There have been a great number of views of the email we showed where Luke Preece thanked Cam for “bringing TBI back to life”. Why all the interest? I suspect it is because of the glaring inconsistencies in the half-baked narratives offered by the TBI misinformation agents. This email alone (and there have been many others on the same theme) shows that Luke has been furiously back-tracking and re-writing history to suit himself.

We have heard that new inductees into TBI group schools are told about the scalding insanity of the authors of this blog and their utter wretchedness as managers. This is not surprising. They have been saying the same thing under their various dodgy online aliases from the start. Sometimes they have gone further and started insisting that we were AIDS-ridden, psychotic, hated even by children such was our innate evilness and other laughably extreme claims. We believe that like everything else about the way they manage (or rather mis-manage) their business, this wasn’t too smart. The reason? Because these claims contradict a lot of the facts- why did Luke promote Cam 3 times if he was so bad?- and perhaps even worse, they contradict a substantial body of emails where Luke showered praise on Cam. “Thanks for bringing TBI Kuningan back to life” is one classic example, and another was the long report where he lobbied Mariam to promote Cam to manager of TBI Kuningan because, “He will get in there right away and start improving things.” 

In the battle of ideas, they have handed us a gift. People will perceive that their new claims of insanity flatly contradict what Luke said and did in the past, exposing him as a liar. There have now been over 100,000 views of our blog since March 2012- people do not return dozens and dozens of times to hear  people lie to them. But if it’s obvious to everyone that Luke and his minions are liars, what is the truth? Or, in other words, what was Luke’s real game? People come to us to hear the truth rather than TBI horse-shit, so we should do out best to offer it.

So let’s look at the facts. When Cam worked at TBI Sudirman and TBI Kuningan Luke Preece promoted him several times, while piling compliments on him all the while. This process continued right until the time when he fraudulently forced Cam out of the company by lying that Tante Vera (a nutjob customer with a history of erratic behavior, especially against Luke’s enemies) was planning to get Cameron deported from Indonesia forever unless he resigned and TBI wouldn’t lift a finger to help him. (Luke claimed to have forgotten ever saying this the following day- a stupid blunder which shows he isn’t as clever as he thinks.) Luke was lavishly praising Cam to his face while selectively running him down behind his back, especially to the male teachers at TBI Kuningan. “I know he’s out of control but Mariam supports him because he has boosted student numbers so much,” seems to have been the jist of the Preece lies.

So what was Luke Preece up to? Why did he make Cam manager of 2 schools and then force him out? I’d say the facts suggest that he was taken aback by Cameron’s business acumen and was surprised by how well he did in the job. “Bringing TBI back to life” are his own words after all. If he denies it now, he is proving himself a liar surely? He made him manager of TBI Sudirman, which had never once made a profit and was regarded as the “dog” of TBI group schools. When Cameron put a broom through the place, raising standards and unexpectedly creating a surprise $65,000 profit (despite Head Office’s gouging “management fees” for non-existent services), Luke got him out of there fast. But he did so in a deceptive way. He told Cameron he was such a good friend he would lobby Mariam to get him a promotion to TBI Kuningan.

However Luke’s well-documented duplicity (praising him to his back and rubbishing him behind it) suggests he was motivated by anything but kindness. His behavior is a textbook example of deceit. At TBI Sudirman Luke had no obvious moles or spies, so it was hard for him to undermine Cam. At Kuningan, he had Matthew France, who he had brought to Jakarta from TBI Dago with him in 2009 and who was tireless in his efforts to sabotage Cameron once he moved back to Kuningan. He never stopped running to HR and demanding extra payments and refusing to teach classes Cameron scheduled for him, accusing Cam of “insensitivity” for making him work his contractual hours. Interestingly, Matthew had pulled the same caper before in the final days before Luke ousted Chris Needham in 2009. He had started sabotaging Needham with complaints then too. We also have it on record from former TBI Kuningan teacher Lipi that Matthew France told her and the other new teachers not to trust Cam and terrified them with concocted stories about other teachers Cam had “gotten”. Some of these people, including former teacher MB, have since gone on  the record too to deny Matthew France’s version of events. MB, for example, stated that Cam had never been under-handed with him. It was in fact Matthew France who was Luke’s mouth-for-rent, slandering people to advance Luke’s cause. It is absolutely textbook behavior for sociopaths to use weak tools like Matthew France as pawns in their power plays.

At first Cam must have seemed like no threat to Luke. But after he turned around the finances of TBI Sudirman in 2010 and caused a boom in student numbers at TBI Kuningan in 2011, despite France’s best attempts to sabotage him with a smear campaign,, Mariam took notice and was talking of another promotion for Cam. He had, after all, increased student numbers form 490 to 675 students in just 11 months. 3 days after Mariam mentioned this promotion (and Luke knew about it), he turned on Cam and forced him out, lying that he was in danger of deportation. (More psychological terrorism from this sociopath).

What was his motive for all these games? Clearly, anyone who practises deception on this scale is not right in the head. The reason it was so hard to see what was going on was because normal people just can’t conceive that the person who is lavishing compliments to your face and in emails might be organizing your exit through a smear campaign behind your back. Normal, professional people don’t operate this way, but sociopaths do. Perhaps he thought Cameron would be easily controlled like Scott. Maybe he thought, like Scott ot Alex, he would be willing to walk into meetings and demand (on Luke’s behalf) that people like Monica be fired. This is what Scott Martin, Luke’s stooge, did to Monica, who was then 7 months pregnant. Nice guy. A lot of Matthews and Scotts have sold their soul for a few measly rupiah. Why not Cameron too? When Cam proved less easily bought than these prostitutes (I’m sorry, but that’s what they are), Luke lost patience with him and organized his departure- just like he did the following year to GA at TBI Malang and Ratna at TBI Riau. Anyone who won’t submit to his demands needs to go. The explanation is simple. He is a power-mad sociopath with little real talent except in treachery. 

But there’s a sad paradox for Luke. He wants to be in control of a “premium” company. He wants to feel important. That much was always clear. But the sad paradox is that any company which would put up with his shit is a shit company. Any company that would tolerate his sick games is substandard. By allowing him (and Binsar) to get away with these sick games, they are proving how unprofessional they are. This is why there is something pathetic and contemptible about this whole story. They are only deluding themselves.