Topic : Workplace Bullies

Just when we thought it was safe to go back in the water, bam! My employer, without prior notice after depositing my disability  payment into my checking account suddenly and without notice reversed this deposit.  So far, Payroll is aware of this and states that:  

• I should have been notified ahead of time.
• That someone on the local level failed to fill out appropriate documentation.
• They have denied me three times to return to work, the first time six weeks after surgery, the second time about 3 months after surgery and the third time about six months after surgery.

Dr Phil, anybody, help me.  According to HR I am still employed, but no checks.  It was bad enough to lose the two houses because I didn't have the strength, energy, resources or all of the help that was promised to me, and I am cancelling all of my doctor's appointments.  My left index finger was cut on the table saw the first day I attempted to  resume any kind of activity in my delapodated shop, requiring ten stitches from the tip to just below the fingernail.    

I will just continue taking care of this and remove the stitches on my own.  Three have already busted.  I have a pile of wood I took out of the houses now sitting in the rain, ruining because I could not get the buildings to store them in.    

All three vehicles are falling apart.  My sons' car is broke down.  My wife's car needs attention quick before it breaks another belt.  It needs new seals, bearings, altenator, on and on.  My car looks like S%#@, and the transmission is making all kinds of noise and I have to push it up hills, or almost.  My wife's car needs a clutch and transmission work.  I am unemployeable at a normal job and have been begging and begging from government sites, etc for assistance.    

I am just so sick and tired of it all.  Tags are expired which I cannot buy.  And the money they spent to dispose of those houses, they could have spent half to have them dragged across my property line and allowed me to pay them back.    

Bad luck Me.  Somebody.  I still have taxes to file for two years. I am falling fast, and the hopes of the "Vagus Nerve Stimulation" is out of the question.  I need to call to see if my insurance is in affect, if not I will owe the hospital a couple of grand for surgery on my finger.  When  a knife cuts skin, usually stitches are all required.  But when a 1/4" of meat is sawed out of the finger, it involves severed nerves etc.  Only about 30 minutes, but I am sure a couple of grand.  

If I can't get feeling better, and do better, God help me......... I can't take this any longer.   

That's all folks.  

After almost 40 years in the workforce, I experienced my first true workplace bully.  This not someone who is simply difficult to deal with.  My bully managed to get me fired from a very good job and then got me blacklisted.  

With some research on the Internet, I found www.bullybuster.org. This is where I found out I was far from alone.  Bully busters makes a point of calling the receivers of the bullying "targets" and not "victims."    

Many of the problems that targets have are on my list of problems:  

HR immediately took the new manager's side even though I had been there almost  5 years, with excellent performance reviews, and she had just been there 6 months.  

My co-workers could not have missed what was going on, but no one helped me.  

My bully managed to have me in tears every day for almost 6 weeks -- all in the name of "counseling" me for poor performance.  She came from a law-enforcement background (husband, father, uncles) and knew just how she could get away with this stuff.  

Everyone occasionally works with someone who is hard to deal with, and when you try to explain what is going on to others, including family and friends (even spouses) they think you are exaggerating or being too sensitive.  They don't realize this is DIFFERENT.  This adds to the frustration and the "am I crazy?" feelings that you have.  

This bully managed to totally destroy any amount of self-esteem I ever had.  I was truly convinced I was the most worthless piece of trash around.  After almost a year, a third party put me in contact with the person who replaced me.  The bully did the same thing to him!  He quit after throwing up every day before he went to work.  We were able to help each other see we weren't all the bad after all, but the damage had already been done.  

I have had a very difficult time getting past this because it has totally destroyed my life.  I work in a technical field where you have to stay up with the latest trends.  This woman kept me from working long enough, and couple with being over 55, I can not get a job doing what I love doing.  I am now making as much money in a week as I used to make in a day!  I lost my dream home, my favorite vehicle (which I sold to make mortgage payments), and had two vehicles repossessed.  For six months I slept on a cot in the dining room of some friends' house.  Then I moved to a woman's house for six months with another crazy woman  to assist in taking care of show dogs.  Then I moved to another woman's house to help with her show dogs.  This house was over 50 years old, not maintained or cleaned.  I tried to clean it up, but there is only so much you can do with 35 dogs in the house.  I finally got a job at a pet store that specializes in birds.  More cleaning up after animals.  The owner can't put two words together without the f-word in between.  That lasted 9 months.  Now I am working as a PBX operator at a hospital, so the hours are rotten and there is no hope of advancement.  I am on food stamps and driving a 13 year old vehicle with 150,000 miles on it.  

If my standard of living hadn't been cut so drastically, I might be able to get past this, but I have constant reminders of what has happened to my life.  I can't do the things for my daughter that I could have done if this hadn't all happened.  This drastically effected her life as well, because she was 16 when all this started in 2000.  

I have had ups and downs in my life, but nothing compares to this.  Intellectually, I know I did nothing wrong.  Emotionally I play back tapes in my head trying to figure out what I did or said that set this woman off.  I want to make sure I NEVER do it again!  Most of all, it haunts me because this woman did this deliberately and maliciously -- with the help of management!!!!!!!!  It is too late for any justice.  She died of MS about 3 years ago, so the only record the company has is her version and she can't recant any of it now.  

How do we get companies to understand the damage that is being done?  www.bullybusters.org points out how much this costs business, but they don't seem to know it.  

I live in a small town. Before my husband and I moved here, I worked full time. I don't need to work now. Anyhow, my hubby and I are big movie buffs ( we love movies), and rent them all the time. The man who owns the video store, is always bragging that he has the best video store in the county. I will admit it is the largest. Well, the girl he had working for him got married and got another job. She was leaving in about  1&1/2  weeks, and had no one to take over her position. This is a small business, and he only had 1 employee. She asked me if I wanted the job. I accepted because I knew he had health problems and could not do it on his own. we agreed I would work app. 25 hours a week ( but no more than 30 no less then 20)  

Let me make this perfectly clear, I just wanted something to do to get me out of the house, this was not about a large paycheck, just a bit of extra money.   

After I started working I realized my employer was selling porn ( magazines and movies).  

I don't like to judge what people do in there own time but this was a business. To give you an Idea, he had it laying all over in the back. he had it stacked up so high when I walked by it would fall over, knock me down, and I would latterly be swimming in it. He would never throw out the old mags. ( I would laugh if it wasn't so pathetic)  

Some of this stuff was so nasty, I never heard of these things, young girls and animals ( large upchuck factor).  

When I started my hours were 1-5, 6 days a week.  

I encouraged him to hire another employee to work  the other hours as the last girl was full time.  

He rejected this until the computer started giving us more problems then usual.  

I offered to have a friend come look at it, He hired her  immediately. I thought great I'll get to work with a good friend and I know she needs the money. After working on the computer for awhile, she told me it kept crashing because he kept trying to download sick pornographic movies. ( if this guy ever gets audited by the government, and they get hold of his computer, hes in trouble).  

I knew what a ( excuse my language) horn dog my boss could be, but I didn't know how pathetic .  

He not only became a control freak, but a bully as well. He constantly  yelled, bullied, and snapped at me. He would never leave my friend on her own to to run the store, he had to be with her every second. He only called when I was there to ask personal questions about her. " is she single?", "Guess how much money I"m worth?"  

None of our costumers like him and would only show up if his truck was NOT there. I did most of our business during my shift. He was not a happy camper. his response was to cut my hours down to 12 a week, and come in when I was there and yell at me . The rest of my hours he would work himself. Guess What? people stopped coming in those hours.   

I started thinking I was being too sensitive, but one day my friend caught him snapping and went off on him. He then asked her If she wanted my hours ( all but the 12 I had). She told him he was out of line, and needed to apologies. this happened about 4 or 5 times. But they were not heartfelt apologies. He even let a  "special costumer" of his make a vulgar comment to him about me and didn't do anything. He started making me run his errands on my own time! When I put it on my time sheet he had the nerve to question me.  

I finally quit. My friend felt bad because I was there first, and we knew he wanted me gone so it could just be him and her ( as if). I knew she was in no way responsible for his actions. He even tried to get me to come back to work for him by holding my last paycheck to force me to talk to him. He was so afraid of how my friend would react, in his mind he thought if I was gone she would warm up to him.  

It hurt me to have to quit this job,  I loved the work I did and loved working with the costumers. My problem was with him. He acted like I was his wife and it was my responsibility to run his errands, feed him, and walk behind him cleaning up after him ( i even had to dial the phone for him). I took I helped him out when he was desperate and needed someone. I worked my but off only to be treated like crap when my friend wouldn't give him the time of day ie: flirt or go out with him ( I don't blame her, You couldn't pay either of us enough to date Him for a day).  

I never wanted to get revenge on my former employer, but I guess I did without even trying. Business has dropped, and hid biggest competitor offered me a job for more money. I hope I can get my friend a job here too. I feel bad for leaving here with that perv.   

I'm not even going to explain why I get so mean because I really don't know why.  For whatever reason, people annoy me and I let them know it.  It seems like I like them for awhile and then all of the sudden, I form some judgement of them and find them annoying.     

 I used to be a department director and have worked in supervisory and management positions.  My employees never deserved the verbal lashings spewing from my mouth.  They deserved to be treated with respect and gratitude for the hard work they did.  For some reason, they stuck with me and were actually supportive of me.   

I've lost jobs and was in danger of losing my present job.  I was "short" on the phone with a customer who has a national account with us.  I then reemed out the sales person who is in charge of that account.  I used to like him but have decided that he is lazy and I avoid him and used to just snear at him whenever in my presence.  He's still the one that I have difficulty with letting go of my hostility but I do not treat him disrepectfully anymore (I hope).   I also at one time or another have managed to alienate just about every person in our office by being snotty.  I am no longer in a supervisory position (Thank God) but act as if I'm better than the rest of the people.  I really am not and I'm sure that it's my feelings of inadequacy and the need to feel superior or powerful.   

I know that this is unacceptable and I am working hard to elimate it and give people the respect that they deserve.  My medication is helping me improve my moods making it easier to control myself.  I'm just scared to death that this pattern is going to continue with me.  I've hurt enough people and want to stop. 

Bullies at work is becoming a huge problem.  I do not know if this is new or if it has been there all along.  This book really helped me,  the Bully at Work, by Gary Namie & Ruth Namie.  I still have issues to deal with on this matter.  I have to learn how to let go of the past, heal myself, and yet stand up for myself and make sure I an treated with respect and dignity.  This is not an easy road.  Just when I let my gaurd down and begin to trust again HE HITS ME AGAIN with cruel, mean, hatefull remarks.  

My Bully recently presented a history lesson, at our staff meeting, on all of the errors I have made in the past 18 years.  How I did this to this person, and that to that person.  None of the people mentioned work there anymore.  They have all moved away from our town.  One of the situations was something I had done to my brother and sister in-law.  I did not have a clue what he was talking about.  I phone my sister and asked her if I had done this.  She confirmed that I did not have anything to do with the situation presented. My sister in-law and I have a wonderful relationship.  It was cruel, untrue, & inappropriate.  I was totally blind sided by this.  I went to the staff meeting to talk about work related issues.  Not to be personally humiliated or to personally humiliate amyone else.  

I have never been abused at home.  So this is difficult for me.  It took me a long time to realize what was happening to me.  

Thank you for writing this.  No one understands.  It is very hard to explan this to someone else. 

I have not worked in 18 months, since my daughter was born. I worked for a small company where the owner/boss had a huge anger problem. There were a couple times I feared for my safety. He would fly into a rage over any small problem and if a bigger problem would arise, we would fight over who would tell him. I would be called on my cell phone by him at night just to hear him scream at me over something I didn't even do and had no idea what he was saying.  I made very good money there, and it was always held over the heads of employees.  i still have nightmares and anxiety attacks from it.