Total 'mare - two bullies on team including boss

[claragolightly]

Hi everyone,

I work for a large, global firm, and my boss and another woman on my team have been bullying myself and my team mates for the past six months - screaming at us, then not talking to us for days, threatening us with the sack on no grounds, sending bitchy emails about us to people and then denying it. It has been unbearable - I feel sick and dread coming into work, feel tearful a lot of the time, am in constant fight or flight mode.

The straw that broke the camel's back came before Christmas and and alongside some other people who are not on my team, I made a formal complaint to HR about them.

Yesterday, the pair had performance reviews, and I am sure they received warnings, as I saw their manager returning five minutes after the start of each of their meetings. One of them went home after the meeting, which was first thing in the morning, the other (my boss) returned to her desk and gave us all the silent treatment. She then stormed off out - with no explanation - at the time I was due to have a meeting about a project with her .

This morning, my boss has been very cold with me (as she often is) - we were supposed to chat about my bonus and salary review, and instead she just gave me a letter detailing it and walked off. She said she was too busy to discuss the review. She's not - she's looking at houses online.

I am sure that they both know I have made a complaint about them. HR said they are taking it seriously, and are investigating, but they cannot tell me where they are up to or what the next step is. The lady who is dealing with it spoke to me yesterday and made me promise to tell her if anything at all happens, no matter how small.

I feel like I am in an impossible situation, now. They know I've complained, and being the people they are, they will make me pay for it. But quite how I don't know, and unless they have an outburst I'll be unable to give HR any more evidence. It feels like they have the protection of employment law, but as a victim of bullying, I'm just left to deal with the consequences.

Any advice on how to deal with this?

You carry on as normal, just be professional in your dealings with them. I would send emails to them requesting meetings, clarification of work etc rather than speaking to them. Then everything is documented. Keep HR informed of anymore bullying.

The lady who is dealing with it spoke to me yesterday and made me promise to tell her if anything at all happens, no matter how small.

Document everything. Communicate by e-mail and save them. For instance, do you have an e-mail confirming the meetings you were to have yesterday and today? Even if you don't, I'd be reporting it to the HR contact.

Thanks for your rapid responses, much appreciated.
Yes - yesterday's meeting was in the diary and two other people were supposed to join us, they noted and queried her absence, and one of them saw her storm off. I'll definitely tell HR about that one.

Well done in reporting it in the first place and it is cheering that your HR department took it seriously.
Just report any more crap to HR.

Yes document everything, even the no-shows either you or someone else that was due to attend must send a 'sorry you were unavailable for our meeting that was scheduled for date/time, please can we re arrange this for x or y' etc. and cc everyone and anyone that needs to be involved., so they all know it's not just you.