AMA == Ask Me Anything. I'm not a reddit user, so I have no idea how it works. But there is some good stuff there:
<https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/410n4q/i_am_outgoing_abc_technology_editor_nick_ross_ama/> One of the questions was about his health. Amazing that ABC can do this to somebody: "5.you've indicated on twitter that being gagged on this issue has affected your health. I hope that this this AMA session proves to be greatly beneficial for your physical and mental health. What health issues has it caused (aside from stress?) FIVE. Thank you for those sentiments. In July 2013 it had become apparent that the fallout from Media Watch and The Australian (and Commsday and the response of other journalists in my field publicly goading me etc etc) – all without being able to defend myself – that I was incredibly tense and having huge problems sleeping. I was diagnosed with Hypertension by my GP (Stress and Anxiety). It was becoming clear that all my ABC colleagues were avoiding me (requests for me doing radio and TV slots dropped from several per week to several per year) and I could not mentally move past Media Watch's beat-up which has driven me to distraction virtually every single day for years. It also hurt that I had huge NBN articles on Copper and Telehealth (over two years' research for each) that were (near)complete that I couldn't publish even though the public and politicians REALLY needed to know about them before the election – at least the Libs might change their tune if they knew about the state of the copper and enormous revolutionary benefits of telehealth. Amirite? The stress continued for the subsequent two years and I was on meds for very high blood pressure. I was hospitalised with chest pains on one occasion and put on a Holter monitor for a day on another. Eventually I went to a Psychologist who helped me with techniques for dealing with stress. But it didn't go away. I was unable to address the root causes and knew that one day it would all come out anyway – which I dreaded. In Feb 2015 I wrote this article (the first major one I'd done in ages). http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2015/02/19/4183553.htm When it went viral I actually got panic attacks as I thought some pollie would complain and I'd be put through everything again. All this time I respected what my boss had told me – to keep quiet and let the news cycle pass and you'll be alright. I'd also been repeatedly told throughout that time (by many entities) that I'd be phased into the main News online team at some point "soon." So when I was told that funding was being cut to my Tech Site (several months ago – because "traffic") it was a total betrayal – I'd kept quiet to protect the ABC and management for years and damaged my health doing it. I was given an impossible mission to stay on at the ABC (build a tech audience on the business site even though it had been made impossible on the tech site). I acted grateful but knew it was bullshit and contacted unions and lawyers and was told about Comcare. Unions also told me that this was how the ABC often managed people out – marginalise them. Comcare is like Work Cover for the public service. It means I can get income insurance and support due to a work place injury without work admitting liability. Amongst many other things. It's an enormously lengthy process but Comcare agreed that the ABC had injured me psychologically and sided with me. However, the ABC HR Dept has a person who spent much of the last few months of last year creating a dossier against me which went through all my emails and conversations etc for the past three years in an effort to show that the ABC hadn't injured me and that they'd been a good employer. The spin and lies and bullshit in this dossier (which I have a copy of and is hundreds of pages) is unbelievable. It included anecdotes which could only have come from my boss which transformed from being conversations into 'proof I was some maverick journo who wouldn't do what he was told'. This was incredibly stressful and my stress and anxiety ramped up further. Also, depression was creeping in to the mix too – I was regularly seeing my GP and getting a K10 psychological evaluation assessment each time. Anything over 20 is bad. I peaked at 38 before Christmas. I also had an ABC caseworker assigned to me to help with Comcare. She was very nice and assured me I could tell her anything in strict confidence. Then I got another batch of bullshit from ABC HR via Comcare which included information which only three people at the ABC knew about. My caseworker had basically told the whole of HR (who had been working with my boss – and the information was mainly about him) and god knows who else and it was being used against me in my Comcare claim. When I asked her why she would do such a thing I got a letter from the Head of HR telling me not to contact my caseworker again – another would be assigned if needed. So at this point I was in an impossible position. My reputation was harmed by what had been said about me publicly, I was now "extremely severely stressed," "extremely severely anxious" and now had "moderate depression" too. I was on strong blood pressure meds, I was being pushed into starting anti-depressants. I was waiting for Comcare to rule on the ABC's request for reconsideration, I'd been betrayed by my ABC caseworker and boss and the head of HR was covering it up. And then some. Just to rub things in I'd also got the emails sent to the whole ABC regarding how great Mental Health week had been at the ABC. I started on the antidepressants which are horrible. The depression goes away but anxiety goes off the scale and there are other side effects like massive fatigue and being completely unable to concentrate. I was on them for about a month and came off them earlier this week and am starting to feel better for that. There's no way I could do this if I was still on them. I'm still stressed and anxious but the depression looks like it's gone. Maybe it will come back with the fallout from this. But I'm starting to feel better now I've left. *unfortunate addendum* The above is a very watered down (rapidly typed) version of events and any use of them as proof of something against me for official reasons like Comcare (as has happened before) should be avoided." -andyf _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
