It's quite amazing how large the gap is between the way the world is described to us through various mediums, versus the clearly observable reality of it.
FTA:
> I approached the individuals and the institutions concerned about the content of my Subject Access Request. They all refused to discuss the matter with me, so I can only speculate as to what was going on.
Of course, these people were just "avoiding drama" they'd tell us. But then, is avoiding drama that what they were doing when they were trashing this person behind their back in emails?
I think people have a tendency to conceptualize a stark, "real" line between adolescence and adulthood, but the reality of the matter seems to be that many adults are little more than high school kids plus some added expertise in some narrow domains. The adult world, even at the highest levels of authority, largely consists of the same petty cliques, backstabbing, lying, and whatnot that you'd experience in high school.