Painful End To A Good Thing

[darknight1]

I don't remember if I ever mentioned this, but for most of the past five years since I moved to Colorado, I have been involved with a paranormal team. I met all of the members of it while attending PPCC during my first semester - this was just three months after I had moved here. For a time, it was engaging. Almost every other investigation yielded some interesting things, and I couldn't get enough. I threw myself into the work involved, constantly producing a lot of reports on the history of each place we visited, staying up late on countless nights to research different aspects of paranormal investigation, researching and getting new gear, finding new places to check out and leading the team to the best of my own abilities. It was exhilarating and engaging, and within a short time, I was bumped up to lead investigator, but for the entire duration I have been on board with this team, there was always an elephant in the room. A very, very big elephant. And this elephant was Sean, the self-styled founder of our paranormal team.

Over the past few years, this guy would do things that were just off the wall and considered to be very creepy by a lot of people. He would frequently joke about scaring people while wearing one of those screaming face masks and a clown wig. He would also make off-color jokes, openly talk of fighting demons in his sleep using the Predator's armor, openly talk about how a pine cone he had on his table (don't ask why - he thought it was a "pretty cool looking pine cone") had moved once - he lived near a busy rail line that made the place rattle quite often - and an unproven fraudulent psychic he had as co-founder of the team had told him his place was haunted because of this, show up to meetings and investigations wearing a short jean-fabric mini-skirt (while going commando in front of everyone), run around at one practice site we had with a BB gun and blue coveralls because of mountain lions he was seeing, and on top of it this guy would also talk about how we once found a skinwalker in this client's home (we never have had any evidence to back this up aside from a handful of EVPs) and how he saw angels and demons sword fighting at our practice location one night. I would confront him again and again, and ask him to stop saying these things. His behavior had actually cost us a promising relationship with a local haunted house attraction as the owner thought he was weird and didn't want us around because of this guy, and we feared approaching any other places because of him.

In 2013, we thought things took a turn for the best when we brought in this guy I had met months before at PPCC as an investigator. He proved to be practical, at least on managing equipment setup. He ended up taking over our first tech manager's spot after the guy left us in a fit of rage when we refused to kick out a member he was dating and cheating on at the same time. She had broken no real rules of ours, so we saw no valid reason to send her packing. With this new tech manager came his daughter. Within a few months, we had picked up four other individuals that seemed to be a good fit, and his wife took over as team treasurer. However, cracks would immediately begin to show despite this man's organizational skills. After a lot of poking and prodding, Sean finally got us a group bank account for our team. We had been pushing for something physical to store our collected funds in, but in the end, our tech manager's wife balked at signing onto the account with Sean after he mentioned using our team's credit card to pay his personal bills. In an even shorter time frame, two trusted members of my team who had joined just a year prior were driven to quit, as this tech manager (along with another woman serving as team historian) started initiating a series of events that indicated they had intentions to take over the team for reasons entirely related to fame and fortune.

During all of this, Sean ignored everything - our voting system, which was placed into the hands of us "leads" (myself, our webmaster, tech manager, historian, social media manager and our treasurer), had become compromised, as the tech manager, historian (by early last spring it was the tech manager's daughter), social media manager and treasurer all had me, Sean and our webmaster outnumbered on votes. They had backed us into a corner to the point where they were freely removing all psychology related questions from our client questionnaire forms (at the behest of our social media manager - she was a counselor working in a prison and feared someone finding out what she does and losing her license - she now openly boasts of it after having left our team), they were rewriting all of our rules to benefit them, inserting clauses that allowed voting only to happen at the meetings (with no information from those meetings allowed to be distributed to absent team members), rewriting our entire guidelines on investigating to conform more to NPS (National Paranormal Society - they have no scientific credibility at all and just attack everything) talking points, badmouthing other teams in the area in front of everyone they spoke to, badmouthing certain members of the team (and trying to kick them out in favor of the tech manager's immediate family and friends) and even badmouthing clients in public. It got to the point where even on investigations, he would overrule me all of the time and have us doing constant half hour to hour rotations at large and small locations, and he would be calling out 10 or more people "to give everyone a chance" to small residences (mainly apartments and small 1 to 2 bedroom houses). Everything this tech manager saw on photo or video was instantly written off as dust or as bugs - never any attempt to replicate the anomalies we were capturing. And throughout it all, Sean remained absent. He had shown up to a paranormal convention we attended in late September of 2013, where he promptly embarrassed us all by discussing how we captured a skinwalker (in front of an entire room of people) and then rambling on. This in conjunction with terrible spelling and grammatical errors made in the PowerPoint presentation this tech manager had done.

In mid-July, nearly 7 months ago, we had finally gained entrance to Evergreen Cemetery, having been stonewalled on investigating the place for the better part of four years. Everyone was excited. We all were aching to explore the entire place and just enjoy the evening. This was the same night where Sean had finally returned to active status with the team. That night, it became apparent that a storm was brewing, as the tech manager, along with our social media manager, constantly complained of him getting in the way with his attempts to document the entire investigation on his camera. He spent a lot of time in the old body storage chambers directly underneath the old chapel, while the tech manager, despite the vast size of the place, demanded that we all be placed into teams of three and rotate around every hour. We only had a few hours to investigate the entire place, as the tech manager would be leaving early with all of the gear to pick up his wife from work at around 1:30 AM (we didn't start until 10 PM - right after dusk). The entire night I was subjected to the anger he was projecting, and the very presence of Sean creating additional stress - he repeatedly rambled on aimlessly about hoping to capture something evil that night.

Within a few weeks, things erupted, and quick. The tech manager, along with everyone from his immediate circle within the team, demanded that Sean be fired (with us telling him at the last minute) along with anyone else not able to devote every other weekend to the things he had in mind. This instantly caused a rift, as I did not believe in dishonesty, and I approached Sean. I had him talk with our tech manager, and after that night we considered everything to be okay. Sean posted an apology for more or less stepping on the tech manager's toes (by this point he considered himself to be the leader of the overall team and Sean someone to be cast out), and two nights later, I found that the tech manager and his entire inner circle were furious at me for disrupting their plan. They cut me out of the information loop altogether, and they refused to accept Sean's apology, as they deemed that it was insincere due to him posting the apology, deleting it and then reposting it several times (Sean claimed that he thought it was on what we call our fan page). This turn of events prompted another apology from Sean, and this time he rambled on about how it felt like some people wanted him six feet under (in a metaphorical sense), but he'll fight. Again, it was heartfelt in nature, but due to his wording, the tech manager took it as meaning Sean was inferring that the tech manager intended to kill him. Both parties agreed to finally air out our issues at our next meeting, and then Sean undid the entire thing by going ahead and posting something to the effect of some people will be gone. The tech manager quit in response. Two weeks later, I was informed that he and his new team were taking the haunted house deal we had away from us, as the owner liked the tech manager and not Sean - he only liked me on my entire team (we had finally gotten a deal with the aforementioned haunted house attraction because of this tech manager - it turned out he made it as a deal between him as an individual and the owners of this place as individuals).

Despite the tech manager wanting to take over this group for his own personal gain, he had valid points about Sean's behavior in public and in private. In the aftermath of the tech manager's departure, and in the aftermath of his revelation in regards to this deal our team had lost out on with this haunted house attraction, Sean refused to listen. First, he had me pressure the owner to go ahead with this deal, and then Sean himself went over there to pressure the owner on this. It took until the middle of the season (mid-October) before the owner requested we remove anything with his business's logo from our website, and that he did not want to deal with my team unless our former tech manager was reinstated. Due to obvious reasons noted above, I told him I cannot do that. And during this, Sean's mouth continued to bury us.

The most recent episodes came in the following order:

January 4th - We had a meeting done at a local pub in order to test some of our gear in an uncontrolled environment. Sean turned up, inspired by something he had seen in a replay of the Times Square ball drop just several nights before - he had specifically looked for the logo of this MLM company he is working for (called Le-Vel) on a screen in Times Square after hearing of it through others he knew in this company. His idea that he is still adamant about? Showing up in Times Square on New Year's Eve to unfurl our banner in the background to get millions upon millions of likes, and thousands of investigations. He took it very personally when I told him pointedly that most people are not paying attention to the screen until the ball actually drops, and that we simply have no resources to handle the influx of investigations he was hoping. His additional justification for this idea? To outdo our former tech manager and his new team...4 1/2 months after he had quit.

January 18th - Another meeting, and this time it was with a potential investigator. Although she lacked what we were looking for, Sean still made an embarrassment of us again. He showed up and went on about "evil entities" up at these old railroad tunnels we do practice investigations at. When I attempted to stop him by saying we have no proof, he carried right on and pointedly said that there are such things up there. On top of that, he joked about strange things the entire time that even were weird to me.

February 1st - Another meeting. We hadn't investigated since late August with a fellow team in Denver. At the time, Sean had embarrassed me and two others on the team during a joint hunt at the cemeteries - he claimed to have felt something evil in one of them and didn't like it...after I had to cover for his brief absence during our investigation there. And at this meeting, I ripped into him for his behavior, along with another member of RMRIPP for not helping the rest of us with equipment, evidence review, research or anything else besides focusing on how to sell pens, stress balls, t-shirts, coffee mugs and patches. Several of us made it clear we were sick of this behavior, as nothing was being done, and it felt like we were all waiting on Sean. He ignored everything all of us said at this particular meeting, and went on about all of this stuff he was buying from VistaPrint. He then declared that he has been having mild heart attacks for months, and was going to die from a minor incision being done on his scrotum later this month to drain off excess fluid, and that he was signing off on Do Not Revive papers. He also declared he was making a will, and leaving control of the entire team to the newer member I had specifically called out because she had experience running two businesses - both of which are supported by her husband's income, and not exactly self-sufficient. He then went on to talk about how he is now working for Le-Vel, and that he will be making millions within two to three months, at which point he intended to buy all of this equipment, intended to be a stay at home dad, and how he plans on owning a Lamborghini that this company will pay for. On top of it, he had the nerve to discuss how great this company's products apparently are (none have been vetted by the FDA at all) and almost appeared to be trying to get us to buy them, or jump in on this whole company. All but three members of the team left this meeting enraged by him not listening, and yet again engaging in reckless behavior and saying rather dumb things that have only served to help drown this organization.

February 4th - After discussing the events of February 1st with the rest of the team that was dismayed by his actions, and getting their okay to do so, I went to Sean's home to talk to him. I expressed disagreement with his decision to hand everything off to this new girl, and let him know that the others who are with me on this thinking believe that as a minimum I should have been placed in charge. He then tells me he won't, because the new girl knows what she's doing with business, and that I have financial problems that are severe and my credit is not good - basically he expressed his belief that the team will go to hell if I take over. I told him to just give everyone equal control, so in that case we would not see a repeat of what had happened with our former tech manager. Again, he refused. I additionally told him that several almost quit, and I had talked them out of it at that time. I asked him about the mild heart attacks, and if he had seen a doctor - his reply was that he did not need to, since he thinks doctors give people the wrong medications and lie about diagnosis results just to kill him to make money...and he still believed that he was going to die from having his nutsack more or less cut open for a little bit. I thought I had him thinking straight for a bit, and left.

20 minutes later, I receive this text from the new girl: "Really? You all are going to jump off the deep end and just quit? Yall amaze me". It hits me at this point: Sean heard none of what I said aside from what he clearly thought: that people were actually quitting the team, and that somehow, no one liked the new girl. He then declares via text that yes, he ran right to her, and that he'll just hand the team to me and watch it go to hell, and that he will sign the DNR forms with this doctor. I texted him, telling him to calm down. 10 minutes later, while en route to the new girl's home, I'm called by Sean...this time, he's saying he will just hand off everything to his mother, a virtual outsider to our group. Again, I told him to calm down. I reach the new girl's home, and she's livid. I try to reassure her that everything is okay, and I let her know that Sean has a history of acting like this. She pointedly tells me that if people want to quit, then good, there are 20 other people who are willing to take up their spots - it's business, after all. She lets me know that she knew of Sean's entire plan in advance - a fact which I point out had angered a number of people within our group, because again, he failed to really communicate with us - he has dropped things onto our head in the past countless times at the last minute. She tells me as well that she knows what she's doing, she owns all these businesses, and she's more than qualified...I didn't bother asking her if that is what she thinks makes her an expert or even experienced with how our group is ran - I remind her I had done it for nearly 5 years...she halfway acknowledged that before saying too bad, it will be her show soon. She then stated that all of us needed to support Sean regardless of his behavior, because he just cannot trust any of us because we refuse to support him, and by supporting him with any decision he makes, it will make him into a great leader.

This brings me to right now. It's obvious that between our former tech manager - who is continuing to trash our team's name and reputation behind our backs - I've heard as much from fellow investigators in Colorado, and Sean, whose mouth and unacceptable social behavior have also done equal damage to our group, that this team's run is almost over. And the new girl is perfectly okay with putting up with his behavior and the incredibly stupid shit he constantly says. She hasn't seen how many people he's driven off for good by his behavior. She hasn't heard negative comments from other teams out there in regards to our group because of what Sean is doing. She's ignorant to all of it, and thinks the remainder of the team should smile and suck it up. So, today, five of us sat down for a few hours to begin planning out the formation of our own, separate team, and neither Sean or the new girl know about it. At least one other person (and hopefully a potentially applicant) will be on board for this venture. And despite it all, I feel as though I am doing the same exact thing our former tech manager is doing, at least as far as just cutting loose without telling Sean about it until the last minute. There remains feelings of guilt, and I also dread having to start everything all over again - rebuilding a reputation I had fought hard to preserve, archiving and detailing all of the evidence we had acquired over these past few years, all of the networking I had done along with a few others to get our name out there...I'm still finding myself reluctant to completely move on, and yet here there is 5 of us planning out a new team of our own, because we do not trust the new girl just from her being in on Sean's impulsive plan, and we also cannot do anything because we fear Sean will show up and make us all look like idiots when we're trying to make our current group into a team that investigates paranormal phenomena while adhering to scientific protocols. This, along with his behavior of listening to his customers at his job more than us (he often asks customers at the gas station he works at for advice that can best be given by people with the Secretary of State's Department of Revenue, lawyers, theologians, scientific experts of different disciplines or even law enforcement agencies), and him listening to his girlfriend - she's very simple minded to say the least, and never took an interest in the team - he had her brought on board despite several protests that she offered nothing up to help. As for his customers? He thinks a Lutheran is a theologian, that a security guard he knows is an expert in criminal law, and that a guy who manufactures urns used for human cremains is an expert on 501©3 non profit organizations. Sean really is not smart.

I know I wrote a hell of a lot here, but I need advice - am I doing the right thing by simply jumping ship? Am I wrong for bolting while opting to tell Sean and the new girl at the last minute, even though I know he's not acting rationally, and may have been unhinged for the entire time I have known him just based on how he acts alone? Sean does try to sound smart, after all, by asking people if we are going forwards or backwards in time, or if the universe is just repeating itself. Am I doing the right thing in pursuing a course which involves setting up a new team independent of Sean and the new girl? And what plagues me even more...the new girl set up a section of her website to sell off our team's patches, t-shirts and all of these other things. He even ordered new business cards for everyone, along with (he actually did all of the following) stress balls, pens, coffee mugs, mouse pads and a new banner. Is it right to bolt off of this team and form a new one in light of him having done all of those things the two of them did? Because honestly, his weird behavior, the words that spew out of his mouth without a second thought...he won't stop any of it. And another threat he made after I talked to the new girl the other day was that if he survives this operation, he'll shut down everything we got. And at this point, every indication Sean gives is that he will be perfectly fine after this whole operation is done (he's undergoing a hydrolectomy for those who are wondering). Are me and the five primary people involved in bolting right in leaving the team we're in? Please, guys, give me some advice. I'm feeling torn.

[TronRP]

The way I see it is you all have done wonders just staying in this group as long as you have. I truly commend you for your loyalty. However, from what I have read, several things do stand out.

-Regardless of your discussing with Sean about wanting to head the company, it appears the new girl will still end up with it.

-The new girl was very adamant that you understood this is just business and that there were 20 others that could take your place.

-And yes, there does appear to be some purchasing and pushing of merchandise goin on.

-And no, you don't want to come across in the same light as the previous tech manager.

But look at it this way:

-By leaving, hopefully, those of you who are leaving together will honor your word to the creation of a new group and handle it equally.

-By the new girl's words, the group you are leaving will have all new members in no time.

-By purchasing the business cards, from Sean and the new girl, there should be no bitterness of monies spent on your behalves.

-By leaving this situation, you can start over, but remember people are still human beings - there is no need to badmouth anyone.

My advice: move forward in confidence without regret and don't look back. To a new year, a new endeavor.

Ganbarimasu to you all.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

It may be hard, and also daunting, but a fresh start is sometimes the correct choice.

[darknight1]

An update to this mess. I finally resolved to be comfortable with the split. What finally pushed me over was something that unfolded within the past two weeks. We had these two people come aboard back in late 2012. They contributed a hell of a lot - ranging from knowledge about how to conduct investigations, knowledge and training for all of our equipment, empathic abilities that served to confirm the results of each investigation (along with reported activity - they opted to come into each investigation not knowing a thing) and even outstanding organizational skills. They had left a year ago due to our former (and second) tech manager and social media manager's respective power plays. One half of this duo came back on board a few months ago as sort of a "consultant"...it felt great to have at least him back. But now? He pulled himself out of the team, and pulled him and his wife out of an overnight investigation set up for this Saturday at an old prison here in Colorado. The reason? Sean. He, along with the new girl, went behind everyone's back and called a meeting with this guy. As he put it via text to our webmaster, it felt like an inquisition, minus the parts involving mutilation, the torture rack and the burning at the stake. Essentially, Sean and the new girl tried laying the blame on him for the anger towards Sean, and tried to frame him as if he instigated me in particular to call out Sean. This guy pointedly told them that wasn't the case, and that everyone is furious towards Sean for yet again going behind everyone's back, putting into power this new girl who lacks the experience needed to run this team, and further went on to advise exactly the same thing I did - give everyone equal power to make decisions and have ownership of the team. Both Sean and the new girl balked at all of his suggestions.

This came not even two nights after me and the investigator responsible for the upcoming prison investigation had dropped into the new girl's home to obtain money meant to help pay for this investigation...a night where I was given the silent, hostile treatment by this woman...it was like I did not exist. And the word since then has been that both Sean and the new girl have been having a virtual meltdown because of what the guy they cornered told them. As a result, he removed himself from the entire team...again. Every sign points towards Sean being a very unstable individual. Every. Single. Sign. And in light of his secret meeting with this guy, everyone involved with the upcoming split agreed that it needs to happen. And this secret meeting done behind everyone's back was the final straw for me. It's now down to less than a week until all six of us on board for this split from our current team make it official. None of us no longer care if Sean will be there or not. Additionally, there's been two times in the last week or so that he has tried throwing up products available through his multi-level marketing company onto our fan page without consent. It's clear now that he's been a stupid, uneducated, low-information conspiracy theorist the entire time my current group has existed. And I don't have the time, let alone the patience required, to continue to deal with a guy whose worldview consists of questionable overnight multi-level marketing companies that he places on a pedestal...a guy whose worldview consists of demons and evil entities existing without a shred of proof...a guy who cannot even coherently explain what our entire mission is when he cannot identify just one thing (but instead contradicts every word of his)....a guy whose worldview consists of average run of the mill Joes off the street in his convenience store being "people who really know their stuff"...and a guy who seems to think his girlfriend, an epic, ugly, uneducated and rather dimwitted lazy failure of a mother, is a great person to go to for advice. And I no longer give a rat's ass if I lose his friendship. This secret meeting he did with this guy who gave a lot to our team pushed me over the edge. And I don't feel guilty anymore for leaving. Fuck Sean, and fuck his new girl. They can have the tattered remains of this team. They can be the jokes that they are. I'm done. For good.

[darknight1]

A week ago it finally happened. The split didn't go down as I imagined. What we thought would take less than a half hour took the better part of four hours. Sean is no longer friends with the entire team, and as for the new girl, she defriended a bunch of us in the aftermath of our news. We're now moving forward, though, and there's a lot of doors opening back up that were previously closed because of Sean. And I say to that...thank god.

[TronRP]