To think that bullying is still rife in workplaces?

[Gladtobemyself]

I’ve had a horrifying experience in an organisation I used to work for. This individual who was our boss, managed to alienate absolutely everyone in the office, not only her own department. Screaming her head off, putting popeple down, cutting people off during conversation, threatening emails, and the list is too long, that we had 80% staff turnover in one particular year. HR ended up spending way too much of their time recruiting for our department.

I was one of the very few people from the old team left in the department and after another excruciating months I became mentally and physically unwell, which meant I had no choice but to take the matter to HR (I had been with the company for over 6 years by then). I ended up leaving with a nice package and went travelling for several months. However the experience has left me shaken for a long time.

Besides this dysfunctional individual, and perhaps one other, the company was brilliant. Lots of perks for employees, trainings provided and state of the art offices.

I was talking recently to someone that described a similar situation in their office. AIBU to think that this behaviour is still rife in workplaces?

YANBU

I’ve witnessed and experienced it. I’ve noticed that many workplaces are just like an extension of school in the sense that there are cliques, folk who are popular, folk who are unpopular, lovey people, strange people. It seems (sometimes) like people haven’t grown up and see weaknesses in others that they can exploit.

@timeforteaplease1

Exactly!

I can cope with shouting and screaming. What I cannot tolerate is having awful things said to me with no witnesses around and being blamed for others wrong doings and having to put up with endless little digs like death by a thousand cuts.

I worked in the NHS. Driven out by the above.

Its rife still in schools - and I mean the teaching staff.

A definite 'them and us' attitude with teaching and admin staff. Plus the whole juvenile hierarchy 'my degree is better than yours'. Actually some teachers, whilst doing a very difficult job with a lot of pressure, really never have worked in the real world, they have been in an educational environment since the age of 4 and have the emotional intelligence of a stunted 14 year old. Petty bitching, one upmanship, lying, dobbing each other in, and a delight for maliciously hurting childrens emotional well being.

Absolutely. Always about to some degree, I think.

The worst I've ever seen is the place I work at now, the senior staff member below management has been there for years, boasts about getting rid of management staff and deliberately employs young staff that she can intimidate. I've worked there for 2 years, we're on our 3rd manager and 4th administrator. She has a coterie of staff that can do no wrong, and then an ever changing number of junior staff that rarely stay more than 6 months. One of the managers raised the issue with the company owners, but as long as the work is done, they don't care, they're rarely on site and don't have to face the toxic atmosphere day in, day out. I cope because I work very part time hours, steer clear of her as much as I can and keep my head down but I am constantly looking for other jobs. This job is convenient, but badly paid with no benefits, if I can find something else I am out of here.

I've name changed as a lot of my other posts are identifying.

I'm currently signed off due to work related stress because my boss has become unbearable. I've never done this before and I honestly feel so overwhelmed and honestly devastated it has come to this. I used to love going into work. Now I cry at my desk.

I honestly think he's been trying to make me leave as he wants to change my hours but realised he couldn't. It's awful.

Yes, it's the abuse of power that comes with being someone's boss. Very heady power trip for some individuals.

I have personal experience, worked with a jumped up little cow who was scared inside that I was better/more experienced than her, so had to put me in my place and stab me in the back whenever she could.

There wasn't much i could do about it apart from the occasional kicking back when she'd really gone too far. I don't work with her anymore but what surprised me the most was that when I left she wanted to stay friends after! Obviously not very self aware.

Absolutely. I have a new boss like this. After 15 happy years at my work, I'm leaving after 18 months of snipey comments, aggression and unreasonable requests.

I was bullied really badly in my previous role. Very badly. It's definitely very much still a thing

@JaneDoe13 sorry to hear that, I have been there!

Unfortunately things don’t tend to get better after you’ve been signed off with stress. It’s probably better to move on, but if you’ve been with the company for a while and you’ve got a HR department, you can take the matter further. In hindsight, I wish I started keeping records before I did and filed a formal grievance earlier. It’s simply not worth your health.

I left a research job at a particular university due to bullying. It's rife in academia. All caused by one woman who had managed to 'niche' herself into a particular role, and move up to management in that team as there were no other suitable/interested internal candidates.
This meant that a) she thought she knew it all b) could do whatever she wanted, as they'd never sack her - because they probably couldn't find anyone available and willing to do her job.
She'd also had no management training.
I understand that she is still bullying staff and the union are dealing with several grievances against her.
So - yes, sadly - it's rife, at least in my experience.

YANBU - the hilarious thing is that some of the places with high scores in best places to work and twitter feeds full of philanthropy are actually the worst.

Definitely. Some people just never grow up and they thrive in heiarchies which present them with opportunities to abuse others which are generally rare in life in general.

The pleasure some people get from making others feel small is weird.

@Gladtobemyself I am leaving. I'm waiting for a start date for a new job but it's been delayed. Fingers crossed I hear this week.

I just didn't want to leave like this. I've been there 8 years. I work for a massive company but our HR department is poorly managed and, to be honest, I'm too scared. How do I prove it? How do I prove he ignores me most days? How do I prove that when I did try to speak to him he said "I'm far too busy and I've got far more important things to do than listen to you" (he was browsing Facebook when he said this!)? How do I prove he's lied about colleagues complaining about me? He will deny it all. I don't have it in me to fight it.

Most definately.

But the boss talks behind peoples back....so it makes it seem ok for colleagues who like to do it too.

In my workplace, if your different then your slated.
It feels like theres two groups...the extroverts and introverts. Extroverts seem to slate the introverts.

But theres also the people that will make others day harder because thry dont like them....give them extra work, set them up to fail.

Ive pulled people up a few times only to get jumped on by my supervisor...telling me i dont understand.

JaneDoe the simple answer is that you can't and that's why most bullying grievances fail (I work in HR).

Colleagues will suddenly go all manuel (I know nothing!) if they are spoken to as part of the investigation. They don't want to be the next victim!

That's even if colleagues have observed any bullying. Most bullies are clever and won't do their bullying when other people are around. They'll talk their way out of anything you try and pin on them and management will usually side with the bully by default unless there is hard evidence to suggest wrongdoing.

Some people just never grow up and they thrive in heiarchies which present them with opportunities to abuse others which are generally rare in life in general.

Yep, they get away with it in school, and just carry on in the workplace as if it's their normal behaviour. They just don't know any different.

And yes, they lack self awareness, probably don't even know they do it. I recently got a friends request from one of my worst bullies from school who made my life hell and nearly caused me to commit suicide - she was truly vile. I rejected it and then she sent a message asking why?

@JaneDoe13 I’m glad you found a new job. I know exactly how you feel leaving after you’ve been with the company for 8 years, I felt the same. But now I have no regrets, at all! All I regret is not being a little more assertive when I was still there, but when you are in that situation being sleep deprived and stressed, it’s hard to think straight. Plus she was a vile cow who would do absolutely anything to destroy someone that was on her ‘black list’, which was pretty much everyone. I started keeping records and send her the odd email to ask her to stop behaving like she did, so that I had things in writing. I am happy that at least I’ve exposed everything to HR, which she never expected me to do and although she’s still there now, she’s not got the same power as she used to, after a massive reorganisation.

@RussellSprout I agree with everything you say. However, in my case she had such a bad reputation that HR haven’t questioned anything I said. I knew for a fact they’ve received complaints, and even though they were not formal grievances, there were aware of what was going on. Plus I had emails that I sent to her asking her to stop the demeaning behaviour, especially in open plan environment. Also I was achieving my deadlines and going beyond my role, so she couldn’t complain about the quality my work.

I'm in a nursery. It one of the rooms there's a "bully from below". She thinks she should run the room. She's constantly getting in a huff when asked to do things by her room leader and likes to give them the silent treatment. She also undermines them by waiting until the leader is not in the room for a bit then making decisions that the room leader should be making. Previous room leader left because of it and the current one is utterly fed up with it and looking for jobs.

@RussellSprout and that's why I'm not pursuing it. I'm not stupid. I know he would win. We all know what he's like. He comes in with a face like thunder and the atmosphere is awful but no one will say anything. A colleague has remarked how I'm "out of favour at the moment" so others have noticed but there's no way they'd go against him because he'd do it to them. I don't blame them.

@Gladtobemyself thank you. I'm so worried that something will go wrong and I won't actually get it. I do have other interviews lined up but I really have my heart set on this one job.

I have started writing things down too, but I won't do anything with it.

Ex retail manager. Walked out of 1 job after a month. Bully boss. After I left I was told it was not me, she bullied everyone, and it wasn't in my mind, they could all see how she was treating me. This was a huge retailer and this little branch had one of the lowest retention rates in the uk.

To think that bullying is still rife in workplaces?
You would be correct.

I used to work in a big professional advisory firm and bullying was worse than anything I ever saw at school. Eg

• A 'lovely' manager who would befriend any new members of staff who seemed a bit 'different' then delight in telling everyone 'amusing' personal details about them (eg going clothes shopping with her then describing what she looked like in a state of undress)
• Another manager who would shout at team members publicly if they made a mistake. Especially if it was really her mistake. She was very close to the director of the department so if anyone complained they were essentially told that if they couldn't take it they were in the wrong place.
• Department director who would repeatedly call certain individuals meetings to discuss projects then when they arrived at his office at the appointed time scream that he did not have time to be involved and they just needed to get on with it . No idea what that was about.