To think becoming a senior civil servant gives you the right to make grown men cry

[dietcokehead]

Disclaimer: I know some very senior civil servants are lovely.

I am a regular who has name changed for reasons that will be obvious!

I have recently joined a Central Government department. In the past few weeks I have heard countless tales of very senior staff throwing more junior colleagues out of meetings, telling them they're crap, reducing them to tears, threatening to end careers. Offences include missing an item from an agenda, being perceived to not be fully prepared, having forgotten to make a phone call, 'mumbling'...

In the department I work in there are a handful of people who think this is allowed as they have reached a certain point in their career, and admittedly done very well indeed. And get away with it. People are genuinely scared by them.

Probably less an am I being unreasonable, and more an am I being naive? I've had twenty years in the private sector and heard the odd story like this, but this behaviour seems to be engrained in my Gov Dept, and I have heard it is not uncommon in others

This sounds like something from 'The Thick of It!'

It's sad to think of people behaving like that. People being scared of you or making people cry shouldn't be something to be proud of.

Suggestions please...!

I suppose you could ask them

Is the First Division a football league or.......?

I believe there is a customary MN scarf...

In my umpteen years in central gov CS & on secondments elsewhere, I've noticed that the most ridiculous behavious came from men of a certain age; grade & cs/contractor staus irrelevant.

I did get so annoyed with a SPAD in a meeting once though that I snapped a bic biro in half. He was just a twat though, as opposed to a bully.

I vote we parade around the HO (yes, me too) with a Fruit Shoot and Greggs sausage roll in our hands at all times.

No takers?

I'm in HMRC and never ever seen that. I have seen SCS arguing to fight their corner and try and secure funding for their business stream for example, but then extremely polite and amicable at coffee break. There are some SCS who are considered difficult to work with or temperamental, but definitely not bullying junior staff. Generally I think you have to have very good interpersonal skills to get through the recruitment process. I have heard of two senior people going to the Foreign Office and being bullied though so it may go on in the wider CS. I have never heard of anything like OP is describing and to be honest, have known of people to face disciplinary action for far less. HMRC also have a system where you can approach HR or other staff for help if you are being victimised. Is it possible for the victims to go to their union for support, if they can't approach their managers?
OP, will you name and shame the department?

I have the scarf and am most partial to a Greggs sausage roll...

BeingFluffy, across the water, there are problems with relatively senior people moving into our equivalent of the FO too - I feel (from the outside but with very good friends on the inside) that it stems from a snobbery on the part of the Dip Corps and their "diplmatic training" rather than anything else (cos some of them are extremely capable people, and prove very good diplomatically too!).

Fruit Shoot, Greggs sausage roll and PomBears? See you in 2MS (when I go back!)!

i didn't witness it in the CS i worked for, but possibly close (some "discouraging" of trainees and lower level staff etc)

i worked for a large chain in a small city where the manager used to have the most tremendous tantrums. really, like a 2-year-old, but shouty. and then of course, it would never be his fault for it, always the blame went to the member of staff who wound him up.
ex of wind up - dumpbin was thrown into rubbish because a new one arrived.
manager came onto shop floor 2 days later "ooh, could you make use of this dumpbin?" staff member said (in a slightly annoyed tone)"they've sent another one?!" manager threw dumpbin to floor and started screaming and raging that all he'd done was find a dumpbin and thought it might be useful and how dare the staff member talk to him like that on the shop floor. (this is when staff member realised that it was the one from the rubbish bin). then staff member had to spend an hour pacifying the manager by explaining, and then had to avoid manager for 2 days because he was still in a bad mood and wanted to raise a disciplinary warning about staff member . i'm not exaggerating, either.

MoJ is allegedly really very bad for bullying.

I'll be there, FamiliesShareGerms. We can start up a HO-MN-adoptive parents sub-cult

Amused by the fact that none of us seem to have public profiles on here.

Security first ladies!

All in favour of sub-cults, Devora!

I once realised that another poster was the CS sitting across the desk from me. We were due two days apart.

I've worked mostly in a non-civil service public sector environment where bullying is endemic, and there were until recently no procedures at all to counter it. I can't name and shame but it's bloody luck for the place that they've never ended up in the papers.

My one stint in the CS, in a department already named here, was in a directorate with a DG who was an infamous bully. Every year the staff survey would be full of people complaining about him and senior managers would say they could do nothing. He lent a poisonous atmosphere to the place and ruined any chance of strategic working or a work-life balance. But I think he is unusual. He's still there, if anyone wants to have their own thoughts on who he could be!

Did you make yourself known to her, stiffy?

I just asked if it was her. She seemed to fit the profile. I think, anyway. I know I admitted to posting before I asked her though.

I should add, it ended very well. She's my new job share partner.

Sounds like the dept I have worked in which has been carved up and name changed so many times in the last few years, hard to keep up with all the changes. Bullying has led to suicide attempts. It makes me feel sick just thinking about it now, the bullying witnessed.

I'm in a central dept and have been lucky to never encounter this sort of thing with SCS (a little bit with ministers though, one in particular) although have encountered some scs that make me wonder how they got there. When joined cs grad scheme was offered chance of MoD and some people said it was a it odd there - no personal experience of the culture there though!

As a new addition to MN am also intrigued to wonder if I know anyone on this thread!