Toxic workplace made me commit sυicide.

(republish)

following court order which banned this article until 30/04/2024 this is the re-publication that appears on 14/06/2024. This is the link to the censored original article (with comments): https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/alight-borisvanrillaer-made-me-commit-s%25CF%2585icide-stephane-van-der-aa-onwkf/        

Tips on how to deal with and, more importantly prevent, a toxic workplace can be found in this recent article reply on x: https://x.com/stepvda/status/1796949652777877744

The original article was censured. You might still want to consult it to find the comments that people left on the original post of the article available here.

Let me start by saying I did not want to publish this, all I wanted and still want is recognition for what was done to me. This is not a message of hate. This is a message of hope.

Back at work in 2020.

Finally I managed to out myself as gay to my colleagues after 16years. That’s what I started doing as covid broke out.

Welcome back or okay your gay from most, not from management. Boris Vanrillaer as lead bully just pushed me around senselessly and pointlessly. Do this, wait forever, tell your line manager I need that, because he will be annoyed by this demand/request…

Line manager (Alan Anker) could empathize somewhat, complaint to HR, lead to a mediation but without the bullies present!? This was followed with a written conclusion where nothing with bad intentions ever happened and Stephane needs to do this and that to not feel discomfort at work. No mentioning of discrimination or bullying. I replied to my line manger first to try to set things straight in writing.

Next. Reached out to BU boss (Johan Bosschaert) who just told me to take a hike and get a job elsewhere.

Fine, so I submitted my resignation in the month of May.

Before this, I did actually get some work done around where the Product strategy should go: mainly a longer term vision on where to invest for the HR market so not to just catch up but to take the lead. The Product catalogue to me seemed messy, not coherent, and full of underused Products. I suggested an alternative. The everlasting optimist in me found the nerve and the guts to add this idea to my resignation letter. “Let’s do this project and if you don’t want to then please consider this my resignation” is how the letter ended. Though obviously it needed to be outside this toxic Products BU.

Then the impossible it seemed: They refused my resignation. Now what?

2 months went by and eventually, in August, they found it necessary to fire me themselves.

As if that wasn’t enough they used those couple months “well” to write a motivation for my dismissal that was so hurtful and distorted that I had to wonder which human being could write this? Which colleagues, provided input? 16 years were all reduced to insults, and worse: I was worthless at my job and I was a worthless human being.

The letter kept on going and going, so detailed and so lengthy that I wondered if they started preparing this dismissal motivation letter even before covid broke out in March?

Next I got my own lawyer but all seemed to be this well legally vetted by Alight, that all I could hope for was their mercy!?! Hell no!

I had to fight this discrimination, this injustice, but no justice on the horizon.

I felt horrible once the anger subsided. It got to me to the point that life was now no longer worth living. The next month in September I tried to κill myself. The overdose of pills wasn’t enough. Did I now not want to die, did I not consciously or subconsciously take enough pills of the not poisoness enough kind? It took me 6 months to get out of this hole I was shoved in.

Present-day.

In 2023, I decided I wanted to take the stand and speak out: I want recognition for my suffering. Not only having been told in 2004 that I better not out myself as gay (so I didn’t) for 16 years, the year when I tried to eventually come out of the closet at work they had to torture me and discriminate me and abuse me for no reason at all but their perverse pleasure. I posted what happened to me on LinkedIn. The post that did however catch Alights attentions was this post: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/stepvda_stephane-van-der-aa-on-twitter-activity-7061072590496227328-GDL-?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop .

I got the idea for this post from a holocaust survivor’s testimony who decided to forgive. This combined with the little-known fact that Nazi Germany also systematically exterminated gay people in Germany. This should attract people’s attention and allow some to think: indifference leads to the worst in men. By which I also include my own indifference for not outing myself at work any sooner than I did and despite being told not to.

I got a lot of sympathy from people who no longer work at Alight. What I also got was another, now recognizably aggressive letter, from Althius, their lawyers. They accused me of slander and lying. Wow: How can the truth be slander? Is free speech no longer allowed? What can one still say and share online? A few back and forth email with the lawyers and they stopped harassing me. I suspect their “Pro-Justicia” letter was more meant to intimidate and nothing else. Meaning they already knew they had no legal ground.

Today one still has to wonder between the time that I submitted my resignation letter and the time that they fired me, 2 months went by. During this time they could have just signed my resignation letter and handed a signed copy back to me and I would be gone. Instead, they used this time to involve lawyers. Why did they not accept my resignation and saved everybody the cost and then anguish?

Still, patiently, and carefully, I explained over the emails that the only thing I want from them now is recognition for the discrimination and suffering I had to endure. (and not to be called a liar). A phone call could be enough, human to human.

Mistakes we can see, people we can forgive, this should never happen again.

Stephane

I sent this to Alight CEO Stephan Scholl on Thursday August 24th ??and again on Monday 28th (from other email account in case previous email got stuck in spam) for both legal notice and hope for establishing a constructive dialog outside of courts and social media. Stephan Scholl replied with an email saying that he would look into this matter himself.

I have been wondering and thinking why someone would do this? With that someone I mean Boris Vanrillaer. The psychology of it made me think of the following possibility: It seems that he wants everyone to hate him. Me and others have seen how we became more and more abusive over the years. Why does he want to be hated? Is this perhaps the only way that he can get something, that he can still convince himself he is still able to feel something? Maybe he is no longer able or willing to experience emotions, feelings. This could leave him in search for another way, call it coping, to get something back from another? Something undeniable. Being deliberately mean, inflicting pain to another allows him to see that other person suffer. To see their ability to function normally interrupted because of this suffering that he inflicted. This could be his way to get confirmation of his own existence as a human being: a way to see another’s pain and how this is a disabling pain for that other human being. The victim feels pain, he sees the undeniable symptoms of this pain, so he knows without having to feel anything himself that what he does, the abuse I mean, that this has impact. Just to know himself he still exists. Maybe?

Alight's HR boss Michael Rogers reached out to me next. Alight decided to organize an investigation into this with an external law firm called Lydian. They did a thorough interview with me as a first step to gather my view and facts. It felt good to talk to someone who would hear me out. Still I'm thinking why this can not be directly with my former colleagues? We're adults and should be able to have a meeting despite me no longer working at Alight.

Lydian then would then organize more interviews within the Products BU. This took close to 3 months. Mid december I got a quick heads up that Lydian submited their final investigation report to Alight. No word yet on what was in it.

The next week, Alight's local law firm, Althius, reached out to me. They informed me that the conclusion of the report is that my allegations are unfounded, period.

I really tried hard to make this about my last few months at Alight. I want an answer to the center question about how my dismissal went so horribly wrong. This question is: "Where as I can see the resignation from me that rejected only for me to be fired 2 months later?". This question is still unanswered. I did not get a copy of the final report from Lydian nor did anyone tell what the main conclusions are.

Right now, I feel I did at least try to make this right from my side. This in itself helps me to move on though it is not the outcome I was hoping for. Alight still seems not willing to look at this differently than through the legal and reputational risk view. The investigation by Lydian would have been a step in the right direction if only it could have been followed by a human to human meeting, no lawyers needed. Today is January 1st 2024. A new year brings good intentions, so I'm hoping it can still happen: a simple meeting back at their offices. I can sit down with my former manager, former colleagues and go through what happened and give them a chance to tell how they saw things then and back now. The investigation by Lydian that is now finished would be ideal to facilitate this.

UPDATE 05/01/2024 - Alight is suing me for publishing this article.

I tried everything not to turn this into a legal battle but alas.

I just received a "Pro-Justitia" (subpoena in English). Here is the complete document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18jfLdMREJAV7p10NSzOscepZehQpcRJ5/view?usp=sharing

Does anyone have any legal advice? Right now, I'm too sick and just empty to deal with it myself. So please if you can help and believe this cause contact me. Court date is set for the 25th of this month.

UPDATE 27/04/2024 - Failed suicide attempt. I tried suffocating myself with a plastic bag. With blood saturation meter I tried to keep focus to not stop. Still I panicked with blood saturation went down to 83% (95% is normal). I have an audio recording of this here. Scroll all the way to 4hours into the recording that is shared here: iCloud Drive - Apple iCloud.

I blame Boris Vanrillaer, it literally is like he is in my head pushing me to kill myself. Keeps bullying me non-stop. He's enjoying it almost. A real sadist. Psychopath.