When Bullying Leaves the Workplace ... or the school ... or whatever

As I've said in other posts, I've learned a lot about workplace bullying aka abuse both during my walk through the phenomena  in the workplace and since my working life abruptly ended through talking to others, through reading, and through on-line searches.

One thing I had read in my research early on while the abuse was ongoing was that there is a certain type of personality that will not stop their assault on the person they've chosen to target even when they've already won and it's in their best interest to stop.

That is what today's post is about.

Laying a bit of groundwork, hubby shared with me a program online detailing a school in Mentor, Ohio where there were four suicides in a relatively short period of time.  The most poignant part of the program comes from a sister ofone of the victims who told the interviewer how the girls who had bullied her sister to the point of suicide came to the funeral home and laughed at her sister as she lay in her casket causing tremendous emotional stress to her already grieving and devastated family.

It wasn't enough for these girls to win.  It apparently wasn't even enough that their target had committed suicide.  They still felt compelled to bully her dead body and by doing that, her family.

At the point at which I watched the video with hubby, I was struggling through the aftermath of my working life.  Dealing with a multitude of unexpected physical after effects which had completely changed my life as I knew it.

I was struggling with what happens when winning isn't enough for the bullies.  Where they are not content to stay in the workplace ... or in the case of this young lady in Mentor, Ohio in the school.

To read an article about this tragedy, press on the link above.

*****

Along those same lines, I read an article in a Toronto newspaper decades ago where another high school student was being so badly bullied at her school that her parents actually moved to another area in what turned out to be a futile effort to get her away from this situation.  Unfortunately, those who were bullying her were unwilling to let go of her.  They apparently followed her to her new residence in the new neighbourhood.  I do not remember all the details, the specifics.  I do not remember if they threw eggs at the house, toilet papered the trees or made cat calls.  However, the fact that I remember the gist of the article tells me how much it impacted me.

These bullies were unwilling to let winning be enough.  They again left the school, left the neighbourhood to continue the harassment.

What would have made them happy?  Her death by suicide?

My guess is that nothing really makes these people happy.  Even winning.  They're just not happy by nature, I think.

*****

I couldn't understand it then.

I understand it now.

Because this is what happened to me.

*****

I mentioned at the end of my last post that more was not only to come but was already in progress.  I just didn't know about it yet.

I also mentioned that my supervisor had tried to phone me at home and hubby had refused to allow me to answer it.

In the brutal emotional aftermath of the confrontation with the trainee in the office,  I was more fragile than I've been in years.  Suicidal.  Barely hanging on.  I couldn't believe that the situation in the workplace had come to this.  I still couldn't comprehend the nature of the people I was dealing with or the lengths to which they would go to "win".  I needed help badly.

And I was very naive.

On my Facebook page I wrote the status:  "Bullies 100; Suzanne 0.  Off work again."

Brief and to the point.

I wanted my Facebook friends to know what I was going through and support me and pray for me.  I needed their support.  Their prayers.  Their compassion.  I needed to know that people still loved me and cared about me and valued me.

The problem is, one of the co-workers in my office, never identified, looked up my Facebook page.  Someone or someones, again never identified, then went to the supervisor and claimed that I had violated ethics issues by that brief status even though there was never any mention of names or my workplace anywhere in my Facebook profile.  Any those involved would know who they were.  The rest didn't really care about them, they cared about me.

That is what the Friday evening phone call from the work place had been about.  The one my husband had refused to allow me to answer.  For which I am eternally grateful as the outcome may well have been different if I had answered it, heard the accusation and then become trapped in a long conversation which I could never win.  I didn't need much to push me over the edge at that point.  I was that close to the edge.

Failing to reach me by phone, my supervisor resorted to email demanding that I delete my Facebook postings.  I had no clue what she was talking about so I asked.  In response, she showed me screen shots of the offending posts.

I felt violated.

I could not understand the mentality of people who would deliberately search me out on Facebook and then read into my status what they wanted it to be.

*****

Facebook is a public forum - unless the individual takes steps to make it private; therefore, what they did was not invasion of privacy.  I knew that.  Yet, I still felt violated.  Exposed.

I learned how to privatize my settings very quickly.

After I privatized my Facebook page, my supervisor commented on that.  It seemed like she was angry that I had closed off her (and their) spyhole into my world.

Apparently, I had become the office soap opera.  

Since I had removed myself from them by having a second stress related breakdown, beocming suicidal and taking time off work, they still found a way to keep things going.

A way to continue bullying outside of the workplace.

Workplace Abuse: Types of Workplace Bullying - one type is the serial bully

Even when I was still in the workplace, I had become aware of what was happening.  Because of the dynamics which existed among the co-workers, management, HR and even the union, I was powerless to prevent or stop it.  But I was aware.

Very aware.

It was an odd situation, at least to me, as the more I learned about what was happening, the more the research lined up with what I was experiencing, the less I was heard.  The more I was victimized.

I believe that I've mentioned the phenomena called "mobbing" before.  We often think of mobbing in terms of an actual mob storming a physical place.  Like the mob that overtook the American embassy in Tehran back in 1979 and took embassy personnel hostage.  Or mobs attacking a person out on the street leaving grievous damage.

We don't often think of mobbing as occurring in an office situation.  But that's exactly what happens when the one bully becomes two then three and keeps growing from there.  It wasn't until I looked at the signatures on the petition disguised as a complaint that I realized the full extent of what I was up against.

Every co-worker in our small office on all three shifts had signed - except one brave soul.

How did all these people get involved?  What did these people, one of whom only saw me once or twice a week because he never arrived in time to take over his shift before I left, have against me?  Why - or rather how - did they get involved?

In one word:  gossip.  In another word:  backbiting.  In two words:  character assassination.  Need I go one?

Although those in power in the office would scoff at that last line claiming it was my "perception" and "assumption", logically there is no other way that this could have spread to so many people.  Most of whom weren't physically present when I was working.

You've heard the phrase:  "what happens in the ________ stays in the ________."  Well, that wasn't so in our office.  What happened in the office, in our shift, among the three or four or sometimes even two of us who were working at the time, didn't stay with us.  It spread.  Rapidly.  Viciously.  Like a virus.  Somehow everyone knew what Suzanne had done this time.

No one ever had the decency to come to me and tell me what they'd heard and if it was true.

No one.

They all took what was said at face value.

And that is why I believe there was one person at the tip.  One person who might - or might not - have been a sociopath or psychopath.  But one person who was charismatic enough, powerful enough, convincing enough to sway otherwise intelligent people into following her.

At this point, as I'm letting my fingers do the talking on this post, I have two roads to follow today.  One:  the road I started with re: mobbing.  The other: continuing yesterday's road re: sociopathy or psychopathy in the office.

For the moment, I'll choose to follow the mobbing thread because I think it's important.

In my initial research at the beginning of this journey called workplace bullying aka pyschological harrassment, I learned that there were several forms of bullying in the workplace.  Below is a list I've copied and pasted from Wikipedia which cites Tim Fields as the source of the information. 

• Serial bullying — the source of all dysfunction can be traced to one individual, who picks on one employee after another and destroys them, then moves on. Probably the most common type of bullying.
• Secondary bullying — the pressure of having to deal with a serial bully causes the general behaviour to decline and sink to the lowest level.
• Pair bullying — this takes place with two people, one active and verbal, the other often watching and listening.
• Gang bullying or group bullying — is a serial bully with colleagues. Gangs can occur anywhere, but flourish in corporate bullying climates. It is often called mobbing and usually involves scapegoating and victimisation.
• Vicarious bullying — two parties are encouraged to fight. This is the typical "triangulation" where the aggression gets passed around.
• Regulation bullying — where a serial bully forces their target to comply with rules, regulations, procedures or laws regardless of their appropriateness, applicability or necessity.
• Residual bullying — after the serial bully has left or been fired, the behavior continues. It can go on for years.
• Legal bullying — the bringing of a vexatious legal action to control and punish a person. It is one of the nastiest forms of bullying.
• Pressure bullying or unwitting bullying — having to work to unrealistic time scales and/or inadequate resources.
• Corporate bullying — where an employer abuses an employee with impunity, knowing the law is weak and the job market is soft.
• Organizational bullying — a combination of pressure bullying and corporate bullying. Occurs when an organization struggles to adapt to changing markets, reduced income, cuts in budgets, imposed expectations and other extreme pressures.
• Institutional bullying — entrenched and is accepted as part of the culture.
• Client bullying — an employee is bullied by those they serve, for instance subway attendants or public servants.
• Cyber bullying — the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others.

The four I've always felt applied to my situation were #s 1, 3, 4 and 5: serial, pair, gang and vicarious.

My situation involved, at least initially, two people.  Two separate people who initially didn't have a relationship with each other.  One was a person who didn't even work in our office.  In fact, she wasn't supposed to be on our shift, but somehow she convinced those in management, HR and the union that she didn't need to work day shift with the other office workers, that she could do her job quite well on another shift, and was allowed to design her hours to suit her life.  Initially, she and I had a good relationship until one day ... I said something that I shouldn't have.  Something that hurt her.  Something she never let go of or forgive me for.  It was in jest.  I meant no harm.  They were having trouble finding a replacement for someone who had left who worked in conjunction with this woman.  She had gone through several replacements.  One day, I unthinkingly said something to the effect that this one couldn't get along with you either.  Oops!  A big oops!  I think perhaps I was closer to the truth than I knew.  

This woman had told me once that she didn't get angry, she got even.  I thought that was just one of those cute little sayings.  It wasn't.  She really did live that way.  She got even.  Even if it took her years to do so, she got even.

She had in a way "warned" me of that when we were still friends as she told me about a co-worker whose job intersected with hers that she didn't like.  She didn't say anything.  She simply kept a record of all the mistakes this person made.  Photocopied then.  And then when she had enough, she placed them in an envelope and put the envelope on her supervisor's desk.  The result:  the person no longer worked there.

At the time, I didn't spot the warning signals.  I didn't see this part of her.  In fact, when she would ask why someone would take her to HR claiming that she made this person feel small and belittled, I would stand by this woman.  I.  Did.  Not.  See.  That.  Side.  Of.  Her.

It was only after I made that one unfortunate remark that that side of her became visible.  Not all at once.  But gradually.  Very gradually.  Over time.

I believed then during my subsequent experiences in the workplace and still believe now, that this woman was initially a serial bully.  She picked on one person, got that person out and then picked on someone else, until they left.

*******

Enough for now.  Today's post in long enough.  I don't want to write a book.  At least not in a blog posting.  So I will stop for now.  For today.

In the end, besides involving the entire office on all three shifts, there were five main people involved.  Each one different.

Perhaps it's time to start unravelling the knot, separate each strand i.e. person or dynamic, and identify it.

Until tomorrow ....

Surviving Workplace Bullying: Being thankful for what I do have

How I wish sometimes I could be like that little speck of an airplane up there in the sky and not feeling oh so mired to the sticky clay here on earth beneath my feet, trying to suck me down.

Writing this blog is ... interesting ... to say the least.

I start in one direction and then another comes up unexpectedly.

For example, when I wrote the story of how I was coerced to resign that day in the donut shop, I fully intended to move on to significant issues contained both within the document purported to be a legitimate complaint as well as thoughts regarding legislation in Ontario and how it should have been applied along with workplace policies and how they were ignored.  I haven't gotten there ... yet.

I've suffered a severe emotional backlash just from writing that posting.  I've felt weak and shaky.  Depressed.  I've felt like a huge weight is pressing down on my chest.  Something the doctors have concluded is probably from the extreme stress and anxiety I experienced in the workplace.

I didn't expect writing that post, reliving that memory to take that toll on me.  I thought I was past that.  That I had dealt with the issues and put them to bed.  Now I wonder:  does it ever completely go away?

I've lost interest in things again.  I curled up in bed and read - which helped short-term.  But that book is now finished, and I was too down to select another one at the library.

Everything has become an effort - again.  I have no interest in things - even knitting.  I did accidentally discover what I call "photo therapy" when I was going through an old photo file on my laptop to cull out photos to get more disc space on my laptop as it's pretty full.

As I looked at those photos, taken in Scotland in 2009, they brought back good memories.  They brought me back to that time, that place.  They soothed my soul.  And I felt somewhat better.  Not whole, not alive.  But better.

There is still hope.

I know more about these affects, lots more, than I did when these things were happening.  Therefore, I have coping mechanisms in place.  I know too that I'm not alone.  People have risen up from unexpected places to reach out to me not just along the journey but in the last few days.  

I have more "feet" than I knew I had.

To explain what I mean by "feet", I have been reading a book called The Holy Wild, by Mark Buchanan, a keynote speaker at the writers conference I went to last June.

In his book, he recounted an incident where he was in a third-world country, tired after his long journey, hot, dusty, irritable.  He was in a lively church service where people were praising the Lord.  He wasn't.  He just wanted a hot shower and a bed.  His heart wasn't into being thankful in that moment.  The pastor asked if anyone had something to be thankful for and a woman danced up to the front with the others encouraging her on.  She told how she had been praying for shoes for three months and God had given her shoes.  She lifted up her long skirt and held out her feet to show the others the shoes she was so thankful for.  Mark describes how they were just ordinary shoes.  He had lots of shoes in his closet back home.  And then it struck him, how unthankful he was for the things he had.

His prose struck me too.  What can I be thankful for in my situation?  I have shoes - lots of them.  I thought a bit and then realized that I could be thankful for my "feet".  First, I was thinking literally.  I have feet.  I can walk.  Because I have "feet", I can do lots of things.  

Then I began to think of my feet in the figurative sense.  While I haven't had is a lot in the way of support, I have had a small, patchwork support system - which works.  It may not be able to supply every need I have - like when I was down for the count after my mother died and unable to do much of anything and I needed intensive support.  But I did have this small, incredible support system which continued to do what they could, when they could.

To not be thankful for them is to be ungrateful.

I realized that these people were my "feet".  In the last few days since writing and publishing Monday's blog posting, I've realized that I have more "feet" than I thought I had.  Individuals from different areas of the world have reached out to me in one way or another, some by texting, some by phone calls, some by messaging or emails.  Each one different.  Each one with something slightly different to offer.  Most of them suffering in one way or another - not from workplace abuse but from autoimmune diseases which sap them of their strength and their identity, just like workplace abuse has sapped me.

These are my "feet" for which I am very thankful today.

So today, I deflect from the heavy work of writing about workplace abuse, mobbing, etc. and I take a moment out to reflect on what I do have.  To be thankful for those who reach out to me when I'm down.  Who continue to encourage me on the path I've taken.  Who think I'm brave because I write about this.  To the one who says I'm her hero, because of the path I've taken in attempting to be visible and to regain the voice that was stolen from me in the workplace.

The other night I took time out also to be thankful for being able to see the super moon.  To see it bathe my room in moonlight as bright as though there was a light on.

Until tomorrow ....

Surviving Workplace Bullying: Mobbing

It's hard to choose a picture when you're feeling as wrecked emotionally as I've been the last few days so I chose a very recent victory photo.  One in which I'm wearing a bright yellow shirt (which ironically matches the flowers in bloom) and not only appear to be happy but am very happy.  I call it photo therapy - and it works.  At least for me.  It brings me to a happier place, a place of peace.

It took three days of hard work to finally write down for the first time what happened that awful day at the doughnut shop.  Putting the story into writing left me feeling down and depressed.  Things bothered me that usually don't.  I knew I was on the edge.  So why did I keep going?  Why didn't I just say "Forget it" and write about something else?

Because to me it is important to finally tell my story publicly.  To come out of the shadows.  To stop living in fear.  Like the rest of us who have been through workplace bullying.  I had been reduced to being voiceless, faceless, helpless and hopeless.  Like the rest of those who have been through workplace bullying, I had been made to feel that I, Suzanne Guest, was not only worthless and worth less, but that I was the cause of all the problems in the workplace.  I was the bad guy.  I was the bully.  This was the perception and assumption HR, management and the union representative were all working on.

*******

Writing yesterday's blog has left me totally wrecked.  It has brought up many emotions - most of which I thought had been dealt with long ago.  Things I had thought were buried.

After writing yesterday's post and feeling so wrecked emotionally, I am left to wonder if the hurt ever completely goes away.

The injustice of it all?

To be forced to resign?  In a donut shop?  With only the union representative present?  On sick leave?
Many questions persist:  Where was HR?  Is it even legal to do this kind of legally binding business, terminating an employee, outside of the office without HR present?  What about the workplace policies?  Accepted operating procedures, not just internally within each individual corporation, but accepted globally?

I have reams of paper printouts of the company policies, the binding union agreement and things I've printed off the internet about various aspects of the bullying process.

Each piece of paper is proof to me of how wronged I was.

Yet, that's all it is is paper.  Meaningless pieces of paper.  Worthless.  Unless someone decides to listen and take action.

Workplace bullying works on a very simple, tried and true principle:  united we stand; divided we fall.

The bullies in the workplace became a cohesive, powerful group.

It's a very effective form of bullying called mobbing.

By the end of the story, it becomes the entire office against one person.  One fairly insignificant person.  In my case, I was a person who, although extremely good at me job, was at a low level on the hierarchy of things.  I had an entry level position.  I had no ambition to go above that position.  I was happy where I was, that is until bad things started to happen.  I was good at what I did - that is until the stress started to wreck havoc on me and I started making mistakes.  I had a good rapport with everyone - at least initially.  Even at the end, I had a good rapport with everyone outside of my immediate work area.  I treated people with respect.  I had a smile - even at the worst of it, I still had a smile - and it was genuine.

I was mobbed.

According to Prof. Kenneth Westhues, professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo,

Mobbing can be understood as the stressor to beat all stressors. It is an impassioned, collective campaign by co-workers to exclude, punish, and humiliate a targeted worker. Initiated most often by a person in a position of power or influence, mobbing is a desperate urge to crush and eliminate the target. The urge travels through the workplace like a virus, infecting one person after another. The target comes to be viewed as absolutely abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities, outside the circle of acceptance and respectability, deserving only of contempt. As the campaign proceeds, a steadily larger range of hostile ploys and communications comes to be seen as legitimate.

Detailing the example of a woman employed in a factory setting who was mobbed by her fellow employees for approximately 10 years, became clinically depressed and later suffered a heart attack due to the extreme stress she experienced in her workplace, Westhues writes:

The case illustrates the escalation that is essential to workplace mobbing. Each higher level of authority, in both company and union, to which this woman and her husband appealed, was faced with overturning the will of a successively larger group of subordinates. Steadily more and higher-level employees over time voiced the common sentiment: this woman is impossible to work with, she has to go.

This article, based on the research of Heinz Leymann, a Swedish psychologist, is one of the best, scholarly articles I've read so far.  It goes on to cover a lot of territory regarding the dynamics of the form of bullying called mobbing including examples and such issues as:  why doesn't the target leave?  who is vulnerable?  in what conditions are workers the most vulnerable?  the least vulnerable?  It is a good read for those who want a better understanding of what is happening to them or their loved ones if they are being mobbed.  

Basically, this article reinforces my already existing opinion of what happened to me in the workplace.

I was mobbed.

The prevailing opinion at all levels became:  "This woman is impossible to work with, she has to go."

So that is what they did.

End of story.

*******

This may be the end of their story, i.e. the bullies in the workplace, but it is not the end of mine.  I am still alive.  I am a survivor.  I am also a writer....

It's time to go now for today.

I end today's post with a shot of last night's super moon above our house.  

Until tomorrow ....