Exactly. As a manager I see right through these people in the workplace and remove them. They are like a cancer and if you don’t act quickly to remove them, the morale of the team goes quickly. It’s also the quickest way you can lose the trust of your team.
We work 10-12 hours a day in close quarters. It’s a very stressful time. I have been bullied and I am currently being bullied by superiors. I protect my team from that and it’s no shock that I have everyone coming to me now feeding me information.
As an aside, workplace bullying is very common and often goes unchecked. I am an expert in my field. Im humbled that the government call me for advice on managing money flows. However, I have certain people in the workplace who systematically undermine me, have screamed at me on calls where it’s just me and their team and have isolated me in terms of not including me when going out for drinks after work. It’s bullying.
This is how I have dealt with it:
I’m fortunate to have a strong network of support because I’m nice and very good at my job. I’m always learning and holding lunch and learns to keep my skills updated. It also helps me build a network. Pizza and salad is $150 but goes a long way.
On Friday the IT director asked me if I was going for drinks with the team. I told him I wasn’t invited. His response was to set up drinks with me on Wednesday and invite the team if they want to come along. I’ve saved his rear end multiple times. I have no doubt he doesn’t like the senior people who bully me.
Internal audit are going to see me have a dotted like to another department so I have air cover when bullied. I’ve also not held back when other departments have lied to internal audit about the process they say they follow. It’s set up that the audit will ask for evidence and of course there will be no evidence, therefore the person attacking me has to explain themselves.
The executive assistant who is supposed to cover me is an absolute bitch to me. I struggle with this one but have kept it strictly professional. Each time she fails to follow policy, I let her manager, who is also my manager, know and HR. She refuses to take phone messages for me and puts them through to voicemail. It’s not acceptable. I want a phone message emailed to me for a reason. It’s not personal, people who call me do not ever leave voicemails for ego reasons and, for one person, security reasons. For the men she emails phone messages.
HR asked me to attend DEI conferences and when published, I found glaring gaps in our ESG report. I’m now on the ESG council as the lead for governance.
In my industry group, I’m now the voting member for my firm and I’m on two panels talking about what is going on in my sector. I’m covering the tough topics everyone is struggling to address, not what people perceive to be soft subjects such as DEI, communicating across the org etc.
This gives me a lot of visibility so if the attacks continue they start to look like the ass they are. My employer also do not want to lose me.
Im sharing my approach because as women we are often targeted in the workplace and subjected to this behavior. Cry when you get home but never in the office. It hurts to be rejected but have faith that they attack you because it’s easier to do that than to admit their own shortcomings.