Replies to 'Workplace Bullies'

Quote From: nooyawkgurrl

   Granted, it's been a while since i visited this message board, but I have an update on my situation:  The bitch somehow managed to finally get me fired.

   She generated so much tension in regard to me that I felt completely isolated in the last few weeks I was at that job.  I can only speculate how many lies she told about me to others to make them so condescending towards me.  It was like I became  "contagious."  I even observed her chatting daily with employees that she barely used to give the time of day to, including my immediate supervisor.  The day I saw them leave together for lunch I knew something was seriously wrong... it didn't take a genius to see how she was trying to become everyone's new best friend.  Not that I cared.  I abhor her type of pettiness and refused to play into it.  It's beneath someone who is truly professional.  I'm smart enough to realize that it takes two to play at the bullying game -- one to dish it out and one to take the crap.  The response is what the bully wants.  Your distress is thier goal.  I vowed never to give it to her, and I didn't.  But she managed to systematically cut me down anyway.

One thing I have noticed in reading over these posts is that so many of these bullying incidents are happening in the caregiving or health-related fields!  What on earth is going on here???  Ironically, the organization I was just terminated from is a local chapter for a national, non-profit organization dedicated to fighting arthritis and it's related diseases.  The bully that I speak of is, of all things, a director for programs that assist arthritis sufferers and the elderly.  She's also a  former nurse.  She is one of the phoniest, two-faced people I have ever met.  Her pettiness, condescension, and abusive behavior towards her co-workers, especially her assistant,  truly begs for an assessment of her psychological health.

Here is how I was fired:  My teenage daughter calls me at my job, hysterical crying, on Wednesday at 4pm.  Her father, of whom I am divorced from and have joint custody, had verbally abused her and she wanted me to pick her up immediately as she did not want to be near him at that time.  Normally, I have my daughter from Friday evening through Monday morning, an arrangement that agrees with both my ex-husbands work schedule, my work schedule, and my daughters bus transport to her school.   But this was an emergency -- my daughter had never called me at work so distraught or hysterical. It was truly alarming and it unnerved me.  After hanging up the phone, I was in tears and visually distraught about what my daughter had just conveyed to me.  Only one co-woker asked me if I was okay, though the office is so tiny it is obvious that all could hear what just happened.  Anyway, at 5pm, the end of my work day, I picked her up from my ex's home.
The next morning, I called in to my supervisor to let her know I could not be in that day (Thursday) due to the personal situation involving my daughter.  Without going into detail, I will say this: After seeing the state my daughter was in, I knew I could not leave her alone in my apartment all day while I worked... I was truly afraid she might try to hurt herself.
Friday morning: I go to the office, sit at my desk, and am soon called into my boss's office.  I am told I am being terminated because I took the previous day off without authorization.  Gee, what caring people.

Personally, I found the reason for my firing to be the lamest crap I had ever heard, like they waited for something, anything, to use for a reason to get rid of me and somehow decided that "this was it.".  It was so obviously pre-planned by the attitudes shown to me by my co-workers, my supervisor, and my boss.  When I was fired, my boss actually asked me if wanted to go on record as having resigned!!!  I was shocked and insulted.  I was like, Excuse me??? I had no intention of quitting, you just ambush me with this information that I'm terminated, and now you want me to go on record as having resigned voluntarily???  Are you insane???  How stupid did this man think I was?  What a spineless lowlife.

You know what though?  As devastating as this experience has been, I am better off not working there anymore.  These self-proclaimed "caring people" kicked me when I was low.  I think the point I fully realized just how negative the situation had become was when I attended a fundraising event of which I was one of only three people in charge of organizing the event itself: my immediate supervisor, our boss, and myself.  I knew the details of this event like the back of my hand.  However, on the day of the event itself I was assigned to hand out T-shirts to people attending the event while a volunteer, who knew nothing about the event details or the procedures at hand, was assigned to handle incoming attendees and their monetary contributions.  When the volunteer was having trouble with the roster list and how to handle incoming checks, I intervened to help her out, only be told by my supervisor that I should "get back over" to where I had been standing because I was the "T-shirt girl."  That pretty much did it for me...