d seen the Head of Adult Learning striding to the tube. Striding was the correct word as the Head was tall and striking, someone not to go unnoticed in any crowd. Even more so when the Head bent down as if picking up something from the pavement without slowing down. Again, what had he done that had been so bad?

After that, he started walking in other directions to get to wherever he was going as he lived not far away, very helpful till now. As a result, he bumped into the streetsweeper who used to drop in at the centre for tea. He couldn’t cope. He said nothing. He cried as he hurried away.

Therapist’s Would, Wouldn’t They 

Wasn’t it nothing more than melodrama? At least the corporate’s therapist didn’t think so, though it was the job of therapists to understand. As a corporate employee deemed suffering from depression, apparently even one waiting to be sacked, he had to see one. So formal, the clock and box of tissues. Eight sessions, then an extra six. Where the extras really for him as he had so little to say, though that was unfair on the therapist? At least the sessions kept him engaged in his old world however disturbing.

The sessions were close to London Bridge [image 19]. His bus stop for his return was close to the bridge itself and bridges are frequently used for suicide. Jumping from one his preferred way out, though railway bridges for fear of his bobbing up again - imagine if he'd changed his mind?

HR kept on requiring sick notes. On one occasion he was prescribed depression pills even though he knew he'd never take them. It would ultimately be too much. He’d fought to avoid taking epilepsy pills after his first due to his abscess. At least they’re for a medical purpose, not due to his being unable to cope with himself.

He also went to a therapist via his G.P. service, more basic than the corporate’s. He only went as a means for some employment advice. The advice was three websites. Very good. Except they confirmed he was unemployable – his age, his hemi computer phobia, his problem with letters, words and numbers, and me.

Going Through the Motions

ACAS [image 20], the employment arbitration service? The person at the other end of the phone suggested the corporate had done nothing wrong in law in the way it had treated him. He didn’t argue. His slight hesitation when starting to say something had returned due to the abscess. A face to face meeting would have been more useful. Though he was only going through the motions. He’d long lost any belief in himself. TUPE? Incredible. He’d forgotten. His disability as well.

He tried free legal advice when he did remember, like he’d done for the charity when he found the TUPE Queen of London. He was told TUPE was too complex for such a service as an individual. Yet all he wanted was confirmation or otherwise of the TUPE Queen’s firmly expressed view.

TUPE and Personal Injury? A good case, except it would cost upfront. He studied law books in the library without success, unable to find a case when an employer wanted to retain control of staff from the new employer.

Finally the Sack

With his six months sick leave over, it was time for him to be formally sacked. Goodness knows why he attended? Something to do with the way he’d been brought up.

He’d a vague idea that HR had to come up with three new justifications for what it was about to do and couldn’t simply continue to rely on the fraud. If that was the case, he can only remember two. They complete the succession of ridiculous impossibilities he’d had to endure.

By then, it was 18 months since he’d asked for some funding for Excel training and nine months since he’d had to run around to the corporate’s two medical assessors. Apparently, a month or so later he was awarded £500 yet complained it wasn’t the case.

Which was disturbingly absurd. He’d never done anything like it. And how could someone who’d absorbed everything that had been thrown at him by the corporate for all those years, fallen over backwards at his disciplinary, suddenly become someone else, something provocative as if wanting to wind up for a fight? His entire life had been about avoiding disturbance. That was why he’d ended up like this.

The second justification for sacking him was his turning down his line-manager’s offer of help with the adult learning application, the reason why he went into detail earlier on.

Once again, he could have challenged HR, finally introduce me. Once again, he didn’t.

Suicide?

After being sacked, life got worse if that meant anything. Before, he was still connected however disturbingly, now completely out on his own, giving him even more time to remember Paradise Lost 1, what they’d done for him which had allowed him to still be here, now what had he done in return?

His complaint to the corporate he was preparing got longer and longer as he remembered more and more. It couldn’t help but show that the corporate had been as guilty as he was, ever increasingly so. It would be sent to the coroner.

He was saved more than anyone or anything by “mum” [image 21]. The vet had given her that summer as her last. She lived for nearly four more. She’s the 15th hemi image in the main hemi main story. The hemi main story is hers.

Fate’s Conspiracy                                                                                                                           

Despite the fraud, the centre’s adult learning team continued as successfully as before. And so reliable, somehow he coped with the extra work required, the change in relationship now between the corporate and the charity, including agreeing the impossibility of his employ and the corporate reneging a year later.

Though there’d been a rumour around that some local politicians of the party in power were planning to get the centre closed using the fraud as an excuse, their interest unrelated to it. He told the Chair of the charity who ignored it, though he had till recently been a member of an opposition party.

Life proceeded remarkably peacefully, that was till the Board of the charity gave up the idea of suing the corporate, a considered option as the bookkeeper responsible for the fraud had still been an employee of the corporate contrary to TUPE - him as well.

At the same time as the centre was coping, fate had brought in the ELFRA for fear of the local politicians failing to get the centre closed. The following year would be the final of the current ELFRA adult learning contracts and there were to be major changes in the following year. However, nothing this year and most certainly not a competition between the current adult learning providers, long term colleagues appointed by the Head of Adult Learning as the most effective. Together, they’d been awarded “good” in the recent inspection, while the charity had just been awarded the Matrix Standard. All this and the Head of Adult Learning assisting him with a job description for a quality assurance post for the following year.

During this, the corporate disciplined him due to the fraud. One of the outcomes was reducing his working hours from 35 to 28 as a corporate employee while he was working 80 for the charity.

Then as the adult learning year came to an end, the local politicians pounced, by now a year after the fraud and with neither the local authority nor corporate loosing anything. A lead officer informed the charity that any decision on the fraud would be political – suggesting readiness for an argument. Though how come now and with the charity performing as it should?

This political interest was demonstrated at the charity’s public meeting on the fraud. The Chair and a local politician of the party in power started sparring with each other after the Chair had been quietly answering the questions to others present.

Another year of adult learning, six months of discussion between the charity and the corporate, only a month or less of local politics – then he submitted the brief ELSFA application, almost a joke against the five year contracts, to the Head of Adult Learning, being returned to the Chair of the charity after a meeting with the Director of the corporate. The local politicians in power had won. Whether they were aware or not that he was to be sacked on the spot hardly mattered, just local politics, the Chair throwing him out and the corporate tidying up.

Another Finale

40 months later he was walking past the Brixton Recreation Centre [image 22] and about to turn to a large local authority building on his left. He was with a friend who was on his left side.

Before they started to turn, he noticed a tall and striking figure approaching. There was no one else around. The tall and striking figure appeared to be heading directly ahead and was almost immediately out of sight due to me.

Then his friend asked him why was the tall and striking figure trying to avoid him, keeping well away on my right hemi blank side when turning towards the office block? He was just in time to see the Head of Adult Learning once again. If it hadn’t been for me and my right hemi blank side, the Head of Adult Learning would have been unable to avoid facing him.