I was reading this article on workplace bullying earlier today, and it mentioned that workplace bullying is growing fast. I’ve been on the receiving end of workplace bullying a couple of times now, and went exactly like they said in the article; I was good at my job, and I was tolerant of bad behaviour, and I ended up quitting when nothing was done about it.
Have you been on the receiving end (or the giving end, for that matter)? What have you done about it? What has been successful against mobbing or bullying behaviours? Any other thoughts on the subject?
I haven’t been the “victim” of this kind of thing in years. I was pretty young and had just started a job as a bank teller. One particular employee took a dislike to me immediately. She just got nasty, and she got the others to go along. She’d badmouth me to customers, and everyone kind of made jokes at my expense. I don’t know if that rises to the level of bullying, but I was made to feel very unwelcome at the place where I spent 35+ hours a week.
I finally made a private complaint to the assistant supervisor. He said he was aware of what was going on, and would deal with it. A week or three later, the branch manager called me at home to tell me that the bully had been transferred to another branch. She wouldn’t tell me why, she just said that it was “for the best.”
Things got better almost immediately.
Several months later I was told that the bully got fired for taking a bad check. Good riddance.
I was definitely on the end of bullying behavior. Technically, it was sexual harrassment, and there were several people participating in it (both co-workers on my level, our boss, and his boss).
I was also good at my job, and I used that as a way to fight back. I would not quit and I would not fluster and fuck 'em. It was more fun for me to not give in, but I was more of a hard-headed bad-ass then.
In the end I was vindicated and they were all fired, or forced to quit themselves.
If I was bullied today? I’d quit as soon as I was able. Life’s too short. Not a battle worth fighting anymore.
Did we just have a thread? I have no recollection of that, but that isn’t too surprising.
Yeah, the article mentions that kind of bullying as “mobbing” or “ganging up” on an employee, and says that is a form of bullying. I had that happen once, too, and it’s probably the most insidious kind of bullying; it’s hard to prove that a bunch of people are bullying you just by not including you, making snide comments about you, stopping laughing and talking whenever you come in; just generally being cold and unpleasant to you. It’s easy to shrug it off as a personality conflict, but when a group of people has decided to actively not like you, you can tell.
Okay, I’m having a faint recollection now. Well, the majority of people here are Gen X’ers and Boomers, I think - they don’t remember any better than we do.
I’ve never been on the other end, other than when I worked with some extremely volatile twenty-something women when I was waitressing. I do kind of worry that I’m inadvertently on the bullying end, though- we just hired a bunch of new people at work, and those of us that have worked there since the place opened are very used to cursing, making innuendos, etc. (we work in the arts and it is an extremely laid back environment.) While we never say anything really distasteful, and most of the new people are just as terrible as the rest of us, I do worry that some people might find it distressing but are worried we’d all think they were prudes if they brought it up.
I was being sexually harassed at the high school where I taught. It was getting worse until I blew up at him with many other teachers present (who were aware of the problem). I told him that if he laid a hand on me again, I would tell his bishop first and his wife second. (He was very active as a lay person in Diocesan activities. I also wrote an account of the harassment and submitted it to the principal. He promised me that there wouldn’t be any further problem and there wasn’t.
Another principal bullied me in a boss to employee conflict. He refused to abide by the school system contract on an issue. I filed a grievance and won. (I was one of many teachers who filed and won grievances against him.) He was eventually fired. This is the very short version.
I was sexually harassed a lot at work but I fought back. I worked in an all male field and it is very common. Management did nothing about it so you just have to accept it or carry mace. This was in the 80’s and 90’s so it is probably better now.
One incident was very bad and I went to Human Resources. They did nothing so I hired an attorney who said I had a good case. A month before court my attorney dropped me. I went to pick up my documentation at his office and his At Lit-em told me he got paid off by my company.
I only stayed because I loved the job and the pay was great. I just learned to ignore them and carry mace when working alone. My boss asked me why I didn’t eat lunch with the guys and I told him why don’t you eat lunch with the guys? He turned red and walked away.
I am in a different field now and it is so nice to be away from that harassment. Not all of the men I worked with were bad. Some were gentlemen. Some got maced. One guy that was particularly bad got a call to his wife and he never bothered me again.
Cat Whisperer, and other Canadians, you may be interested to know that the problem of workplace bullying is increasingly being studied in Canada. Already, Quebec has an anti-workplace bullying law in place, and (I believe) Saskatchewan either has one or will soon be getting one. Unfortunately, for incidents that occur in provinces without a statute law in place, there are very few precedents set at common law as to how to deal with workplace bullying, and none that are Canadian. This would likely make it difficult to advance a claim of workplace bullying through the courts
Not saying it couldn’t be done, mind. I nearly took on a client who was a victim of workplace bullying, and I dug into researching the topic for the eventual claim, but the client sorted things out at work before any legal procedures started. I’ve certainly had queries about it from a few other prospective clients, and my research has come in handy in advising them. Very generally, it seems to me that the first few cases would have to be based on some other sort of actionable cause accompanying the bullying. This would include references to the bullying in the resulting caselaw, which would build precedents addressing the problem. Slowly, a body of caselaw would emerge that would define and shape the problem legally. It would be slow, but it could be done, I think.
I don’t think it’s any worse now than it was 25 years ago when I first started working.
The problem is workplace environments are only as good as your managers. If you have unhappy workers you have bad managers. It starts at the top and filters down.
Most people are expendable at their jobs. The more expendable the more you have to tolerate.
A lot of bullying takes place because people are ill suited to jobs and are hired and not sorted out or fired at first opportunity.
Also a lot of people are, what I term, professional victims. I understand you can’t quit jobs because of economics but sometimes I’ve know people that have been victims for years on end. And they never even BOTHER to look for another job. OK you may not get it, but you can at least look.
The bottom line I see it, is that too many workers are indeed expendable. As a boss if I can hire someone to replace you, I will, as it’s not worth the time.
If workplace bullying is increasing, it’s most likely because employment is so low and people can be replaced so easily, so workers are having to stay in places they hate and take it out on anyone.
What if all the managers are men also? The good ole boy club is still alive and thriving due to men being at the top. Yes, there are professional victims but I put up with years of harrassment quietly because I had a family to feed. I knew being the first woman it would be a challenge and it was. I bit the bullet but it doesn’t make it right or pleasant.
I would just love to hear from some men that worked in an all woman company with all women coworkers and managers and even a woman CEO.
How about a male librarian who works in a library with two men, three teenage boys and 20 other women including my direct supervisor and all of the other librarians?
That said, yes I’ve seen workplace bullying, but never directed at me. I am actually the person that everyone (bullies and bullied alike) comes to complain about everyone else. By being a totally uninvolved outside observer (and hearing every side to every story), I’d say workplace bullying is pretty bad, but it’s also slightly exaggerated by the bullied.
Been at far too many places where the boss is hired for their organizational abilities and has close to zero people skills. These are the worst, the places where, when there are conflicts with other employees, you will be told to ‘just deal with it’. Why? Because your boss is a clueless fuck who doesn’t know how to handle it him/herself.
Unfortunately, the majority of the time, HR is also somewhere between ‘less than useful’ and ‘the worst thing you could have possibly chosen to do’. So cover your butt. Document, document, document. Don’t make threats of legal action*, don’t make physical threats, because this makes YOU the bad guy.
Making threats of legal action pretty much ends any conversation. At this point they have to consider you a possible adversary and begin legally papering over their own asses.
Hell, I do tier 2 technical support and just on a customer to technician level, the very moment a customer threatens legal action, we’re supposed to advise them to have their attorney contact our legal department and END THE CALL. Bang, done. We don’t work with you any further.
So how do you think your HR department is going to react? (The same way they did when I made a legal threat years ago - end of conversation, papering their asses, working to get me out the door by any means necessary.)
“Bullied”? What are people? Twelve years old? How are people bullied at work? Is someone pushing you down on the playground and stealing your lunch money?
The group I worked in at my last job was mostly older women. It was basically like sitting in as a guest on The View. They would cluck and gobble about stuff for awhile but ultimately nothing ever got acomplished.
If it is equally as bad to be the only man. If there is bullying, of what kind. Any other insights to be the only man. I’m sure it goes both ways. Is it more of a problem to be the only man or the only woman?
