To ask your experience of workplace bullying?

[IntheHeartofTransylvania]

Can I ask if you’ve ever experienced a form of workplace bullying and if so what form it took and how you addressed it (if at all)?

YABU = never experienced
YANBU = experienced

Woman who climbed the slippery pole at my work (literally climbed the boss’s pole) and kicked every woman there out of her way unceremoniously.

SEVEN women left directly as a result of her nasty, two faced behaviour towards them.

All of them told the boss, two of them formally told HR on the way out.

Nothing was done because she was shagging the boss.

She now has the second top job in the place.

Yes by a previous manager. I ended up off work for two months with stress and in the end moved from the job I was in as there was no way I could continue working for her. I found out afterwards that she has a ‘whipping boy’ on every team she manages and it was clearly me there.

She was new to the job and I was trying to improve processes, make the work more efficient and streamlined and she didn’t like it as I knew more than her. I was promoted 6 month later into another role!

Yes to experiencing and witnessing others being bullied in both the nhs and carehome sector, the excuse was always it's just women, you know what they're like. It was rife in this industry especially if they decided your face didn't fit and you were not good enough to join their exclusive club, but I don't know if the covid pandemic has improved the situation and made staff work more closely together and show more respect to others. On all occasions the bullied staff member eventually resigned and ended up in a much happier position, usually the bully got moved sideways or worse still got promoted out of the job. Life is too short and the job too stressful to work with a bunch of two faced arse licking lazy feckwits.

I'm witness to what I can only describe as "loose" workplace bullying. A senior coworker in the same field as me hasn't gelled with other people in our division. Two other on the same level as her seem to have it in for her. We talk about it often. I'm surprised she hasn't handed in her notice tbh. It's very subtle though, covert, passive aggressive and bitchy.

Yes several times in my working life actually, and I know that I wouldn’t accept it now but I was younger & I guess quite naive. It’s shocking how many bullies are out there. I was bullied as a teenager & didn’t expect to be bullied as an adult. One of the worst was at a vets - I was a receptionist with zero experience & she was the Head Receptionist. Total bitch! I would have enjoyed the job if it wasn’t for her as I love animals & I was good with people, especially when their pets had to be put to sleep. She was pregnant & just before I left, I had a miscarriage. That was the only time she treated me with any decency.

Yes. I was bullied for several months - ended up going off sick for six weeks. I then went back on a phased return and things were even worse, so I gave my manager my notice at lunchtime and never went back (got a sick note to cover my time off).

My doctor was fantastic and incredibly supportive and mental health has been a million times better since I left!

First job as an apprentice there was 1 horrible older woman that would act like I was in the way all the time and tell me to go play in the road.

I was only about 15 or 16. She was a bloody bitch I would have her now.

Yep, bullied by my manager, she would pick apart everything I did, couldn’t do anything right, I mean, she would tell me to do something XYZ way one day and then the next day it would be ABC way. I was so scared of her I couldn’t ask her for help if I didn’t know something so I would get more stuff wrong. She would pit staff against each other so I would get the occasional day off but that just meant my colleague would be having a shit day. She threw my work back in my face (literally) saying it was rubbish, and would tear strips off me in front of the entire office. I would go home every day and cry my eyes out, it was the worst time of my life. It stopped when her manager took me aside and asked me if I was ok, turned out 3 separate people had made complaints about her treatment of me (people who worked in the same office and were probably embarrassed seeing me get torn to shreds everyday). I ended up working for him directly, but to be honest by then it was too little too late and I left shortly after.
In hindsight I wish I had complained about her, or punched her in the face or just stuck up for myself a bit, but I was young and terrified of her! It’s a shame as it took me a long time to get my confidence at work back, I really questioned my entire career choice for a long time.
I’m in a much better place now, one of the reasons I like my current job is that my boss is an absolute legend, supportive, kind, understanding, I bloody love him (in a work way!). If I heard my old boss had died, I would think the world was a better place for it!!

Yes. Back in the 90s.
Headhunted by competitor, chunky increase in salary & benefits.
Then he took pleasure in humiliating me in front of two (male, pally) peers. He turned management & my own staff against me.
I resigned after 8 months, half of which was unbearable - had a breakdown, still on antidepressants 20+ years later.
I should have realised it wasn't going to end well when I found out that he did exactly the same to the previous incumbent.

Hideous. Absolutely hideous. I was 24 and jobsharing with a 59 year old woman and she just treated me so badly. It was my first job after college and she didn’t seem to grasp that I didn’t know what I was doing because theory and practice can be very different things. I would go home in tears almost every night and dread going in in the morning. It all ended when I eventually handed in my notice then she kicked off and walked out! I should have actually taken that further but was just glad to be out of there. Even thinking about it makes me so angry!

Witnessed it towards others and experienced it. A few times in nurseries. I got a job toldi t had a high turn over in this particular role as not everyone got on with a certain member of staff. I naivly thought can,t be worse then my last place. (where ther had been bulying and clash of personailities.). Well i was wrong. I went above the manager to the proprietr to sort the prob out which annoyed the manager but everyone though i did the right thing. I left of own accord, as it was clear it wasn,t going to change.

I am being at the moment! Lucky for me I have a new job to start in a few weeks and I cannot wait to get away from the bitchy toxic work environment. It’s truly horrific, I have gone from being confident and having confidence in my role to being terrified and feeling rubbish. I can’t do anything right, my mental health is rock bottom, I feel sick constantly and shaky. Never in my life did I think this would happen to me, it’s completely ruined me these past few months.

Nothing I did was right. She picked at every little thing. I actually started making mistakes because she had me so nervous

I had a similar experience. Eventually after 4 years things came to a head and I left with a pay-off. I have no idea why so many employers would rather support bullying managers and pay off employees generously rather than deal with the bullying. She's still there and it's 8 years on.

@cologne4711 I should have tried to get some money out of it!

Horrific period of about 6 months where I was asked to re-do things/treated differently from all the other middle managers who were horrified by the ridiculous stuff I was being asked to do. I had the most improved figures in the whole place, but my manager just disliked me and left me totally undermined. I was ecstatic to get a new job and be able tell her she was behind the times when she asked me to jump through more pointless hoops one day and I was able to say I’d resigned. Horrible, horrible cow.

God these are awful.

What terrible things you’ve had to go through.

God there are some really vile shits out there aren’t there. Some people are just utterly pathetic. Feel really angry just reading these.

@gingajewel so sorry to hear you’re going through that at the moment! Congrats on the new job :) Onwards and upwards. Bet you can’t wait to see the back of them.

You don’t realise how badly that sort of environment can affect you until you experience it. Can absolutely wreak havoc on your confidence and MH.

I have been bullied in my last three jobs. Always by women. I realise now that something in me attracts this type of behaviour. Possibly the fact that I burst into tears at the drop of a hat, always have.

I negotiated redundancy from my last job and now have a horrid job in a call centre. The nature of the job means that many of our customers are abusive. It's a far cry from the supervisory and managerial jobs I have had in the past but at 60 I won't get anything better now. I just keep my head down and do my job. It's a massive call centre and most people there wouldn't even know my name, added to the fact that my current manager is thoroughly nice I can honestly say I haven't experienced or witnessed any bullying.

YANBU.

Worked in a small department made up of mostly directors and PAs, plus a few others. I was young but my role was more senior than the others there except the directors. I suspect they didn't like this. The women were vile to me but in ways that would have made me sound pathetic if I complained and had me constantly second guessing myself.

EG - sunny day and they'd all announce they were going to the pub for lunch together and leave me sat in a totally empty office on my own. No invite.

Whispered conversations between two of them when there were only three of us in the office.

Always "forgetting" to offer me a tea when they were doing a tea round/only offering to make tea when I was away from my desk so they didn't have to make me one.

Loads of little things that built up until I couldn't take anymore. I left after six months. They didn't even say goodbye to me on my last day. I lied to my boss about the reason I was leaving and said I was going to be a SAHM.

Currently being bullied here. It's sole destroying. Am on antidepressants and has affected my personal relationships.
I'm too damn stubborn and stupid to let them win.
Management doing their best to sort it locally and keep it under wraps. I'm not playing ball. My manager undermines me and encourages my team to blank me and threaten me. It's pretty bad.

In my first job as a Saturday girl in a toy shop. Two male managers were awful to me as the other Saturday girls were very pretty, glued up and confident. I was quite geeky and definitely grew into my looks. They targeted me because I was different but I never let them think they got to me. One was eventually fired for stealing and the other moved to another shop.

In my job before last I was again targeted because I didn't quite fit in. They were awful and really destroyed my confidence. The first six months I was the golden child but then my boss left and I was left carrying the can. They replaced my boss eventually and because the new person wanted her friend to work in my position I was engineered out. Terrible bullying by management, making up things in progress reports to make it look like i was incompetent, even though they had me running a multi million £ project solo. They've done it to a few people from what I've heard.

The job before that one I was brought in in an assistant manager role. One of the staff had gone for the job and not got it, despite shagging the boss. Her team mate was a horrible misogynist who hated having a younger, more experienced woman telling him what to do. I complained a lot but lasted 8 months (before being head hunted to the role above, go figure!) and left, telling management that my bullies would end up doing the same to my replacement. Funnily enough I was proved right and they ended up having a full restructure by an outside source and the place became miserable, all because the manager didn't nip it in the bud.

I just want to go to work, do a good job and go home at 5pm. I don't understand work place bullies. Twunts

Oh my god - clued up NOT glued

I've had:
Whispering in the office when only a few of us in.
Not getting invited out for lunch with everyone else
Colleagues obviously messaging each other even sat opposite each other and lots of giggling going on
Sat there and two colleagues sat next to me smirking and laughing at each other then scurrying off to the kitchen.
Collage asking the team questions but turning her head away from me so as I cant join in.
Colleague bitching about me to the boss after I've left for the day
Colleague making stuff up and twisting stuff about me.

Lovely colleagues, at times, arent they.

My last manager was awful to me. Everyone in the office knew she was horrible (it was widely suspected that she had undiagnosed bipolar or similar as she would swing wildly from almost manically happy to sucking all the joy from any room) but she treated me (her only direct report) particularly badly.

She was all sugar or all shite, as my mother would say. I walked on eggshells for three years, never sure of what I was walking into on any given day. She would speak to me like dirt and publicly shout at me for her own mistakes. On more than one occasion she asked me to do something, then she "forgot" that she asked and would loudly quiz me on what I was doing/why I was doing it, humiliating me for the whole open plan office to hear. I cried in the toilets most days, I was deeply unhappy and gained five stone through binge eating for comfort.

I wish I'd done something but I was constantly warned not to by friends in the office. Some of them had known her for 30+ years and not only had she ran several people out of their jobs, but on three occasions someone had stood up to her and she twisted the whole thing around, took them to HR and got THEM redeployed. I just didn't have it in me to fight her so I left. In fact, I was so desperate to get away from her I gave up my permanent employment contract for a fixed-term one in a different department.