Stories
[ Partners Views ] [ Beating Workplace Bullying ]
Helen, professional woman aged 32 yrs
I have just read your book and it was as if you had written my story. I just could not believe it.
I was a Target of Sexual Harassment and Workplace Bullying. I held two part jobs – one was a small family business and the other was a small company which was eventually bought by its opposition. One of the new managers advised me that I would be better off to work full-time for the new company so I gave up my family business job (first mistake).
To read the whole story, click here >>
Sarah, aged 50
My husband is working out his notice after several years of insidious workplace bullying and degradation. He works for a prestigious organisation and would be horrified if he knew I was sending this. It is very hard when you see someone you know very well being subjected to this treatment.
To read the whole story, click here >>
Laura – professional woman, aged 45
This would be the best kept secret in my workplace. I am the Target of Workplace Bullying and this is my story. When I went through your questionnaire, my response was –‘almost always’ to all the questions. This is so sad. To read the whole story, click here >>
Victoria, a professional woman, aged 45
I felt as if I had been physically and emotionally abused after I lost my senior management position. The Board Chairman had been bullying me for months, undermining everything I did, telling me what I did wasn’t good enough. I would send him a paper and he would say it has to be rewritten and when I asked what improvements he would recommend he would come back with a different numbering system or highlight a small grammatical error. To read the whole story, click here >>
Anne
Part-way through your book( which was serendiptiously provided by a radio competition) and the lights keep flashing on. Wish I could do a " Samantha", twitch my nose and miraculously be out of my current workplace and in to one that welcomes my strengths while I can still recognise that I've got the ability to recognise them as strengths and not the weaknesses my management defines them as. This paraphrases the comment of a colleague who managed to make a successful transition having been a previous target. At least this experience gves me an answer to the question that has puzzled me for the last 30 years- how did the Holocaust happen?
Finding your advice helpful and praying for a good outcome; i.e. sanity, health and integrity intact, positive relationships maintained, financial security secured and able to live another day in joyful fashion, transforming this "negative" experience into something positive as I learn and grow from it. Retribution for the bullies would be nice but I'll leave that to karma.
Regards, battleworn but still in the battle,
Anne
Anon
When you are talk about themes emerging from our WB experiences .... I guess what came to mind was how this effects young people in the workplace....
Here is an example how the Corporation I was with. Treated ‘Kay’ who was 19 or 20.
Myself and a colleague came into the lunch room at morning tea time to find Kay distressed and crying. We enquired what was going on and was told that her Team Leader had informed her that she was to return home (45 mins train ride away) to get the medical certificate she had for having 'time off for her stress'. ride.
When we questioned her further, Kay said she had been constantly put under enormous pressure with her work and had been asked to be moved to another section which had been agreed on but she simply was not managing as the subject matter was 'sensitive' and she was not dealing well with nature of the work. The Team Leader was not sympathetic and Kay felt she was being 'pushed out' and harassed constantly by comments around her being 'incompetent'. On questioning Kay further, she had been prescribed PROZAC by her Doctor for her 'work stress'. The colleague and myself advised Kay instantly to make an appointment to see her Doctor and an hour later I accompanied Kay to the surgery which was nearby the office.
The result being that the Doctor issued a medical certificate for two weeks off and Kay never returned to work again because she was 'too scared'. She rang in and would not take calls from work colleagues when they phoned her at home. This was a really bad experience for her.
What was worse that being an open plan office the 'team leader' then attempted to get information from the doctor of Kay’s diagnosis in loud amplified tones whereby everyone in the office heard the conversation. Myself and another colleague complained and were called into the office and 'told there were reasons for asking the questions' but yes, it was wrong to do this publicly and the team leader would be dealt with. I guess what made all this worse was that a Clinical Psychologist who worked with Kay actually sat next to her was told not to be involved with employees wellbeing, and she was terrified to speak up for this girl even as 'a duty of care'. I found this extremely unethical on her part. This psychologist told me she was scared that she would lose her job if she did so. I found this appalling that a 'professional' in this area was sucked into this 'culture of fear' as well. She remains there playing the game.
… this is just one of the stories....but I wonder how this will impact on this young person’s life.
Partners Views
Elizabeth's Story
Elizabeth is a professional woman aged 47 years. She comments on Anne’s specific Workplace Bully behaviours. Each is so seemingly minor but when they happen all the time, they form a pattern of undermining.
Issues Relating to Anne
Confidentiality
Anne would always tell other staff about what was going on in relation to other staff. An example of this would be another woman whose son died had approached her to ask for leave because she wanted some time out. Anne said that ‘She did not look stressed.’
Another example - a man who works in the team has had a strict regime imposed by Anne. He is being treated similarly to me. He has to have supervision and while this process is supposed to be confidential, his supervisor reports everything directly to Anne. The man himself knows this but can do nothing. He is currently seeking another job.
Demoralising People
Often, when people are not in Anne’s favour she will put them down in meetings.
She had asked me to get a list of websites pertaining to our work while I was studying. I downloaded the articles and gave them to her. She made a point of singling me out stating ‘someone else was supposed to do this’ or ‘I asked for these ages ago. Elizabeth has only just done it.’
When we moved offices, a senior manager attended the first team meeting in the new offices. The senior manager thanked everyone for their hard work and for putting up with the disruption and moving without a hitch or a customer complaint. Anne interrupted her and stated ‘All thanks goes to (our secretary) as she is the one that did everything.’ Our movers were supposed to be a team of three men but as only one man, a small woman and a child arrived, we all had to spend thde day packing and moving.
Poor Communication
Anne would often give staff a portfolio whether the staff member would want it or not, then she would take it off them without consultation, or bothering to find out why things were not done or assisting the staff member to gain better understanding of the portfolio. I was given the Quality Assurance portfolio which was then just taken from me with no warning, comment or apology.
I found out on the day, that I was to be replaced in my then current role. I talked with Anne about it and stated ‘I am sorry, but you understand that I had to make sure that the person was interested in doing the job.’ I know the person was interested in the role, because she took it from him at the outset and gave it to me because I was going to leave.
Performance Appraisals:
Since my return to the old department four years ago, I have yet to have a performance appraisal. I would be given the date of a proposed appraisal but it would never eventuate – no apology, comment or rescheduling. I am still waiting.
Beating Workplace Bullying
Jan, professional woman aged 43 years
After researching many websites and reading your book I did something extremely courageous for me. I presented this material to my former employer together with a list of my workplace bully's behaviours. I heard nothing from him for ages but then he called me and said that I had been absolutely correct and he wanted to meet with me. Apparently, because of what I had given him he had been able to manage this employee, including having the bully undergo tests as part of the bully's performance review. The bully must have felt like the walls were closing in! He offered me a position back with the company but I had to decline. I am a different person now and I feel it is best to move on. Truth and justice do prevail!! A couple of days later he told me that the bully had resigned!! I felt nothing but sadness that so much devastation had occurred because of this bully.
Since my experience, and subsequent research, I have discovered that I have a passion for this whole phenomenon. I would like to become involved somehow in raising awareness, both with employers and employees, and helping targets. I have since found three acquaintances who have experienced workplace bullying, and have also been able to point a current target in the right direction. The problem is that so many people seem to be frightened to speak out about it. Can you, or anyone you know, inform me of how I could go about this? I have a B.Soc.Sci. (Psychology major). I am willing to undergo whatever it takes to become involved in this area. eg. Organisational Psych., or Human Resources?
Congratulations on the changes to your website. It's great!! I have enjoyed reading the articles, particularly "The Man Behind the Mask". Now I know why your book is written with so much passion. You are an extraordinary, courageous, amazing and inspirational woman. I hope your health improves so that you can continue your work.
Nigel's Story
A friend sent me this story in Nigel Nicolson's Long Life: Memoirs. Nigel, a writer, publisher and MP, is the son of Vita Sackville West and Harold Nicolson, and wrote a fascinating story about his parent's marriage called Portrait of a Marriage. He was invited back to speak at Eton in 1992:
" Barbarity, ambition and deceit are inseparable from school life, but Eton is good at concealing it.
In my lecture I told the boys a story to indicate I was aware of this. It was based on fact, and its purpose was to indicate that the bullying of a younger boy by an older is the most odious of juvenile crimes. I had no need to point the moral. In the 1930's there were two boys in the same house at Winchester. Let us call them Anderson and Bates. Anderson was two years older than Bates, and made his life intolerable by physical beatings and humiliating him on every possible occasion. When Anderson left the school, Bates sprang up like a fawn released from bondage. He became captain of cricket and won a scholarship to Cambridge, where he gained a blue and a First Class in classics. War came. Anderson served honourably but ingloriously as a lieutenant in the Pay Corps at Nottingham. Bates won the DSO commanding his regiment in the desert.
After the war, he entered the Foreign Office and rose rapidly to become the ambassador in one of the Middle Eastern capitals. Anderson taught mathematics in a comprehensive school in east London. One morning Bates, riffling through the despatches that had reached his embassy overnight, paused when he came to the following telegram: 'Doctors tell me that I have only a few weeks to live. Cannot die in peace unless you telegraph forgiveness for bullying at Winchester.' It was signed 'Anderson' and he had added his address. Bates contemplated this message for two minutes, then drew towards him a pad of embassy telegraph forms and wrote these three terrible words: 'Cannot forgive.Bates.'
The problem I put to the boys was this. Was Bates justified? Our immediate reaction must be that his cruelty was inexcusable. But I suggested that he was showing extraordinary strength of character. He had not forgiven Anderson. He could not forgive him. He would not lie for the sake of a charitable convention. There was dead silence in the hall when I had finished. But I had made my point about bullying, from which I had suffered when I was a boy. That was my legacy to Eton."
(pp 70, 71)