About this website

When I began experiencing bullying behaviour from Sam Taradash, who was my line manager, I built the previous version of this website to keep a public record of what was happening. It didn't take me long to realise that Sam was an accomplished bully, who operated with impunity, as his managers seemed completely unaware of or unwilling to halt his actions. In Macmillan's corporate culture of bullying, disability discrimination and racism, I can see why such behaviour would pass unnoticed.

 

Emails I obtained from Macmillan via a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) request, showed that Sam had mocked the creation of my website to his managers and HR, saying that I had a "brass neck" to do it. Subsequent social media posts of my experiences at Macmillan drew an offer from HR to chat about them. I accepted their offer on condition that I could treat it as a media interview and record our conversation. No chat occurred. Some weeks later, I was emailed by Lauren McLardie, one of Macmillan's HR staff, saying that they were no longer prepared to discuss anything with me.

Silently hiding?

Since then, Macmillan hasn't communicated with me. The only exception has been Steven McIntosh, Macmillan's Executive Director of Advocacy and Communications. He responded to my post on X, asking what they had done to remedy the findings of Social Justice Collective's report on bullying, racism and discrimination. Continuing their silence is an indication that Macmillan has a lot to hide.

Information I have asked them for is fairly basic:

• The dimensions of their 'listening room'
• Number of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people they employ
• The number of racism, bullying and discrimination complaints currently pending
• How many Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people they have in management roles.

 

Their silence is not a deterrent for holding them to account. Neither is having my email address blocked. Macmillan received around £227 million from donations in 2022. They seem good at wasting money. For example, during my time there, I had to compulsorily attend 4 'team days' which were all day meetings. Part of the team, based in Scotland, were flown in and accommodated overnight in hotels, just so that could hear a range of senior managers talk about themselves for hours. Colleagues dubbed this the "Narcissists show." A few metres from the meeting room, people struggled with 6+ year old PCs and under-invested IT infrastructure.

 

It was notable that, at all of these team day meetings, there were no presentations by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Managers. You could be forgiven for thinking they didn't employ any. This is probably why at one time, when a group of Muslim fundraisers visited, a senior manager wanted them checked out by security beforehand. Also, at another time during an online meeting, the word "Paki" was used to describe Asian people and it went unchallenged.

 

Before I knew

Years ago before I had worked for Macmillan and discovered what a self-serving charity they are, I took part in an 80km (50 mile) sponsored bike ride to raise money for them. Riding as the "1-in-3" team, which was then a statistic for the number of people with cancer, 4 of us raised hundreds of Pounds Sterling (GBP) for the charity. If there was a way of getting a refund of all our donations, I would ask them for it.