Where to start, at the beginning of course…

This all started with a rather annoyed and an angry email I wrote after again being woken up by the faulty fire alarm, after I tried to stop it raining in the hallway, and having been deprived of sleep. For those of you who wish to read it you can find it here.

Clearly written by someone at the end of their tether. Regardless of the circumstances it was enough for GreenSquareAccord to dismiss me from a voluntary role on the pretext that I was in breach of a contract I’d neither seen nor signed, typical GreenSquareAccord grandstanding.

Here is that first letter:

Apparently there was a follow-up to this letter sent in November 2021, which I can’t seem to find and have no recollection of. It does seem unusual that GreenSquareAccord would take four months to review this, where three or six months would be a normal timeframe, but that could just be me. Maybe I should stop trying to apply common sense and logic to a housing association?.

Hi Ben

I hope you are well.

Please find attached a letter which details the outcome of your contact management plan review.

Kind regards

Julianne

Julianne Britton

Director of Customer Services

No need to go into this in too much depth as I’ve already done so here. The worrying point is the accusation of:

We have become increasingly concerned by reports from several junior female colleagues who have expressed they feel threatened by your behaviour

This I took offence to as I do not believe it to be true. This is a known tactic (to villainise anyone who dare speak out against them) used by the sector to silence vocal critics. Due to this I asked GreenSquareAccord (via a SAR) to share with me the instances where I had displayed threatening behaviour towards any staff member, not just young or female employees. Of course they were unable to provide this (as reported here).

To be reviewed on 19th July!

Four months later, after waiting for the agreed upon response outlined in the above letter that never arrived, I reached out.

On 22 Aug 2022, at 14:47, Ben Jenkins wrote:

Hello,

Customer Service Team, hope you had a great weekend. Can you please forward on to the correct person (probably Julianne Britton or Claire Cook)?

Can you please confirm that my now out of date communication ban has been lifted or provide reasons as to a) why it has been extended, b) how long for this time?

Thanks

Ben

To which (surprise surprise) there wasn’t a reply:

From: Ben Jenkins
Sent: 05 September 2022 08:13:49
To: "Merged Mailbox" <info@greensquareaccord.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Communication Ban

Hello,

Can I please have a response to the question below?

Is it fair for me to assume that this communication ban has now been lifted as you have been unable to provide a reason as to why it should stay in place?

Thanks

Ben

This time there was a response!

From: "Merged Mailbox" <INFO@GREENSQUAREACCORD.CO.UK>

Subject: Re: Communication Ban [#63F91B]

Date: 5 September 2022 at 13:31:38 BST

To: Ben Jenkins

Good Afternoon Ben,

Thank you for your email.

I have passed this through to Julianne and Claire and asked for them to contact yourself directly regarding this matter.

If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to ask.

Kind Regards

Customer Service Officer

And finally an update on a contact management plan that in theory had ended on the 19th July.

From: Julianne Britton <Julianne.Britton@greensquareaccord.co.uk>

Subject: Contact Management Plan Review

Date: 5 September 2022 at 13:38:20 BST

To: Ben Jenkins

Hi Ben

I hope you are well.

Please find attached a letter which details the outcome of your contact management plan review.

Kind regards

Julianne 

Julianne Britton

Director of Customer Services

And here is the latest version:

Here is the pertinent bit:

As a reminder, your unacceptable behaviour includes directly messaging, contacting, tagging and targeting individual GreenSquareAccord colleagues on their personal social media, including the use of multiple accounts in order to hide your identity. You also continue to use your blog and website to make personal attacks on named members of staff who tend to be junior female colleagues. As previously stated, we do not tolerate intimidation or harassment of any kind, and again respectfully ask that you consider this in all communications, whether direct to GSA or publicly using other channels.

A reminder implies that it’s been mentioned before. However this appears to be the first time that GreenSquareAccord are mentioning; …tagging and targeting individual GreenSquareAccord colleagues on their personal social media.

They’ve now increased the scope of this contact management plan.

Secret accounts to hide my identity!

Secret identity indeed! I must stop using my name when trying to hide my secret iden…

“Look up there in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane?”

“No, it’s Clark Kent without his glasses on!”

And when did I last use one of these accounts?

And why did I use a “secret” account and tag Ruth Cooke? Well because I assume in her role of CEO she is the chief architect for GreenSquareAccord’s ‘Voice of the Customer’ initiative, and also because her team might like to keep issues hidden from her.

Whilst on the phone we also spoke about the escalation process. I explained that sometimes if a complaint goes straight to Ruth Cook this could slow down the progress that is being made because Ruth and the Directors involved would want to look into what the issue is and speak with the relevant departments. I would advise whilst an outstanding issue is being resolved to escalate this to my manager, Claire Cook who will work the managers in other departments to resolve an issue. If Claire and myself our unable to resolve the issue then we would advise a resident to make a formal complaint as per our procedure.

Perhaps Ruth Cooke should be more ‘in the loop'!

And again we have another attempt at controlling the narrative by portraying me as a bully of young women. An allegation that is simply untrue.

You also continue to use your blog and website to make personal attacks on named members of staff who tend to be junior female colleagues

First of all (and please check for yourselves) my blog and website are not used to make personal attacks on anyone, I use it to highlight the inept approach adopted by mid and senior level members of GreenSquareAccord. Their gender plays no part, and neither should it. If you’re not able to do the job for which you are taking a wage out of a not-for-profit organisation I’m going to call you out; regardless of race, creed, colour, and sex. I am (you could say) an equal opportunity identifier of ‘weak links’ and ‘wage wasters’.

There is a more serious piece about this in the pipeline as it is a serious issue and requires a serious response,. However for now I’m going to ask you dear reader to judge for yourselves.

Court in session

When GreenSquareAccord first mentioned bullying it was worded as:

We have become increasingly concerned by reports from several junior female colleagues who have expressed they feel threatened by your behaviour

Due to this I requested all calls so I could establish where this claim was coming from. GreenSquareAccord were only able to provide one call recording. This call clearly demonstrated a training issue and a frustrated resident.

Unlike GreenSquareAccord I do keep call recordings (for matters like this). If you would like to listen to these calls please let me know. I will gladly share them so you can review the contents and make your own judgement.

GreenSquareAccord are now asserting (presumably after not being able to find any calls) that it is my website and blog that I am weaponising to intimidate junior female colleagues:

You also continue to use your blog and website to make personal attacks on named members of staff who tend to be junior female colleagues

Judge for yourself, all the pages are still here.

I look forward to any support you can offer.

Going forward…

GreenSquareAccord telling me what I can and can’t do is a fine example of the Messiah Complex. It also feels like bullying, just not in the way they are trying to portray it.

The communication ban (whatever they want to call it) makes little to no difference to me. I only asked for the review as I naïvely assumed GreenSquareAccord might want to reopen the lines of dialogue since they continue to promote themselves as listening to the voice of the customer!

They are looking to review it again on (or around) the 5th December.

I’m reminded of the story of Jack Jackson the first African-American world heavyweight boxing champion. He was pulled over for a $50 speeding ticket, but he gave the officer $100 telling him to keep the change as he was going to make the return trip at the same speed.

Let’s skip the review in December and wait until March, as I intend to keep doing what I’m doing.

PS

Ruth Cooke as just blocked my latest ‘Secret Account’, so much for the voice of the customer!