Have you ever been bullied at work? - What was it like afterwards?

[autumnleaves123]

Last year I wrote here asking for advice as I was bullied by a new manager. It was a horrible situation that ended in me approaching the Union for advice and the bully leaving the team.

I'm still at the same job as it's very convenient for me at the moment, e.g the pay is OK, the hours are really good to combine around childcare, the holidays are good too.

However, I feel a lot of latent hostility in the office. I feel other managers are very offish with me. None of them ever asked my point of view on the situation, but I get the feeling that they don't have a very good impression of me.

I work part time but have always been conscientious and hard working. Always try to my best to do a good job and to keep the standards of service high.

I feel this situation is so unfair. I know the person I supervised took my ex manager's side, so she probably has spread a lot of rumours about me in the office. She's someone who used to arrive 45 mins late for more than two years, has a very light workload as she's got health issues, and nobody can ask her to take on board any jobs because she refuses to do them. Managers do not deal with this, but instead, I seem to be the bad guy.

Has anybody been in a situation like this and how did you cope with a hostile work place?

[SuperFlyHigh]

it depends - in my case there were 2 bullies, 1 was a temp and friend of the boss and boss' colleague. when she returned to temp it was awful. the bully I had to work with everyday it was frosty for a while and we moved floors (me on 1 floor her on another). My direct boss I think was loyal to the bullies (both were personal friends of his had known him 25 years) so was unsure about me whom he'd only known 3-4 years.

Lots of companies (like mine) deny there's a problem - the bullies denied any knowledge of doing it and my boss almost refused to help. I found out afterwards as I worked for a solicitors that I had a case against my boss if I'd wanted to do that.

ultimately the only thing you can do is work hard, make a good impression (like I did) - in the end they didn't want me to leave. if new colleagues/senior management come on board you can make your best impression on them and hope that transfers to other management. the latter strategy worked with me.

or you can leave and make a fresh start as I did.

[Sazzle41]

Yes. My BFF went back. The bullying carried on despite HR intervention (and they had 'form' for bullying other staff too) but because the two bullies were perm and their managers refused to do anything, they got rid of my friend instead as she was a contractor, even tho she documented every episode and had email evidence. It was cheaper to get rid of her than try and get rid of two perms who might go to tribunal for unfair dismissal.

[autumnleaves123]

Thank you very much for your replies. And really sorry for my late reply. I had password problems and didn't log in in a long while.

I just feel that no matter how hard I work, I have been stigmatised and nobody at a higher level is going to give me credits for any hard work I do. Sometimes I think that sitting at my desk doing nothing will cause me less trouble than trying to be on top of things.

Anyway, I'll keep trying to do my best... and looking for another job in the meanwhile.

[Flumplet]

I have when I was pregnant by a group of peers. It was awful, due to jealousy about my pregnancy (one of them was gay and going through endless IVF cycles. There were email communications willing me to fall down the stairs and code names for me. Fortunately I didn't know about it at the time but found out when one of them left the org and I was put in charge of her emails. Left me very depressed and anxious and I left the business shortly after.

[sportinguista]

Yes, I have experienced this and left the company in question. I set up my own business and am now happier than ever. I wouldn't have stayed for the world - the person had form for all sorts of bad behaviour and I no longer wanted to put up with it. Everyday I think to myself how nice it is not to be there it is a year now and I've gone on to have so many amazing experiences and great things happen for me that I wish I had left before I did.

Personally I would look at a clean start somewhere else, life is too short to be unhappy...

[SuperFlyHigh]

Flumplet - I had similar discoveries when due to bad IT support I had to access a colleague's emails and discovered she was bitching about me to another colleague. Although I shouldn't have snooped I did... and found it had gone back a few months with a the wife of a family friend who'd got me the job at the company and both of them used this info to bully me - the wife of the friend temped for us and was a close friend of the boss and used to criticise me loudly through a glass door (she knew I could hear) to my boss. Flumplet I am not sure after you left but when you were if you had known you would have a strong legal case against your colleagues.

when I finally reported them for bullying my boss took their side, I wish in a sense I'd taken it further but after 2 years (when it calmed down) I proved what a hard worker I was, and invaluable (my boss offered me a good payrise to stay when I left etc) so karma has worked. The period where I was bullied was awful, I had to get counselling but learned great techniques.

I would encourage anyone in this situation to leave if at all possible before it erodes your self-esteem etc at work.