Stupid is as Stupid does

The footnote for Fools Rush In says in part

Please be very careful. The way to bet is that some or most of these people are guilty of murder or accessory to murder. 

Why? Because there's no statute of limitations and it's a serious crime. Lesser crimes shouldn't compel people to quietly go into hiding permanently and call it "retirement."

Please note on the post that led to that one, I say I believe Michael Dickerson probably killed someone and I think that in part because there's no statute of limitations on murder. I don't actually say I think he committed murder and that's intentional.

I knew him a few years. I came to think that probably there was something like an accident at his business, someone died and perhaps someone scared him into thinking "You're doing hard time for this." And perhaps he would have been better off calling the cops, reporting the death and accepting a charge of manslaughter or whatever.

But covering up the death made him look like it was murder instead of an accident and now he's in a pickle even if he has calmed down and is thinking he made a mistake when he decided to hide it.

I saw a story once where someone got to retirement age and disappeared overnight on his family. When they found him, he had gone into hiding at a young age and began using a different social security number and he did so out of fear of going to jail for something but someone else was convicted and they stopped looking for him decades earlier and he hadn't actually committed a crime to begin with. He was young and stupid and didn't trust the cops or something like that.

So he hits retirement age and feels like trying to collect social security is not doable or feels like it will get him arrested and he feels like he can't tell his wife and just leaves.

So sometimes people get scared and overreact or get lied to or are threatened or blackmailed. People sometimes get blackmailed over things like being secretly gay or having had an affair or other dirty family secrets where maybe they aren't guilty of anything, really, but they don't want anyone announcing "That's not your real daddy, is it?"

The problem is YOU don't know if it's someone who overreacted or whatever and people who are scared can be dangerous even if the truth is there was an accident and it wasn't premeditated murder in cold blood. So please be careful.

Does that mean maybe this is more solvable than I feared? I have no idea because I did everything in my power to prove myself trustworthy and nonthreatening and just trying to help improve the town I lived in and I feel I was done dirty and seriously burned and absolutely didn't deserve what happened to me.

A lot of people are neurotic and driven by insecurity and baggage and a desire to control things and I was baffled by how I was treated. 

I'm medically handicapped. I did everything in my power to try to tell people in town "I'm not really interested in a full-time job. I'm really interested in working part-time as a freelancer and I write and do websites and I want to make money that way, actually."

My belief is that most likely the man they hired -- Wil Russoul -- was telling people I was gunning for his job and my information couldn't be trusted for that reason and there was never any truth to that. And if you just don't trust me or don't like me, well, they could have just left me alone instead of it becoming what seemed like a ridiculous circus revolving around me.

A key detail is that after Wil Russoul himself said to me "You could totally do this job. I will recommend you as my replacement if I QUIT." in exasperation one day, I updated my resume and added local contacts as references and let his bosses know I was interested in any position, part time or full time.

I was thinking "Maybe he succeeds, they start having more work, I get hired as a part-time assistant. Maybe he quits and they don't have to start the search over for a new employee."

As far as I can tell, there was absolutely no reason this ever needed to be some kind of personal conflict and I have reason to believe they continued stalking me online after I was illegally evicted and left town.

From where I sit, the entire thing looks completely crazy to me. I went to enormous effort to say "I'm not gunning for your job. I'm happy to do a little freelance work. You don't want to PAY ME? Here's a free language template. Copy and paste and use my style guide for FREE. Just link to my website to credit me and don't plagiarize. Don't claim it's your work."

So I don't know how to get rid of people who seem obsessed with me. I don't know any means to get them to behave in a remotely reasonable fashion.

I think his bosses messed up big time because right after he said in exasperation he might quit, that's when other people in town began suggesting I might get another shot at the job. I think they kind of said to him "Keep her seat warm while she gets over this little bout of incurable genetic disorder and is ready to work full time."

They should have fired him and hired someone else or just respected my statement "I'm not really looking for a full-time job." They turned this into stupid levels of drama with imagining they would eventually hire me for THAT job and ONLY that job and adamantly refusing to entertain any other option for getting my help with their development needs and PAYING me something because I needed income.

So I don't know if it's any better if you have people in town who are just neurotic and not really murderers but fear they might go to jail for something. These people probably imagine they aren't doing much harm.

They likely think: "It's a small town. I'm not hurting very many people. It's not like I'm killing people by making sure there's no local jobs."

Actually, they may be killing people. People die in car accidents in long commutes because there's no local job. Or the local hospital closes because the town shrinks and people cannot get medical care. Etc.

People die because of lack of local resources. That happens. 

They probably won't be charged with murder for it, but I think it should be treated as an extremely serious crime to knowingly and intentionally strangle local development in a small community, especially while working in a gatekeeping position where the town is paying you to grow it and develop it. Or holding a position on a board where you know the goal is development and they are trusting you to look out for the interests of the townspeople.