“You will always have your opinions, but in public, your opinion must equate to that of government.”
That was the phrase that set my mind absolutely resolutely that I have to, totally, must, quit this toxic job in this toxic place with these **expletive expletive genitalia expletive**.
Picture this scene.
I am getting a full on dressing down in the office of the chairman of the government agency I worked at.
The reason for this is that I eviscerated a public private partnership that the agency was involved in, unbeknownst to me.
I understand that ignorance of something does not absolve one of guilt, but unluckily for me and for the chairman currently spitballing in my face, I believe I have the moral highground, by virtue of the fact that I am objectively right and correct.
“Yes, I understand that I am an idiot and that I showed the agency up because I knocked its work, however, hear me out Mr Chairman, because factually, I am right and this website is, actually, a festering piece of sh**.”
This did not land as well as I expected.
I was quite incredulous in fact, that even my cold blooded logic was not doing anything to cool down the situation.
I figured I needed clarification, which I attempted to get with a slight reframing of the context.
I asked, “OK Mr Chairman, set aside your obvious grievance with my actions for a moment and let me ask for some clarification – you will agree that I have a blog and that I can air my thoughts and opinions on said blog, right?”
“Yes”, came the reply very very grudgingly.
“OK, so what can I NOT write then?”
His eyes glazed over.
This was a thought experiment too far for this civil servant, the ilk of which was to always please his masters unquestioningly, so he mumbled something about ad hoc and case per case basis and that he could not think of specific topics I was to be forever precluded from writing about.
I pushed a little further.
“Mr Chairman, let us, for the sake of argument, say that tonight, the migrants currently locked up not a mile from here at the Marsa Open Centre, protest, and this develops into a riot, and that the prime minister sends in the army who proceed to open live fire on unarmed rioters and kill a number of them. Can I take to my blog and condemn these actions?”
Silence. A pause becomes two. I draw breath. And then…
The answer.
“You will always have your opinions, but in public, your opinion must equate to that of government.”
“I’m sorry Mr Chairman, what? I am saying that unarmed, probably innocent people die in this hypothetical fracas, is that clear?”
“You will always have your opinions, but in public, your opinion must equate to that of government.”
I forget exactly what was said after this, but it can’t have been important.
His reply just kept ringing inside my head. Over and over. I know now I was a naive kid back then, but nothing I had ever been told had ever felt so Orwellian to me.
In the end, I was suspended with full pay for 2 or 3 days. 2 or 3 days I spent working on some freelance stuff, and basically steeling myself for a harsh truth about what was to come, what had to happen.
And within a couple of months, I would, and I’d never look back.
