Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

by Sarah Wynn-Williams

fact. I start to provide the investigators with documents and names of witnesses they can talk to. So I’m genuinely shocked when the investigator emails her findings, letting me know that the investigation has cleared Joel. Their position is that the review he gave me was not actually a review, but that he was sharing feedback for the period before I went on maternity leave (even though nearly all of what was discussed occurred during maternity leave, and even though Joel acknowledged the timing was “not ideal”). Because I had asked to “stay involved” in certain matters at the start of my maternity leave it was felt okay that I had been asked to work during my maternity leave (I am fairly sure most employers would have not contacted me after I had come near to death and been in a coma but who knows!). Apparently, Joel did not remember asking me about breastfeeding or my bleeding (hard conversations to forget, you’d have thought) and as there was no one to evidence these comments—nothing to see here! Oh, and apparently they had been discussing the separation of APAC and LATAM for years—the fact that it was only after I complained that this was actioned felt not worthy of too much investigation. In summary, my “challenges” with Joel were found to be a result of communication issues and “concerns around my performance.” I’m stunned. I tell the investigator how surprised I am that they closed out the investigation before they’d received or reviewed all the documentation and in...