You and Yours on Radio 4 are doing a phone in about this, so I phoned in to tell them about my experience about 4 years ago, when I was still working in advertising. I had a new boss whom I suspect had been given the message by my director that I should be got rid of (they had a policy of getting rid of mothers - obviously not an official one, but of 8 women who had children in 5 years, all 8 left - co-incidence? I think not.)
My boss proceeded to use all the classic bullying techniques - ignoring me when I came in in the mornings, excluding me from conversations with our other colleague (who was a friend of hers), undermining my work, etc. Within about six weeks, I couldn't actually be in the same room as her, or think about work, without bursting into tears. Things came to a head when I went for an interview with a recruitment consultant and she asked me that classic old question "Why do you want to leave your company?" I was so taken aback, because I nearly burst into tears again - all the real reasons came flooding into my mind and I had to struggle to give a respectable reply. That day I complained to my HR manager and the next morning went to my doctor for a sick note and took 2 weeks off work with stress.
Went back and threatened to sue them, everything was brushed under the carpet and they all pretended I'd misinterpreted, misunderstood, etc. etc. From that time on, my boss behaved impeccably. I left the company about three months later and moved on.
While I was telling the researcher all this, I found myself in tears and realised that I couldn't talk about it on air, as four years on, I still can't talk about this in any detail without becoming as distressed as I was back then. I have no idea why I still find this so upsetting, or how I can get to a stage where I can talk about it without feeling so bad still. Does anyone have any advice?