Truth Will Set Me Free?

One of my "girls" reported that her motorbike was vandalized last Sunday night. She was claiming that someone allegedly dismembered, of all parts, the brake system. Apparently, she already reported the matter to the security the next morning and just requesting me to do a follow up.

It may seem ill-fitted that I call them "my girls", but that's the way we call female subordinates here . It may matter not to you, but my job includes, amongst oodles, supervising all-female engineering operators (EO's) of diverse race and nationality who works 24/7.

It was obviously an issue of life and limbs so I took it with utmost urgeny and seriousness. I asked her to provide me with the nitty-gritty and a sketch of the location of the her bike. I know for a fact that the parking area are littered with monitoring cameras capable of recording, though there are numerous deadspots.

As expected, the security was vehemently defensive, saying that the location of the bike was so close to the security guard not to be noticed, that it can be a normal wear and tear undetected , blah blah blah, blah!

Spare me...

This guys have no idea that my work calls for logical reasoning and factual presentation of data, there's just no way I'll bite those craps!

Believing that it will get you nowhere by pushing someone off the wall, I tried diplomacy. I told them that I'm not discounting those possibilities, but definitely, I'm not discounting either that the bike was in fact vandalized. I told them whether we can review the recording and if it's not possible, what would it take for me to view them. Do I need to escalate the issue and get authorization from upper echelons? I knew the last one "convinced" them to take me seriously and agreed to let me do the ocular, less the brouhaha.

I was appalled! The timing wasn't just right on the tape, the bike wasn't even there to begin with!

"Are we sure we have the right tape?", then I went in my litanies of observations. These made them uneasy and told me that it was the actual tape, it's just that it wasn't synchronized.

"Kiss my ass panyeros!" I was actually smiling with this in mind.

Maybe really something happened on that night yet they were trying to hide it afraid of being branded as incompetents, this is serious. The lesser evil, based on "unsynchronized" recordings, is that they are maintaining a flawed security system. Both ways, they are screwed big time!

Knowing that is was pointless arguing about the authenticity of the tape, I let them have their reprieve and graciously (though I'm fuming to show them my middle finger) thank them for their "cooperation".

Since nothing really serious happened to my girl and knowing that I've teached those guys to take their job seriously, will I take it to rest? I am toying with the idea of upping the ante and escalate issue which will definitely put them in the hot seat.

But is it really worth the trouble?

Sometimes you can only push so hard to expose the truth. Yet this truth may not be collectively benificial, hence, right.

For them, I'll be their bad guy and mind you, these people have access to every nook and cranny. Being streetsmart (I grew up in a place short of a slum), I know it is not far-fetched that they can anytime set me up to get even.

As for my girl, I advise her to be more careful and observant. Anyway, the security promised to monitor the situation with utmost vigilance . I'm hoping (more of crossing my fingers) that I've seen the last of that issue. Else, I'll be playing hardball with them next time.