Topic : Workplace Bullies

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that men promote and protect each other.  They will also promote and protect select women, in my experience, those who flatter them, but if push comes to shove, they will stand together and crowd out most any woman if it serves their purpose.  I've heard of many cases of workplace bullying, and I know there must be exceptions, but I've always heard about ones where it was women being bullied, which runs consistent with general criminal/victim percentages, which are almost all women victims.  Of course, it's not only men who do the bullying, as in my case below, where it was a group effort.  But you know, that lone woman couldn't have brought me down without the support of the good ol boy network at my company. 

Here is a link to a website that deals with workplace bullying.  You will be amazed at their psychological profiles of the different types of bullies, as they are truly predictable, as we're starting to learn in all criminal profiling.  They're painfully predictable, the different types  My bully fit right into one of their descriptions, to a T.  The website is a little hard to find your way around in, but it's worth the effort.  Once you see a description of your workplace bully psycho on there, at least you will know YOU'RE not the one who's crazy.   

http://www.bullyonline.org/ 

That is a very good website... I found it very useful!  Thank you!

I'm going to share with you a letter that I wrote complaining about a bully.  I'm changing all the names.  Now, this was a big company with proper rules in place to deal with this sort of thing, but it all depends on who you have to report to.  The person I wrote the letter to was then my supervisor, and I can tell you he was not happy I wrote it and didn't follow up to tell me what, if anything, would be done.  Me and my partner, who is the one I call Andy, tape-recorded the meeting with him, also.  You should know that one thing that made me so mad about this Rainman incident was that my partner Andy actually was sort of slow, so there wasn't one thing funny about the bully's comments.  While my supervisor did as little as possible and no changes were made, he soon left the company and as fate would have it, the bully's supervisor became my boss.  I believe it was at that time that something was done about it, but I was never sure why, if he just then saw the complaint or if he met me and knew I wasn't a wingnut.  At any rate, they kept the Bully away from me entirely for a full year and I believe they probably sent him to anger management, because he never hardly spoke with me again, which was fine with me.  They didn't, however, fire him, which is stupid.  Anyway, the letter is self explanatory. 

  

Dear Supervisor, 

  

 

          I have a serious problem with Technician "Napoleon Complex" which I think you should know about since it undoubtedly either has affected other first-line staff or will affect them in the future. 

          I remember that during our training, you told us that basically the technicians were not under your control and to be nice to them.  That is why I haven’t spoken up until now about this problem, but I feel must say something now because I don’t think anyone should be expected to put up with this sort of behavior.  I can’t imagine why a respectable institution such as Bank Delux has tolerated his behavior this long. 

          To sum it up, Napoleon has an anger-management problem.  He frequently gets very angry and yells loudly at myself and my partner Andy.  During his yelling episodes, he gets up in your face, makes very insulting comments in a nonhumorous tone, slams things around,  goes on prolonged personal philosophical tirades about “harnassing the power,” and sometimes outright lies.  If you don’t bow down right away and hang your head in submission, his tirade escalates.  After the first couple of episodes of this behavior, I made some discreet inquiries and found out that Napoleon has a reputation for his anger and was told that his anger has turned to violence in the past.  His bad temper is common knowledge. 

A few weeks ago, Napoleon was showing us how to do something, and as he lectured while we stood quietly listening, his anger escalated until he was yelling and waving his arms around and finally said in a very nasty tone, “I guess I’m going to have to get a chalk board and draw you two a picture.”  We were fairly new at that point and admittedly didn’t  know everything.  However, I remember his nasty insult coming out of the blue, unprovoked by any physical or verbal action on our part.  It was just the comment that ended his tirade, and I felt that we had very little to do with it at all.   

Napoleon routinely yells that he has shown us a certain procedure before.  Sometimes he has, and sometimes he hasn’t at all.  I will say that when Napoleon is “explaining” procedures while yelling and displaying his anger and hurling insults, it is very difficult to concentrate on what he’s saying because his behavior is so overwhelming and out of context compared to the subject matter. 

April 5, we arrived at #111 on a printer default.  Upon arrival, I noticed that one of the printer covers was lying loose in the machine, as well as two of the four screws from the printer head cover.  We worked on clearing the jam and got it to run a few receipts, but it broke again, at which time we disassembled it, put it back together and tried it again; but it still jammed.  We cleared the jams again, put the printer mask back on as a last-ditch effort, knowing it would probably not stay, and then I went inside the branch to answer a page.  When I returned, Andy had tried to run the printer and it was again jammed up and Napoleon had arrived to work on another machine inside the branch.   

I told him about the printer cover and screws being off.  He told us we knocked it off and that’s why the machine was jamming.  I told him that wasn’t true, that it was off when we arrived (and of course, the machine was already jamming before we were paged out on it, so it was a ridiculous accusation anyway).  Napoleon went on an at least 30-minute tirade about us not knowing how to clear a printer jam.  He went through the steps again, yelling the entire time.  He forbade me to agree with him as he was yelling by saying “uh-huh,” “okay,” or “right,” which I was only doing to let him know I was listening, like anyone would do, and also in hopes that knowing I was listening would calm him down.  He made a lot of personally insulting remarks about my saying “okay” and “right,” such as “See, your partner here is standing there nodding her head and saying yeah, okay, but she’s obviously not listening because I’ve shown you both how to do this a million times.”  Then, still yelling, he launched into what can only be called a strange philosophical tirade about harnassing power, which seemed basically to serve to illustrate that he had harnassed it and we hadn’t.  As I say, this episode went on for quite some time.  At some point during his loud critique of our abilities, he referred to us as “Rainman,”  the idiot savant from the movie “Rainman.”  It was not done in a joking tone.  It was in the context of  “y’all stand there like Rainman…” 

During this incident, I simply stood quietly and agreed with him when possible and until I was told to quit and had offered the information about the printer cover and screws.  When he said we had broken the printer by knocking off the printer cover, I did tell him that was not true.  Andy was very quiet. 

During Napoleon's “demonstration,” he did not do anything to the printer that we hadn’t done prior to his arrival, although there’s no contest that he did it better and faster.  Afterwards, I phoned to put us in travel for our next call.  Napoleon told us to stay there and help him work on the machine inside.  About 30 minutes later, while we were working on it, 111’s printer jammed again and Napoleon's Toadie [a different tech who sucked up to Napoleon] arrived to work on it.  Napoleon told Toadie that I had gone and knocked the printer cover off after me twice telling him it was like that upon arrival.  It was about 1700 when I left 111.  A little after 1800, 111 was paged out again on the same printer fault.  It had jammed again.  Toadie said he didn’t know what was wrong with it, that he needed to replace the printer.  We were yelled at and insulted by Napoleon for 30 minutes about not fixing a printer that neither of the techs were able to fix either. 

In addition to these incidents with me (and other less dramatic but still uncalled-for behavior), I have twice seen Napoleon be confrontational with bank customers wanting inside the branch after hours, telling them in pointed or curt tones that the bank was closed when no face-to-face interaction was necessary.  

I know Bank Delux needs technicians and that they certainly need an experienced tech a lot worse than they need me, but I can’t help but think that they would have better luck hanging onto its first-line people if they weren’t asked to submit and tolerate Napoleon’s reprehensible conduct.  In my 30 years of work experience, I have never worked anywhere that condoned this sort of behavior.  I have witnessed an isolated outburst or two in my years (everyone has a bad day every now and then), but never have I seen any company ask employees to tolerate verbal abuse on an ongoing basis.   

I was hoping that someone else would speak up about this before I felt I had to so that I wouldn’t be perceived as a complainer, but this situation is so extreme that I don’t feel I should try to wait it out.  I am simply unwilling to quietly subject myself to another day of bullying.    

I have provided extra copies of this letter for you to distribute to Napoleon’s supervisor and other appropriate personnel.  Please advise me of what actions you will take or any further action you need for me to take to resolve this matter.  Don’t ask me to confront Napoleon on these issues outside the presence of you or some other supervisor because he is too out of control.  Sorry to trouble you with this unpleasant business. 

  

 

  

It's hard to accept that people sometimes will victimize you even when you've done nothing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it happens.  Your story reminded me of one I just saw on Montel this week where a similar situation ended by the boss' wife luring her to be at work alone on a Saturday and then both of them came up there and the wife almost killed her with a baseball bat, and the man helped.  She could only gather from the wife's ranting that he had given her some reason to believe the victim was trying to be involved with him, which wasn't at all true.  Probably some sick game they played together.  They got life because someone saw it through a window.  This poor girl was still just completely traumatized by the incident , and she was an innocent type of person who just had no idea there was that kind of evil in the world and couldn't make sense of why it happened.  I was just hoping that someone got her help and they sat her down and explained to her what a sociopath is, because otherwise, you start thinking that ALL people are capable of such a thing.

Thank you for that website.  I got to browse it briefly, and found it to be very informative and it provided good links and book suggestions as well.   

I was  bullied badly at work several years back.  I have always been a hard worker and received excellent reviews.  Then there was a change in supervisors.  All of a sudden I was receiving poor performance reviews and being accused of things I didn't do. I felt like I was in the twilight zone.  The person she was writing those reviews about sounded like a complete stranger to me, yet the reviews were about me!! It was a terrible year...the boss encouraged my assistants to report things to her and I had one twisted assistant who made up stories that she automatically believed. It was the most horrible year of my life.My self-esteem was shattered and I felt physically ill going to work.   Do you think this was an office environment?  No, it was a school.  Principals can be the most abusive supervisors of all!! 

Needless to say, when I changed jobs, I once again was receving EXCELLENT reviews that coincidentallly sounded very similar to those that I received prior to working for this witch. It was a long road back in recouping my battered self-esteem.  

oh how nice to know I'm not alone and I wasn't going crazy! 

I started as a temp in a one person office - after only 2 months, my boss asked if I would like to be hired on permanent. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The two of us seemed to hit it off great...so great, she would often spend two or three hours in the morning talking to me about everyone and everything...the things she told me about her daughter, I would be embarassed to even think about concerning my daughter! I often asked her how I was doing, and she would always say great, fabulous, no need to change anything, keep up the good work. But I saw how she treated other people, so friendly and supportive to their face but behind their back she would say awful things. I knew I was not immune to this treatment. I felt like I was going crazy, and my mind couldn't take the uncertainty any more. My boss told me that I do this to myself. I took a week off for "sick time" and used that to try and tell myself my boss was right, I do it to myself, hang in there, straighten out my thinking and everything would be all right. After 2 1/2 years, I finally got a performance review (from the board of directors who tried to tell me my boss had little input, yet my boss was the only one who would know how I work, the board didn't work in the office) and was apalled! My lieu time and sick days were taken away, as well as other changes to "policy". Hmm, if they only knew the things my boss did! 

Things got worse. Finally, as Dr. Phil says in "self matters", I woke up up to something, called BS on it and was stunned that I had been suckered for so long! Finding notes my boss and the vice president of the board of directors were writing literally five feet behind my back was the last straw. One of the notes said "what is she working on" - my point proven, there's no communication to my face, but lots behind my back! I called my boss on it, then marched over and called the vice president on it. I was "laid off" two days later! I was very relieved to be out of there. However, I had the opportunity to listen in on the next board meeting, and was horrified at the nasty, horrible untrue things my boss was saying! She sure knew how to make herself look like the poor boss who had to endure such crap from an employee. If they only knew!!!!!! 

The next year (2005) was the worse year I ever had. I wanted revenge and was angry, resentful, depressed, menopausal,  going through a mid-life crisis with a bout of empty nest syndrome! I've made some big changes in my life, am working through "self matters" and now I'm reading all this, and thank-you so much everyone for writing, it's helping me to feel better, knowing there really are bullies in the workplace and it's not just my own craziness that did this to me.  That website, bullies online is very good too. thanks everyone for sharing. 

No, you are definitely NOT alone and NOT going crazy.  There are plently of gaslighting bosses around. What I am referring to is one of my favorite movies "Gaslight"  where a husband does things to make his wife think she is going crazy. That is what my boss tried to do...make me doubt myself, make me think that parents aren't happy-that one backfired because the two she was trying to let on that they were unhappy both told me that they liked what I was doing for their children.  I did lessons almost identical to the ones I did in previous years that got excellent ratings, and she would find ridiculous faults with them.  All this happened many years ago, but I saved all my documentation (which is a good idea for anyone to do who is going through this) because you never know if you may need it someday.  When I left, I gave quite a letter to the superintendent, in which I cited incidents taken directly from my documentation.  While it didn't affect my principal's job status, it was very embarrassing for her.   She retaliated by blackballing me, I wrote to the superintendent and told him he needs to get her to stop or else they would both face legal action. She left me alone after that. 

The WORST thing of all is what it did to my self-esteem.  For a while I almost believed everything she tried to "Gaslight" me into believing about myself.  But I got a new job very quickly and was once again appreciated and treated well.  My self-esteem began to recover at that point and i began to see that SHE was the crazy one!!! 

If you need to vent more than write again and I'll respond!! 

I know just what you went through.  I went through intense anger for 10 years about it.  What really gets you is that you can't do anything about it.  You like to think justice will win out, but in the workplace, it doesn't.  I had given everything of myself for my career, which was my dream that I had worked so hard to accomplish, and to have it all unraveled by one lying sophomoric girl and two stupid inflated-ego men was just too much for me.  I actually was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress syndrome, and it lasted 10 years. During that time, I isolated myself and couldn't have anything to do with anyone connected to my career, and worst of all, I couldn't bear to listen to my favorite music.  I snapped out of it finally when I read my journals I'd kept for years.  It took that to remind me who I am and how far I came.  But it has had a lasting effect on me just knowing that at any time, one liar can take your life away from you and there's nothing you can do about it.

I knew I had heard of that situation before...gaslight...that's it! I thought of that so often while I was working there...before my boss went away on vacation, she bought 10 binders with dividers and told me they were to do up reference binders for the Board of Directors. She even told me the topics she wanted listed on the dividers and I wrote them down. I set them up while she was on vacation, but when she came back and I told her they were done, she said that's not what the binders were for! I asked her what they were for, and she just said "never mind, don't worry about it".  Another time we spent quite a bit of time looking for a file. It was one of my feeling crazy moments wondering where I had put it....turned out she had mislabeled it...I had filed it properly according to the way she labelled it. Wow, I'm glad I'm outta there.