Work bullies - are you one and why do you do it?

[flumpybear]

Off the back of a similar thread, are you, or have you bullied colleagues at work, and why did or do you do it?

We have a disgusting bully at work she's literally made 50+ people leave, had people off with stress, one person for nearly two years. She even hired a family members company to do work for the organisation which is totally against business rules but literally nobody does anything - I think it's because she manipulated and lied to everyone senior into her own little twisted ways - thankfully for me she has no affect or seniority on me

• any other experiences or better still are you like this and why the hell do you do it ?

Probably narcissistic personality types do it. Not exactly the most self-aware group either.

I doubt you will get much response. Most people who are bullies dont think that they are bullies.

No I've never bullied anyone. I've been on the receiving end of someone trying to bully me but I'm not an easy type to bully despite being quite quiet.

I previously worked as a PA, about six weeks in to one job I had a colleague approach me in a fake huff that he'd lost the bet on how long I would stay. The guy I worked for had a fierce reputation, but he really was a pussy cat. Sure he'd got claws but it was only when needed. People used to tread on eggshells around him, if they made a mistake they would try and hide it. Thing was if you just told him straight, "shit I've made a mistake, I'm gonna do xyz to correct it" etc he didn't take the piss or anything. On the other hand people's eggshell walking etc would wind him right up.

Could something similar be happening with this colleague of yours?

I’ve been accused of bullying for doing a “restoring efficiency” process with someone. They clearly didn’t see anything wrong with their conduct so blamed me...

Not sure if that counts.

I have a bully at work. She never liked me I'm guessing because of my autism and that I'm different. She left a note on my desk (checked her handwriting) saying I sucked. Everyone ignored me and eventually I ended up with PTSD and clot. My manager went ape shit trying to get her to come forward but she never did. She stays away from me now as the experience has made me fierce and will call people out on their twatishness . I'm pretty sure she knows I know it was her.

The funny part is that she would harp on about her kid being bullied.

Annie don't you see that his behaviour is creating the issue. People hide mistakes because they are scared of him. If he didn't scare people they would be more likely to own up to mistakes, which is better for the company.

I used to work for a bully, it was horrible, now I'm the boss I make sure that people are allowed to make mistakes, it makes for a much more successful business.

I has a boss like that. It was unbearable and I eventually whistleblew.
I have been called a bully for adhering to policy and not giving indefinite paid leave for a colleague's time off with sick kids. In reality, I felt more bullied by being yelled at by her, but it got her more sympathy so she can crack on.

nickynackynoodle an ex colleague was suspended for bullying. She had been trying to get a very difficult long time employee (who had been foisted onto her team) to do the job she was paid for. It was a horrendous accusation and took ages to resolve. After being threatened with dismissal, it was decided there was no case to answer and she was given her job back. She declined, and was headhunted into a great role with people who value her management skills.

My boss can be a bit of a bully at times. I think the power trip is very seductive. She'd be appalled if anyone suggested she was a bully though! She thinks she's the world's best manager.

My old manager was a bully. She used to full on shout at people for making mistakes, make people cry and had her favourites who she would let get away with anything but if someone else did it they would be humiliated. She also had a WhatsApp group chat with a few people where she would slag everyone else off and had code names for people that were just really horrible. It was in a nursery though and she would fly in to rooms and go off on one about something so small in front of children.

I very rarely butted heads with her but one day she had something to say and I stopped her as she started to shout and said "If you have an issue with me let's go to the office and talk about it. I don't come to work to be shouted at and humiliated in front of my colleagues and the parents of these children aren't paying us to argue in front of them and make them scared and uncomfortable." I did find that if I ever did something wrong the best thing to do was own up straight away and offer a solution and she'd be your best friend for a few days if you did that.

The day I found out she was leaving I cried happy tears and she thought I was really upset to lose my 'mentor'

I was bullied very badly in my last role. He was sacked in the end. When I finally grew some balls to report him, I was forced to sit down with him and our senior manager to discuss the problems. He was shocked when I laid out comments he had made and things he had done, shocked that I considered this bullying! Apparently telling me he thought I looked way too big to be a size 10 was wrong. I wore makeup to try and get clients to fancy me, I must have slept around when I was younger, told my staff that I was useless and to speak to him over me ...

The one I worked with simply enjoyed it. It gave her a sense of power.

A few years ago, I worked in a small team and a new lady was recruited. She was lazy, lied about things (eg we had trained her on things, given her notes, sat with her, talked her through it, and a couple of days later when she was discovered not to have don the work she blamed other people, saying they had never taught her how to do it) and was generally difficult. The manager had recruited her so wouldn't admit she had got it wrong and left us to deal with the fallout. It was a real eye opener for me because a colleague and I were so miserable that we seriously considered just being horrible to her until she found it unbearable. We didn't, because that would have made us arseholes, but I'd be lying if I said that I hadn't considered it. And I've been the victim of workplace bullying that drove me to a breakdown and set my career back by ten years whilst I recovered, so I don't say that lightly. I'm glad I stopped myself though.

Anyway, the moral of my long story is that I'd say workplace bullying always comes down to weak management. Because a good manager would stop it happening, or deal with it when it does.

In my experience - the people who bully others are insecure, have a low emotional intelligence and are often unhappy with themselves or have issues at home.

I don't personally have any of the above issues but I have been bullied at work in past roles.

I work in HR and most of the bullying behaviour I have seen and witnessed over the years is a really ingrained pattern from the perpetrator, and they totally do not recognise it as such. They've usually been behaving that way all their career or even all their life, and never been challenged on it so they feel as if its now a normal way to be. Behaviour like shouting, pressurizing colleagues, undermining peers etc is often justified in their minds as necessary to get work done or because their colleague was wrong or didn't deliver on their targets or whatever. Even when pulled up on it they struggle to see or acknowledge that there would be other ways of dealing with the situation.

I'm no psychologist but I suspect these people are really unhappy/troubled in their personal lives too and it may stem back to dsyfunctional childhoods or even undiagnosed learning difficulties as it's like there's a real lack of emotional intelligence or understanding of other people's feelings. Or of course some people are just dicks!!

In my experience, most bullies bully people to make themselves look better. So if they spread enough rumours about someone, or tell the manager over and over again that someone in the team is making mistakes, it becomes fact in the managers eyes, and the manager starts appreciating the bully telling them. Before you know it, the bully and manager become mates and there is no way out for the person being bullied.

She wasn't so much a general bully, but I definitely had a manager just completely turn on me and it resulted in me becoming redundant when I was pregnant.

I was there a couple of years, everything was fine. This lady's dad died and she had a couple of weeks off. A month or so after my own dad died and she just flipped, was taking every opportunity to put me down and was making things up (not sure whether I took the attention from her situation as she created trouble for a colleague in another department who's father also died in the same period). I had a miscarriage a month after my father's death and ended up in hospital for 2 days - she decided to 'investigate' this and said I was lying (I had to allow them to access medical records). During the redundancy meetings she made up illnesses for time I had off when being ill during pregnancy and swapped my work with the other candidate's! I actually had a fantastic unfair dismissal case but stupidly decided not to proceed.

I was bullied by a woman who was lovely to me when were working on the same grade but a hideous bully when I got the promotion she thought was hers. She just blanked me overnight and a couple of her cronies joined in. Even her husband (who she dumped not long after cos she was having an affair with one of our clients) who occasionally popped into the office and would always have a laugh and a joke with me, started blanking me. The atmosphere in the office was awful. She was toxic. When I complained to my boss, they knew all about it. She had form. She was a bully. They knew it and she’d stormed off from her job in a huff when she was accused of bullying! And then returned! The funny thing in, she was very popular with a lot of people, they all thought she was a laugh a minute! They were probably scared of her. She taught me a lot about dealing with fuckwits at work, so thankyou to the idiot I worked with eighteen years ago!

As if someone is going to say "Yeah I'm a bully, i do it because it make s me feel powerful"

I've been called a bully.

I emailed a colleague to say I found his behaviour offensive and asked him to stop.

He had sent me an email with the times I had been doing certain jobs in certain parts óf the building. "Cracking Eggs was reading in the study with a rope between 3.35pm and 3.55 pm, she then went into the ballroom with a drainpipe at 3.56 until 4.05pm."
He also stood outside the female toilets when I wanted to go in. He is over 6 foot and very wide, I am a tiny female. I found his behaviour odd and stalker like.

I got an email from his very senior (female) boss, copied in was HR (female) telling me that asking him to stop bullying me was bullying.

And yes, I am in the union.

So in answer to the question "why did I bully this poor man?". Well I was frightened by him and wanted him to stop the odd behaviour he was displaying towards me.

Currently have one as a line manager, I've not pissed her off (yet) but I see the effects she has on those she's targeting

Management won't stand up to her and I wonder if she has something in them.

Several of us are job hunting

I know someone who I am sure is a workplace bully (I don't work with her, but I know her well).

At every job she has had she has taken against someone and decided they are useless or lazy or incompetent, and, reading between the lines, made their lives miserable. When that person leaves, she finds another person to hate.

This hasn't played well for her, in several jobs her role has been changed so she has no customer contact. In one job she left in tears after the bullied,after months of provocation, shouted in her face. She claimed she was been bullied.

In another job she was suspended for bullying, but got reinstated because they hadn't followed due procedure. Eventually managed of of the job, and resigned/was made to resign after an abusive tirade at her manager. In the exit interview the manager (the current number one on her shit list) told her that her behaviour him hate her. She was outraged.

She is an intelligent competent woman, with no traumatic upbringing, but has no insight and blames everyone else for the result of her behaviour.

And I am sure her racist rants on social media are not helping her cause

You won't get many answers here - people who are bullies seldom realise it or admit it. Most will say they are just upfront/honest/straight-talking.

I've not worked with a bully but I have worked under incompetent managers who refuse to deal with minor issues when they arise, meaning they snowball into bigger issues that cause large amounts of upset and anger.

I think the phrase "people leave managers, not companies" is very apt in a lot of places.

My dh's superiors are all bullies from what i can gather - its that kind of environment and only the strong can survive it seems - HR dont seem to do much to help and people end up going off sick as they cant cope.
I know i wouldnt last five minutes in such a toxic atmosphere myself and i know this is why dh has reached a plato in life and wont go much further, he is too normal and nice i guess. they only seem to like the horrible bosses.
sociopaths are amongst us and unless they meet their nemesis they are rarely called out on their behaviour it seems.