“Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.” Benjamin Franklin
Over the years I’ve written a lot about people who pretend to be one thing but in fact are another. My novel, the articles I write for magazines, the editorials I do... it pretty much creeps in . You can always tell a Jax piece of writing because I, like Benjamin Franklin am flabbergasted at the practice of duplicity. I don’t get it.
Do the practitioners of this idiotic practice think the rest of us are fools?
Well, if you are one of these eejits... and you’ve not come across my writings before I will say it again... WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING – please do no confuse the fact we choose not to confront you about it with the ridiculous idea that you have got away with it. WE. KNOW.
A friend of mine told me a tale of what happened to him this week and (although we had a really good laugh about it) it left a bitter after taste . Thing is, the person who did it to him was doing so to manipulate him. Neither of us could figure what the end goal of the gentleman who was practicing the dark art of mind games (hence the resistance to outing the portly twatter) but the fact that he spent time cooking up such an underhand scheme was not a laughing matter. The gentleman concerned has it ‘in for’ my friend... and we are both aware that we are probably only on the first act of his treacherous manuscript.
My friend Joe is a mechanic. He used to design car parts for a major manufacturer once, but the British motor industry is no longer what it was and several redundancies later (handsomely paid of in all), he decided to downsize, retrain and work in a garage instead.
He’s a great bloke Joe. He has the look of Vladislav Doronin (if you don’t know what this Russian chappie looks like he’s the billionaire pictured above to the left!)... he is a great looking guy who basically has women dropping at his feet on a daily basis... if only he would notice! He’s a little high maintenance, as you’d expect from someone with a creative streak, as a friend I do find I have to acknowledge his positive actions or he feels slighted and prone to a bit of a sulk. (Never back out on a night out arranged by Joe... he won’t come out on one of yours for a year afterwards! LOL). But that aside I’d say Joe is a great bloke, intelligent, challenging, attentive, generous, cultured, fun, brilliant with kids and animals, charmingly but mildly overconfident and has the driest and wickedest sense of humour. He’s pretty popular - The girls like to be with him and the guys would like to be him.
One would imagine someone like Joe doesn’t have too many haters. And one would be right. However, successful human beings like Joe (and not in £££ by the way...we’re talking of in getting along with the other bipeds) really rattle the cage of The children of a lesser God. To put it more plainly... some people are just jealous and wish to bring him down a peg or two.
And no prizes for guessing who set himself up to be the architect of Joe’s doom?
Yep... a work colleague.
Joe’s metamorphosis from car part designer to grease monkey (sorry Joe!)... causes suspicion in others. Especially this one senior grease monkey .
While Joe in his late forties has the look of Vladislav Doronin, his co-worker Alan who has just entered the early half of the same decade is some what reminiscent of another billionaire altogether.. Sheldon Adelson (Yep that’s the American billionaire pictured to the right). Alan is a little folicially challenged, his once resplendent ginger mane having thinned greatly and turned frizzy(possibly from an overuse of hair colourants but men never talk of this stuff so I am assuming here). Alan’s overall appearance is that of a man somewhat out of tune with just how fabulous forties look these days, he does rather remind me of the middle aged men of my youth... wrinkles, jowls and high waisted trousers.
However, when Joe started at the garage, (which is part of a nationwide chain), he was sent to work alongside Alan in another branch, to learn the corporate ways. Joe rather liked Alan. Yeah he was old school, wife at home, one rather precious son, where as Joe’s more of our times -a divorce-dad whose off spring comes to stay at weekends, but they found common ground and Alan gave Joe a lot of helpful pointers for the workplace.
I wouldn’t quite say that they were quite up for beers and a game of pool on a midweek night, but Joe was inclined to think of Alan as a straight up and down guy someone who had your back – someone you could trust.
Alan’s advice was pucker as it played out. Joe starts at his garage and after a bit of a bumpy start (why would a designer want to do MOT’s?) he found his groove with the other chaps and settled in. Joe knew he had been accepted when they gave him a nickname (ClooneyClone) and he was included the rather risque banter one might expect in a garage.
So... time rolls by and Joe’s contract is about to be renewed. (Oh forgot to say, the garage operates these new fangled European contracts so every 12 months you basically have to reapply for your job). Needless to say Joe’s contract is renewed, but ... Joe was a bit rattled by a couple of questions the head office bods threw at him. They were about banter in the workplace that head office could not have possible known about unless they were specifically told by another mechanic. Joe answered the questions with honesty and HQ let it drop... but Joe was rattled. Someone, somewhere was twisting innocent workplace banter into actions that could best only be described as the stuff of a gross misconduct hearing.
Now as I said, my mate Joe is prone to a bit of a sulk when he thinks things are going one way, and they turn out to go another. I have told him over and over that it is his Achilles heel and one day someone will use it against him. But what can you do with a character flaw eh? I suppose you just hope your good bits counter act the bad. But Joe starts withdrawing inside himself at work, watching his colleagues closely trying to figure out who the twisted snitch was.
A bit of light relief came his way. Out of the blue, the week after the contract interview, Alan rings and asks him if he fancies that pint and game of pool they were always saying they were gonna have... but never got round to.
Joe’s like, YEAH. It’ll give him a chance to talk to someone from the company who is slightly removed from the premises, but most of all he liked Alan and it’d be good to relax in the company of a colleague – he’d been building quite a few walls to protect himself since the interview and he needed to get back to being ClooneyClone the geezer they all liked.
Well... the pint and game of pool happened... but so didn’t happen. If the contract interview was like a prelim hearing for a gross misconduct case, a pint and a game of pool with Alan was like being interrogated by MI6 – but in a poorly scripted movie!
Alan (there is a reason why he is only a mechanic and NOT a government agent) asked thinly veiled question after thinly veiled question. It became clear that Alan wanted to know if his aim had delivered a body blow or a surface wound. In short the only way he would know if Joe had been hauled up about work place banter would be to ask him. This would not be something he could read on a memo... and there was no way that Alan could ask outright without revealing that he was the one who went to head office with the charges. The only way that Alan could be sure that the reports of misconduct were noted by HQ was to pose as Joe’s friend and confidante and envegal it out of him.
Like I said, Alan is not a government agent... as clever as he thought his interrogation was, Joe picked it about five seconds in.
The best bit was when Alan (clearly getting frustrated at not gleaning any information) made up a piece of ‘highly confidential information’ and gave Joe the big sell about how much he trusts him so he is about to give him some news that only the top bods know. Joe tormented him for a while saying he thought it best if he did not give him the information... then seeing Alan was about to have a coronary (so bursting was he to enter the next stage of his cunning plan)... let him tell all. Alan then almost had to beg for a bit a ‘highly confidential information ‘ by return. Joe just gave him the highly unconfidential info that they call him ClooneyClone cause the other mechanics are so young that think all older people who haven’t fallen apart are movie stars. It was all too painful. Alan really NEEDED this shoot to score... it was pitiful. In the end Joe gave him what he wanted, he did a Clooney (good acting)... he let Alan know how the gross misconduct enquiry was a massive, massive wound to him. Once he acted out that bit of fiction to Alan’s satisfaction... Alan remembered a previous appointment and had to dash.
When Joe told me about this whole incident I have to admit I laughed. But thinking about it... how pathetic! Alan doesn’t have to work with Joe every day so what difference should Joe’s existence in the same company make to him ? And while we laugh about how pathetic it is to run to HQ and spread lies about the new boy... muck when thrown always leaves a stain. Somewhere in HQ there is a file saying Joe has said anti-Semitic, sexist, racist and disrespectful things in the work place. And while we laugh at the little weasel trying to put one over on Joe by pretending to offer a lads night out... entrapment is a terrible thing to do. It’s a misuse of trust to lure someone into your deceit .
But more than any of this... Joe has no idea what Alan’s agenda is.
Okay he knows that Alan is trying to affect his job security... but he has no idea why.
Since the pint and a game of pool, Joe has twice noted Alan has gone to superiors (this time in Joe’s garage) and named and shamed Joe for the smallest departure from the company handbook. (Name me a mechanic who provides maintenance of mechanical equipment by numbers). And yet Alan still is posing as Joe’s remote chum. Clearly what has happened to date are rudimentary shots over the bow.
As I said to Joe... he needs to watch his back... that wrinkled thin topped ginger nut has got it in for him. War is in the air.
Us writers keep a track of old papers, ther is much inspiration to be had from looking back at old newspaper stories. There was an America Newspaper called The Brooklyn Eagle. It has in the July 1914 edition a powerful cartoon called 'A Chain of Friendship' . (google image it if you can) . It depicts a small insignificant act of betrayal between gentlemen, then a more obvious one, then an even bigger one then finally one where sides must be decided and it is all out mayhem. The caption read: “If Austria attacks Serbia, Russia will fall upon Austria, Germany upon Russia, and France and England upon Germany.” The following month... the world was a war. 1914 – 1918 are the dates of that conflict. 969, 815, 000 people died. And even today 98 years later, the number one question asked is still... “what was it about?”
Sometimes in life... you just don’t know the answers. Sometimes people want conflict with you when you pose no threat. When you’ve done nothing to them. When you are totally harmless. They just do – I suppose they feel it is easier to bring you down this way than be honest and discuss their issue.
Although Joe and I laughed about it (while he slaughtered me a pool ... beat my slice with a clever cannon shot the git!) I know him well enough to know that Alan’s clandestine assault has already started to work. He was manipulated into withdrawing and being suspicious of his colleagues, till he figured out Alan was the perp. And now he is noting every move Alan makes and wondering what is it all about. No matter what he says as he laughs about the balding twatter... Alan’s campaign is eating away at it him. Worst still he can’t confront him so has to wear a mask of tranquillity at work. How long can anyone keep that up for? He is just waiting for the next blow to fall... as surely it will.
“Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.” So said Ben Franklin. I would add that unfortunately they do have just about enough brains to make trouble.
Watch your back Joe.... watch your back.
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