Reality Check

I think that Rudyard Kipling has the appropriate response for this situation and I can't improve on his point of view. I'm also aware that Manuel Brian Arnett's ego is at stake in this and that means there will be no limit to the degree to which I am misrepresented and smeared on the Internet. The degree to which those things occur will match the size of Arnett's ego, which all evidence suggests is a limitless entity. I'm not sure who cares about this idiotic nonsense. But just to make sure that there's no confusion where I stand, I'll briefly reiterate my positions on the Internet character assassination that Manuel Brian Arnett (and company) is currently directing at me.

Basically, this situation is an overblown, over-the-top, Internet manure pile that exists because two years ago IBM gave Manuel Brian Arnett a job reprimand that he completely deserved. This situation started as an insignificant disciplinary action that occurred in an isolated IBM office in Lexington, Kentucky in December 2005, and it has evolved into a bloated, over-hyped, over-exaggerated conceit that matches the size of Manny's ego, but has nothing to do with reality.

The reality is that Manuel Brian Arnett (or anyone in his clique) knows nothing about me. He has never spoken to me and he has never spent any time with me. He doesn't have any idea of what kind of person I am. He has created a fictional person on the Internet, applied my name to that person, and ascribed the characteristics to that person that he deems necessary to accomplish his goal. He creates this fiction through relentless one-sided attacks in which he can paint me in any way he sees fit. The portrait that he paints reflects his own ego and hatred but has nothing to do with me. I am being thoroughly misrepresented and falsely portrayed. In reality, Brian Arnett doesn't know me, has never spoken to me, and any claims he makes to have any understanding of my personality are a scam and a fraud.

This relentless association of me with pornography is false. I haven't viewed any pornography of any kind in approximately two-and-a-half years. I place no value or importance on pornography. Any implications that I have recently been involved with pornography in any way, or that I currently have any interest in pornography are lies. Any statements that Arnett makes that indicate he knows my views on pornography are also lies.

Brian Arnett uses pornography to create a distorted, one-dimensional portrait to persuade you to his point of view, and he has fabricated, embellished, and magnified this angle to a degree that is beyond absurdity. Arnett's attacks have nothing to do with perspective, balance, or truth, but are all about doing whatever it takes to accomplish a goal, and whatever it takes in this case includes hyperbole, distortion, and fraud.

Any implications that Brian Arnett's attacks are a justified revenge or payback are lies. I was persistently harassed at IBM by Arnett and his friends. At the time, Arnett seemed to derive great amusement from this harassment and I quit my job at IBM to get away from this harassment. After I quit IBM in December 2005, Arnett got some kind of job reprimand.

With respect to Brian Arnett's job reprimand and the state of his career, it was IBM that decided to reprimand him, not me. If Arnett's career is ruined, IBM made this decision and not me. If Arnett disagreed with this reprimand, he should have appealed it to a higher power at IBM. Arnett didn't appeal to IBM because this requires a valid argument, and he didn't have one. The folks at IBM evaluated Arnett's behavior and dealt with Arnett as they saw fit and if he has a gripe about his career, his gripe is with IBM and not with me.

The reality is that after 22 months, this isn't about me, pornography, a job reprimand, or the truth. This is all about Brian Arnett's ego. Arnett believes he is special and has the right to harass and smear people. His ego requires that he win, and he will do whatever it takes to win, including cheating, fabrication, deception, and fraud.

While Arnett endlessly bombards you with mindless garbage, and keeps his attention firmly pressed to the bottom of the pig sty, there's a question that he neglects to address.

How can the drama of an insignificant job reprimand that occurred in a small, isolated office in Lexington, Kentucky in 2005 drag on for almost two years? Some people spend less time grieving for a lost spouse. Don't normal adults look for a constructive way to move forward?

I worked with Arnett and his clique on the second floor of the IBM building at 1500 Aristides Boulevard in Lexington, Kentucky. I've never worked harder in my life and I've never been treated worse. It's a very long and complicated story from my side, but I'll spare you the boring details. What it came down to in the end was that Arnett and his friends had me boxed in at our isolated, little office and they were harassing the hell out of me.

To harass me at IBM, they were using the same kind of techniques that you have seen on the Internet, except without the pornography. (In reality, pornography had nothing to do with Arnett's job reprimand or his career being ruined.) My manager was at an IBM site 1000 miles away and I had no peers in the Lexington office and I had no protection from this harassment.

These guys harassed me for about one-and-a-half years solid within IBM using blogs or similar network collaboration software. They ganged up, piled on, and they ruined any sense of enjoyment or accomplishment that I got from that job. This is the same approach they have used on the Internet. One reason their Internet smear campaign spread so quickly was that they had a one-and-a-half year running start with it at IBM before they took it out to the Internet.

All of these guys harassing me, including Arnett, are from Lexington or nearby. They have lived there their whole lives and known each other forever. They're thick as thieves and this is their greatest strength. They stick together even when they are doing something evil and rotten, like any good crime family does.

Arnett didn't think there was any escape for me. It wouldn't occur to Arnett that a person could actually leave Lexington. It wasn't the sort of thought Arnett would have and it took him by surprise when I quit IBM. It made him cry. Literally.

Arnett's ego was hurt and his pride was wounded and that is the reason for all this drama. He felt like I'd put one over on him and got the best of him. I did something he hadn't anticipated and it cost him.

I didn't quit my 8-year career at IBM to put one over on Brian Anrett. I quit because these guys had done everything possible to make every day life there miserable. Even if I had transferred to a different location at IBM, they would have kept up their attacks on the network. They are bored with their lives, and this harassment is what they do to make their lives interesting. They act as if they are envious or threatened by me because I don't have to spend the rest of my life in that boring little office. And to alleviate their envy, they do everything possible to drag me down. It's pathetic.

This idiotic nonsense has continued for 22 months because Arnett feels like he done got slickered, and ain't nobody slickers Brian Arnett. It's that simple. This isn't about the truth. This is about idiotic macho nonsense. This is about Brian Arnett's ego. And the only way he can get his ego back in balance is by pulling down the guy he thinks slickered him.

Arnett has fought the dirtiest kind of fight you can fight and he has done all manner of despicable things. He conducts relentless one-sided attacks in which he over-emphasizes, over-exaggerates, and obsesses on pornography because he sees that as the way to pull me down and get his ego back in check.

Arnett has never spoken to me, or spent two seconds with me, and he is out on the Internet psychoanalyzing me and claiming that I am insane. To bolster his claims, he repeatedly associates me with pornography when I haven't viewed any pornography in years and I have never placed any importance on pornography. This completely stinks.

I am not being exposed by Arnett. The opposite is true. I am being colored over and distorted because that is what Arnett's ego requires and I am being totally misrepresented and falsely portrayed to a degree that is criminal.

The portrait that Arnett paints of me looks as it does, not because I am totally present in it, but because I am completely absent from it, just as I have been completely absent from his smear site for the past 22 months. Arnett applies my name to this portrait, entirely excludes the real person, and then uses relentless one-sided attacks to create an impression that suits his purpose. Arnett's smear site is entirely his creation and his obsession, and it is a reflection of his mind and personality, not mine. If anyone is completely absent from Arnett's smear site, it's me.

Almost two years ago, I quit my job at IBM because I was being harassed there by Arnett and his pals and Arnett got a job reprimand for this harassment. It was IBM that reprimanded Arnett and it was IBM that made all of the decisions about Arnett's career that he is angry about.

I guess Arnett can't make a valid appeal to IBM, and he and his pals can't gang tackle and harass IBM. Instead, to prove that Arnett didn't deserve to be reprimanded for harassment, he engages in a 22-month, one-sided, hate-filled, vile campaign of non-stop harassment and begs for sympathy while he does it. It is complete irony. The person with my name that Arnett creates on the Internet is a construction of his ego and bears no resemblance to me. I know who I am and I know my own mind, and I am being completely misrepresented and smeared.

I've worked with Arnett. The real-life Brian Arnett will ruin your career as casually as he would toss a wad of paper in the trash can, just because he didn't like email you wrote and because he has the political advantage to do it. If he experiences a career setback because of this, he breaks down crying like a little school girl. It is Arnett himself who is responsible for his career problems, not me.

Arnett's attacks have nothing to do with balance, perspective, truth, or reality. Arnett's smear site is an exercise in deception and distortion that is intended to create hatred and prejudice for the purpose of soothing his small, wounded, and vindictive ego. Arnett's obsession is more suited to a spoiled child who cries and screams until he gets his way, than an adult in a management position. This guy ran me out of IBM and IBM extracted a price from him for that. Arnett's ego can't pay that price, and he can't take on IBM, so he's created a manure pile on the Internet that is 22-months high and growing with the discharge from his wounded ego.

This entire situation is about nothing but idiotic macho nonsense and an ego that has to win at any cost, and it completely and thoroughly stinks.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,'
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling