Written by Robert D. Sollars
…and kill those son-of-a-bitches at work! They’ve treated me like shit and bullied me for the very last fucking time!”
Have any of you ever heard someone say that before and actually mean what they say? I sincerely doubt it, but it does happen, and only a few people will ever hear it. If they do hear it, they will ignore it and simply chalk it up to blowing steam, anger spewing forth, or just the person being themselves.
It may not be in the forefront of your mind, but it does occasionally happen that an individual will utter such threats openly and loudly. Never will anyone take this seriously, and why should they. No one EVER threatens an entire organization like that…do they? Of course, they do! And the problem is that no one ever takes it seriously. Taking it seriously and REPORTING it is what may prevent something from happening. And why would anyone ever do that kind of nonsense?
Yes, it may cost you a friendship if the individual was one, but which would you rather have? A friend dead or incarcerated or potentially dozens of your other friends dead, wounded, or traumatized? That only leaves one other result possible. The fact that you lost that friend as a friend and saved all of those lives?
The question comes down to whether or not you’re gonna report that individual or not. Doing that is never an easy choice, although it should be. There are tons of excuses because you wouldn’t report such threats, including “He didn’t really mean it, he’s just stressed out about…”
Watch for an entire list of excuses from both individuals and employers/administrators in the coming weeks.
Going along with that is the idea…do you know the 4 different kinds of threats that are generally out there? They range from;
- open
- veiled
- written
- verbal
Which do you take seriously and which ones can be scoffed at?
The problem is that you’ll never know until the shooting, blood, bodily fluids, and other such items are on the floor and walls. Then the mental trauma comes to you about whether YOU could have done something to prevent all of the carnage and mayhem. Stew over that for a while and see how you’d react if you didn’t react to the threat.
I’ll say right here, right now, that no rational individual wants to be responsible for not reporting this and having something happen within the organization and their friends.
Think of how much YOU’LL be affected by the idea that you could’ve stopped it but did nothing.
How long will you be in therapy attempting to get over that trauma and survivors’ guilt…knowing you could’ve done something but didn’t? It could be as bad as domestic violence survivors and/or PTSD. Do you really want that hanging over your head for the rest of your life, the next 20, 30, 50, or more years from now?
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It happens to Anyone…Any Time…Anywhere… For any Reason
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Copyright 2021 Robert D. Sollars
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