So while bullying may start in childhood, the behaviors follow people throughout their adulthood too. Especially if they've been rewarded early on as signs of strength, ability to influence and individuality.
Fast forward to being a grown up, and holding down jobs, and the bullying culture is ever more present. It evolves from hair pulling and name calling. It gets so much dirtier. So much more tainted and passive aggressive. I'm beginning to think the use of social media in bullying for teens is going to make this even more impossible to overcome when in adulthood, they've already honed the passive aggressive mob approach to bullying. It scares me. It really does.
My own experience with grown up bullies hasn't been a happy one. I'm a strong and intelligent person, and as I've recounted before, I've always been the one to stand up and put a stop to bullies. But at the same time, I've been brought to my most vulnerable by 2 major factors of adulthood: Becoming a parent and dealing with a workplace bully.
See, on the playground, the only real difference between a bully and his or her prey, is age, size, and whatever social/physical quirks are visible. It's very much a visual connection that drives a bullying situation to open up and take root.
At work, it's beyond the visible. It's about inferiority of the mind, inferiority of public persuasion and political influence. They say preschool is a dog eat dog kind of world. But the workplace is as cannibalistic as it comes without being you know, a real cannibal.
If someone perceives you to have different methods, ideals or communication styles...you're a potential target. If that person holds a position of authority, they have the added bonus of the big stick, without having to work hard to use it. If that person has direct authority over you, they have the big stick, they use it, and it takes an awful lot to get them to put it down. OH, and the whole time you're being bullied at the office, the one thing they can take away from you, means almost more than any amount of pride stinging or self esteem bashing they could have done as children. They stand between you and your livelihood. They stand between you and putting food on the table for your children to eat. They stand between you and your next rent payment, electricity bill. They stand between you and the necessities of life which let's face it, is the ultimate blow to a person's identity and pride.
So while there were outlets for handling bullies in your childhood, now you have to figure out how to beat the assholes at their own game, and if you thought the mob mentality of the internet was difficult to deal with...try looking at your HR rep, the group benefits guy, and the "employee assistance representative" who are all paid by the same guy who's paying your bully. Oh - and their job, first and foremost, is to make sure you're "OK enough" to keep going and making the biggest guy richer...so the bully, really has you over a barrel, and he or she has the most layers of protection a bully could ever wish for. That is all to say, in the work world where people have the power to affect change, there really is no such thing as allegiance for the victim. Any way out means you have to find a new way to earn your living, redefine yourself and re-establish new street cred. You need to remove yourself from the situation, which you know, just doesn't mesh with the golden rule and the social mores of fairness and justice.
My workplace bully was promoted and rewarded despite the many reports HR, the ethics team and the ombudsman received from several sources. He was highly scrutinized and his reputation was tarnished, and he STILL came out ahead. My reputation was tarnished, the perception of me was that I was weak, evasive, incapable of managing my work. I got punished for being the victim. In many ways, I'm still being punished through his legacy. Ever tried rebuilding street cred when nothing else in the environment has changed? On the playground, one did this by actually fighting back and laying the bully out. You gain credibility, when the other's perceived superiority is diminished. In the workplace however, the only way to escape and change this is to literally quit your job, and branch out into a new industry. Start over. Let me tell you how impossible that is. My livelihood is still at stake. Food on the table for my child is what keeps me in what amounts to an abusive situation. Supporting my family is what keeps me from doing what is right - standing up for myself and for others, because it's bitten me in the ass once already...who does that twice?
So if bullying takes this route to stardom, and simply not being one makes you the perpetually opportune victim, what's the right answer? I wish I knew it. My only advice is to stop it in it's tracks early. Be less attached to your earnings and earning potential, maybe? This is one of those things that's easier said than done. I've been trying to escape this situation going on 10 years. My bully has moved on, but another one is surely following him. The pecking orders of a work environment breed and thrive on bullying culture. The only way to really escape it is self employment, and as a friend once said, then you have the world's worst bosses to answer to...yourself and your customer.
Showing posts with label bullying in the workplace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bullying in the workplace. Show all posts
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Keeping Tabs
So, I'll admit, I have a great memory. I never forget those who have wronged me or done right by me for that matter. It's not because I can't forgive...but not forgetting means that hopefully next time I make better choices. I also keep friends close and enemies at arms length. I keep my eye on their weapons, and watch with a cheshire grin when their just desserts are eventually served. I wouldn't say I'm keeping tabs. It's not a points system that I work on - it's more like an over-site or governance thing. I watch Karma because she is the epitome of justice. And when something goes wrong, I look again to Karma to understand what I've done to precipitate any misfortunes I perceive.
And it's happened again. I've survived once more to watch someone who once wronged me greatly, be handed a hard dose of Karma because apparently, some people learn some lessons the really hard way.
My old boss, the one who bullied me and put me out of commission for 14 months, has been served another helping of just desserts. I'm left pondering however, if he's really gathered the lessons he's supposed to have learned. I had already thought his penance had been served once. While on my medical leave, the entire team I left behind took issues regarding his treatment of them to HR. He was hauled over the coals, put on watch, and then the entire time I was out on maternity leave, things got tougher for him still - the coals turned into a laboratory table and he was scrutinized as though he were a dead fly under a microscope. When I came back to work from medical leave he punished me in more passive aggressive ways than he'd previously punished me, but when I got pregnant things changed. Like we're talking, he did a 180 degree about face, and began treating me gently, with respect, even what some could envision as older brotherly kind of love. He was suddenly good to me. Perhaps because he no longer viewed me as a threat because he was busy fighting the foes who attacked in my absence. Who knows.
(I have just realized that this is the first time I have ever explained the work situation in any detail - I imagine this means it's appropriate then to do an article on how workplace bullies make their mark.)
When I returned from maternity leave, this didn't change. BUT, I noticed through conversations with other team mates over the past year that he had simply changed the direction of his bullying. I could write the scripts for some of the things reported to me. He was dreadful to one of my colleagues, and I realized that perhaps he was being good to me, because he had a new victim. After all of that, he'd not learned a single lesson. At least not the right one.
Fast forward to April of this year, and that same boss announced that he got a great new job as CEO at another company and bailed ship. I'll admit to feeling a bit lost and forlorn - after all, bully or no, I've worked for this man and learned to survive his ways over the course of 9 harrowing years. Nevertheless, he moved onward and upward, and skipped about 3 levels of professional management statuses to go from a Manager with a Director's title, to CEO. HUGE step. Some may have wondered (ehem) if he were ready for such a step.
Fast forward once again to yesterday when Karma showed me I was wrong to have been feeling this way about the change his departure had introduced into my life. In a flash he emailed the old team letting us know that after a whirlwind 10 weeks in his new job as CEO, his entire management team resigned effective immediately, and well, that left him with no new job. Seriously. 10 weeks as a CEO has to be a new record. The tone of his email was upbeat, crisp and simple. Didn't go into details, but he noted that a lot of lessons were learned. My goodness, I lasted longer as CEO of my own company and never got to sell a damn thing before calling it quits! And I dealt with months, no years, of regret and pangs of wanting to reinvigorate and start it all up again and do it right this time. He seems chipper. Ready for the next challenge, and is seeing humour in the amount of free time he has available suddenly.
Which leads me to two independent conclusions:
1) Not a bad attitude to have if you can afford it. Job markets being what they are, he's still too young to retire and too old to bounce back quickly...I hope he can afford it.
2) When after your entire staff has taken you to HR, and you've survived to play another day, and your approach to that new opportunity leads your next entire management staff to actually coordinate a mass resignation to occur on the same day in a job market where many people are lucky to find anything that will pay them a livable wage, what lesson has been learned? Especially if you nonchalantly announce it by email to your old team, with a positive, upbeat attitude?
Honestly, that's where my analysis of it ends with a shaking head, confusion evident in my brow, because the truth is, this is the type of person who repeats bad behaviour because he never learned the good kind. BUT, it's ability to baffle me so made me re-examine things in my own life.
Living by a mantra of dying without regrets, and knocking as much off my bucket list as I can as evidence that I've lived a life worth living, also means learning lessons. By doing and by watching others in every single way I can. So I pulled out the bucket list to see if I'd made any progress. It's been a year or so since I checked in on it. I was able to edit it a bit (the beauty of making your own bucket list is that it's your prerogative to update it). And I knocked a couple other things off too! WoooHOO!
This is a list I don't mind keeping tabs on.
ü Decorate a professional looking tiered cake
And it's happened again. I've survived once more to watch someone who once wronged me greatly, be handed a hard dose of Karma because apparently, some people learn some lessons the really hard way.
My old boss, the one who bullied me and put me out of commission for 14 months, has been served another helping of just desserts. I'm left pondering however, if he's really gathered the lessons he's supposed to have learned. I had already thought his penance had been served once. While on my medical leave, the entire team I left behind took issues regarding his treatment of them to HR. He was hauled over the coals, put on watch, and then the entire time I was out on maternity leave, things got tougher for him still - the coals turned into a laboratory table and he was scrutinized as though he were a dead fly under a microscope. When I came back to work from medical leave he punished me in more passive aggressive ways than he'd previously punished me, but when I got pregnant things changed. Like we're talking, he did a 180 degree about face, and began treating me gently, with respect, even what some could envision as older brotherly kind of love. He was suddenly good to me. Perhaps because he no longer viewed me as a threat because he was busy fighting the foes who attacked in my absence. Who knows.
(I have just realized that this is the first time I have ever explained the work situation in any detail - I imagine this means it's appropriate then to do an article on how workplace bullies make their mark.)
When I returned from maternity leave, this didn't change. BUT, I noticed through conversations with other team mates over the past year that he had simply changed the direction of his bullying. I could write the scripts for some of the things reported to me. He was dreadful to one of my colleagues, and I realized that perhaps he was being good to me, because he had a new victim. After all of that, he'd not learned a single lesson. At least not the right one.
Fast forward to April of this year, and that same boss announced that he got a great new job as CEO at another company and bailed ship. I'll admit to feeling a bit lost and forlorn - after all, bully or no, I've worked for this man and learned to survive his ways over the course of 9 harrowing years. Nevertheless, he moved onward and upward, and skipped about 3 levels of professional management statuses to go from a Manager with a Director's title, to CEO. HUGE step. Some may have wondered (ehem) if he were ready for such a step.
Fast forward once again to yesterday when Karma showed me I was wrong to have been feeling this way about the change his departure had introduced into my life. In a flash he emailed the old team letting us know that after a whirlwind 10 weeks in his new job as CEO, his entire management team resigned effective immediately, and well, that left him with no new job. Seriously. 10 weeks as a CEO has to be a new record. The tone of his email was upbeat, crisp and simple. Didn't go into details, but he noted that a lot of lessons were learned. My goodness, I lasted longer as CEO of my own company and never got to sell a damn thing before calling it quits! And I dealt with months, no years, of regret and pangs of wanting to reinvigorate and start it all up again and do it right this time. He seems chipper. Ready for the next challenge, and is seeing humour in the amount of free time he has available suddenly.
Which leads me to two independent conclusions:
1) Not a bad attitude to have if you can afford it. Job markets being what they are, he's still too young to retire and too old to bounce back quickly...I hope he can afford it.
2) When after your entire staff has taken you to HR, and you've survived to play another day, and your approach to that new opportunity leads your next entire management staff to actually coordinate a mass resignation to occur on the same day in a job market where many people are lucky to find anything that will pay them a livable wage, what lesson has been learned? Especially if you nonchalantly announce it by email to your old team, with a positive, upbeat attitude?
Honestly, that's where my analysis of it ends with a shaking head, confusion evident in my brow, because the truth is, this is the type of person who repeats bad behaviour because he never learned the good kind. BUT, it's ability to baffle me so made me re-examine things in my own life.
Living by a mantra of dying without regrets, and knocking as much off my bucket list as I can as evidence that I've lived a life worth living, also means learning lessons. By doing and by watching others in every single way I can. So I pulled out the bucket list to see if I'd made any progress. It's been a year or so since I checked in on it. I was able to edit it a bit (the beauty of making your own bucket list is that it's your prerogative to update it). And I knocked a couple other things off too! WoooHOO!
This is a list I don't mind keeping tabs on.
·
Show
Maggie Aurora Borealis
·
Take Mike
to Asia
·
Take Mike
to the Rocky Mountains
ü Write a book
ü Be paid to write
·
Have another baby Love another baby
·
Retire early Retire
with time to spare
ü Own a cottage Rent a cottage
·
Weekend
in Paris
·
Vacation
in Italy
·
Vacation
in London, Eng.
·
Travel
all over Europe
·
Weekend
in New York City
·
Eat at
the Russian Tea Room
·
Shop at
FAO Schwartz
·
Shop in
Greenwich village
ü Learn to cook like a chef
ü Visit a town called Rebecca Find
a street named Rebecca
ü Diners, Drive Ins and Dives Road
Trip
ü Host a fabulous cocktail and
dinner party catered by professional chefs and wait staff
·
Custom
build my own house
·
Got to
the ballet or the opera
·
Watch
Maggie graduate university
·
Give
Maggie away with her dad at her wedding
· Watch my
first grandchild be born
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