Tension at Starr FM; Online editor resigns as Mary-Ann Acolatse fights for control of newsroom‏

Mr Ayumu's resignation letter below..
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Dear Mary-Anne

I pray this letter finds you well. Just a few things I need to get off my chest.

I used to wake up in the morning with joy to come to work at Starr FM. It was not the money, nor the car. God knows I am too simple at heart to get driven by those things. It was the drive to start something new and win with it; it was the joy I got from working with positive-spirited and like-minded people to nudge off competition; it was the smiles I met at work from fellow colleagues in the newsroom, who did not look at me with suspicious eyes; it was the togetherness that bound the newsroom as a unit; it was the clean-hearted smile the CEO shares with even the lowest of the lowly at Starr, and the respect he accords everyone, irrespective of who they are. Those were my motivators. Sadly, all the joy has frittered with your coming. Now I virtually trudge out of bed every morning to come to work – more of hell now – and I'm not willing to bake in that furnace any longer. I work without happiness because of your constant suspicions of me and my department. You have managed to sow seeds of suspicion among a unit whose togetherness was the envy of everyone. But I think you went a little too far with your attempt to set me up against Kent yesterday. It was a bad thing to do. Unlike your weak-minded lickspittles in the newsrooms, I'm too loyal to my conscience for you, or anyone to blunt my senses to my own humanness. Now I have lost all respect I had for you as a Boss, and I'm afraid I cannot work with you any longer. I'm better off jobless than caged up in that HELL of a newsroom.

You have turned the entire newsroom into a den of suspicion. It is now a soup of poisonous emotions. We cannot even have normal conversations among ourselves anymore because you've sown seeds of distrust among us through your lackeys who are always within an earshot. Your dictatorial style of leadership has not helped matters too. You like listening to yourself talk. No one else's view matter. It's always your way, or no way. If that was for the good of the work, I may overlook it: after all, Lee Kwan Yew did something great for Singapore with such dictatorial leadership. But no. Yours is for self-preservation. And it's mostly spurred by ignorance. That is not healthy. You shut people up as though we were kids in a Kindergarten. And though you may think you know so much and so needn't listen to anybody's suggestions or explanations, I just like to advise you that newsroom work is not done on Google. Practical newsroom work is totally different from anything Google might tell you it is. You can't run a newsroom with lofty ideas from Google. Newsroom work is not academic work. Experiential newsroom knowledge could cure your stark practical ignorance. And I say this with a clean heart and in good faith. I know there are so many people in the newsroom, who hate your leadership style and are so fouled by it. I speak for all of them and I'm sacrificing my job for them, in order to save Starr and the entire EIB Group.

I see you as a big sister, and would advise you to court a teachable spirit, so that you can learn from even your subordinates, who by no means are greenhorns. That is the sign of good leadership. Getting stuck in ignorance and operating by it, is a curse for any business. Spare Starr FM that curse.

I have sunk my health into Starr FM over the past few months. My reward was a near-fatal high blood pressure. My Doctor says I could have been struck down by either stroke, or cardiac arrest. But God saved me. And I'm eternally grateful to Him for using my colleagues and me to make StarrFMonline.com what it is today. Of course there is always room for improvement in every endeavour and we've been open to new things every day, but not things borne out of ignorance. I hope and pray that you don't destroy StarrFMonline.com and the entire newsroom.

And kindly grant me one more request. Please tell the CEO that I'm very sorry for disappointing him, but I can't stay in that hellhole anymore. Just yesterday he asked me if everything was alright at work. I smiled and said: 'Yes'. So I know he will be very disappointed with me for fleeing Starr. But tell him I said your mere presence in the newsroom and your divisive tactics make my blood pressure go high at work every time, and I need to stay alive, thus my action. My Doctor has advised me to stay off negative energy. And that I'm willing to do. There is too much poison in the Starr newsroom now, thanks to you, and I will give up all the money in the world to save my health.

Kent and the rest of the team can easily handle the website. Kent is a good guy. Please allow him to work. He knows more about online work than you can learn your entire life. And kindly treat the Editors you work with in the newsroom as allies rather than enemies. You may have your own funny ideas about them, but trust me, they know their stuff. Instead of fighting them all the time, you should be grateful for having Editors who know what they are about. I wish you well. I wish Starr FM and the EIB Group well. I'll have the car, the laptop, the modem, my insurance card and the ID card delivered. They are the only company items in my possession.

Good Bye
Ayumu