Workplace Abuse aka Bullying: Cracks in the infrastructure

How did this experience of workplace bullying which impacted me so badly leaving serious injury in its wake start?

There are no clearcut, decisive answers.  

However, looking back on the situation, I wonder if it had to do with the "infrastructure" of the workplace, a term usually used to denote the basic physical and organizational structure needed for the operation of a societyor enterprise ,^[1] or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function (Wikipedia) but used here to denote the management style and company culture exiting within that particular workplace.  

Several months after I signed that document and resigned from the workplace while I was still very much in turmoil from the emotional fall out of what had happened to me, still trying to get a grasp on understanding the dynamics involved, I got up the courage to speak to a friend of mine who used to be a manager in a totally different industry.  As we spoke, all the examples he could give me were completely work related.  They had nothing to do with what had happened to me in my workplace.  They had nothing to do with the "I don't like you so I'm not going to work with you" mentality that I had experienced.  In fact, at what point he said that he had never experienced anything from a managerial point of view like I had experienced from a worker's point of view in my workplace.  Finally, he said that from where he was sitting, the "infrastructure" was broken and probably could not be fixed.

Ironically, less than two weeks after that conversation, the head company announced that it would be completely closing our facility and building new - outside of our immediate area.  Meaning that while people could apply for positions in the new plant, the company was under no compulsion to re-hire them.

Also, it was separating the plant/processing function from the warehouse/distribution function by building a new third-party warehouse operated by a separate company.  Which again meant, that current employees could apply, but there was no certainty that they would be hired on.

*******

I wonder if the infrastructure within the company was already cracked by the time I walked in just three weeks after I'd been walked out of the workplace abuse experience #1.  Freshly and wounded, I was very vulnerable very probably resembling a deer caught in the headlights.  A perfect target.

The workplace I walked into was a company on the verge of major changes.  It had begun as a small family-owned local business and had grown over the years - similar to the company I'd worked in prior.  It was an institution in our community - as was my former workplace.  Always there.  Like NCR was in the Dayton, Ohio area where I grew up, it was a major employer.  Unlike NCR in my former home town which long ago pulled its manufacturing process out of the Dayton area and tore down all the buildings, both companies were still there.  Still producing.  Still employing people.

When I walked in, it was said to be hard for a person to get employment in that company unless they had an "in", a relative who worked there.  I had no "in".  I simply saw the ad on Workopolis for a temporary position in the office as a mat leave, filed my resume and cover letter on-line - and the rest was more or less history.

The company was rumoured to be a good employer in the area.  And it was in many ways:  benefits, perks, an employee market for the goods we produced.  There was also a sense of camaraderie as many of the employees had worked together there for years.  There was a sense of family in a way.

It was a large compound as well including a laundry facility for those who worked in the plant and had to wear uniforms, a boot room for those whose jobs necessitated the wearing of certain footwear like steel-toed boots, a sewing room to repair the uniforms, etc. and even a nurse's office and a doctor on the company payroll.  As well, the company had plumbers, millwrights, electricians etc. on staff to take care of any problems that cropped up on the production line.  You could say it was a community in and of itself.

And it had a union.  Actually two unions:  one for the plant employees and one for the office employees.  I was in the latter.

Being fresh, very fresh, from the bruising, brutal experience in my former workplace, I felt like I was Dorothy who had just landed in the Land of Oz.  I felt that what happened to me in the smaller, previous workplace could not happen to me in this larger one.  I felt that the union would protect me from the sort of behaviour I had experienced in the former workplace.  And it might have - had this experience been top down, i.e. starting with management, as the previous one was.  But it wasn't.  

This experience started with my co-workers, my peers.  It was a grassroots sort of movement which started at the bottom levels i.e. the grassroots and travelled upwards to HR, management and even the union.

It was not the union pitted against an unfair employer - which is what I perceive the union's role to be, but it became one faction of union members pitted against another union member who had been singled out and targeted for bullying.  Talk about conflict of interest.  I learned the hard way that even though the union president said that she was there for both sides, her leanings where definitely not with me.  There is no such thing as "neutrality" on something like this.  

On top of that, as good as I had perceived my employer to be, it did not have a separate bullying policy.  It only had a harassment policy which is based on Human Rights issues such as race, religion, ethnicity, etc.  

As I mentioned earlier, the company was about to experience a major transition.  What was once a family-owned business had already been swallowed up by a larger fish from the U.S. a few years before.  Now, it was in the process of transition of being taken over by an even larger fish:  a multi-million dollar Canadian conglomerate.  A leader, a mover and shaker in the Canadian food industry.

One thing I noticed very early on in my tenure at that workplace was that I seemed to have walked into a place which had a lot of divergent, strong, personalities.  It reminded me a bit of what someone once said about walking barefoot in south Texas; you didn't want to do it because everywhere you went there was a thistle, a thorn or a burr.

This workplace reminded me of that statement in the personalities of the people.  This one didn't like that one.  There was friction here; friction there.  A lot of very strong personalities all within the same space along with people who were related in some way, shape or form to one another by blood or by marriage, like two sisters-in-law one in management and one in the office; a mother/daughter duo also one in management and one as part-time; a husband/wife duo - her in the office, him as a driver; mother/daughter's "significant other" in the same office doing the same job.  The list could go on.  

There were also major trust issues.   If people didn't like what you were doing, they didn't go to you and work things out, they ran to management.

Looking back, there were a lot of "fault" lines criss-crossing the entire department similar to the geological fault lines which exist within the earth and are capable of causing catastrophic earth quakes if the conditions are ripe.

Although we had the illusion of "team", were we really capable of working together as a whole?

I think the workplace held together as well as it did for as long as it did, because there were good, strong people in management positions at the time I started my employment there.  Also because all the components, i.e. workers and managers, were all together in the same building.  However, as the new company took over, it slowly changed the internal dynamics of the workplace as it shuffled people around to different positions and even in one major case, shuffled an entire department to another location, thus giving room in another building on the compound for all the higher managers to be moved to that building.

As older, more established employees changed positions within the company and employees from others area of the compound including the plant came into the office, the dynamics changed considerably over time.

Each new person who came into our division, added a whole new dynamic to the mix.

*******

And this is where I will end the blog for today - and for this week.

Until Monday ... have a good weekend.

"Storm Damage" Post Workplace Abuse

The damage that a storm, or any natural (or unnatural) event causes is instantaneous.  And visible.   Anyone can see it.  Depending on how violent or visible the event is, the  media pick it up and plaster pictures all over the print media, TV and the internet.

Our first reaction was exhilaration on experiencing the storm firsthand while driving through it and then later through seeing the damage firsthand.

On seeing our backyard for the first time after the storm, we were thankful that it was our neighbour's tree which had snapped and not ours.  We were secure in the knowledge that he would tend to it as soon as possible.  It was nothing more than an annoyance in our lives.  Nothing major.

We went out to survey the damage around the town which at first added further exhilaration.   Then as we saw more and more of the extent of the damage and began to perceive that restoring power was not going to be a quick fix, we began to comprehend the seriousness of the situation.  And the situation became just a little more major in our estimation - but still more on the annoyance level than anything else.  Still nothing really major.

We began to wonder:  just how long is this going to last?

Just how long are we going to be inconvenienced by this?

Just what measures should we take to live through this happening?

We got out the flashlights.  Note to self:  make sure that all flashlights are in an easy to locate location.  Another note to self:  make sure they are all working and that more batteries are stocked and stored nearby in that central location to make location easy.

We got out the radios.  Note to self:  Make sure to stock batteries for radios in that central location.  Also, make sure to note where said battery powered and hand cranked radios are located.

One of our immediate needs, more immediate than a light source, was food.  Without power and not having a gas stove, what were we going to do?  How extensive was the damage?

Not knowing, we made do with crackers, cheese, sandwiches and potato chips - which was a good decision since the power didn't come on until the next morning.

Again, we may not have been aware of everything at that time as in how long it was going to last, when would power be restored, etc., but because it was something natural, something more or less obvious, the situation we were dealing with and the steps needed to deal with the situation were fairly obvious.  And really, for the most part, it was more of an annoyance, a blip on the screen of life.

With abusive situations, the victim finds themselves dealing with unseen damage.  All the damage is internal.  Hidden inside the body - and mind.

The situation is not obvious.  Even to the victim of the abuse.  Many times, the victim is not aware that they went through the emotional equivalent of a severe storm and battering to their mind and body.

There are no overt trees or power lines down.

However, inside where the person truly lives, they are living in a chaotic mess.

Verbal assaults have totally destroyed their self esteem.  Stress and overwork have done a number on their energy levels and with resultant chemical imbalances in their bodies.

First there is the acute phase which can be a stress breakdown with stress symptoms such as stuttering, impaired cognitive abilities, making mistakes both at work and outside of work.  These are just a few of the symptoms I experienced in one or both of the abusive work situations I lived through.  Similar to when the physical storm I've described in our region first hit.

Next, usually months later, comes the chronic phase in which physical symptoms such as (in my case) extreme fatigue, lack of balance, inability to think or talk, etc.  start to manifest themselves.  Even long-term illnesses can crop up during this time because of the high levels of stress the victim has endured and how these high levels of stress have impacted the victim's body's ability to cope with life's demands heal itself.

Because of the nature of the beast - the beast of workplace abuse, that is - survivors cannot just make out a list of needs to fill like we did with the physical assault of the storm.

When I was walked out the door of that company that day in March 2005 and the door closed firmly behind me, I unknowingly started the trek through a minefield of trauma and PTSD.  Things I never in a million years ever dreamed would invade my world.

Not only did they invade my world due to the abusive workplace situation and its equally brutal end, but they made themselves quite a home in my life.

Never even bothering to introduce themselves.

What many people, even myself, perceived at that time as nothing more than an annoyance, a blip on the screen of my life, was something much more destruction.  More lasting.  More detrimental.

This is the beginning of a series going through the initial wasteland of emotions, untreated and undiagnosed trauma and PTSD which lasted eighteen months.

A period where confusion and hopelessness reigned.

Non-physical Symptoms of Workplace Abuse - part two

Oh how I would love to stay at the Writer's Conference and savour the victory of just being there.  Of finding a way to make it happen.  A place where I was able to emerge from the shadows of emotional trauma like a caterpillar emerging from its chrysalis as a beautiful butterfly - at least for a little while.

But the "real" world intervenes and beckons.  The on-going world of recovery.

A week ago, I touched on how to identify you are being bullied by what it is doing to your body - and to your emotions.  Today, I am going to continue on in the same vein.

What does bullying do to my health:

Bullying causes injury to health and makes you ill.  How many of these symptoms do you have?

• constant high levels of stress and anxiety
• frequent illness such as viral infections especially flu andglandular fever, colds, coughs, chest, ear, nose and throat infections (stress plays havoc with your immune system)
• aches and pains in the joints and muscles with no obvious cause; also back pain with no obvious cause and which won't go away or respond to treatment.
• headaches and migraines
• tiredness, exhaustion, constant fatigue
• sleeplessness, nightmares, waking early, waking up more tired than when you went to bed
• flashbacks and replays, obsessiveness, can't get the bullying out of your mind
• irritable bowel syndrome
• skin problems such as eczema, psoriasis, athlete's foot, ulcers, shingles, uriticaria
• poor concentration, can't concentrate on anything for long
• bad or intermittently-functioning memory, forgetfulness, espeically with trivial day-to-day things
• sweating, trembling, shaking, palpitations, panic attacks.
• tearfulness, bursting into tears regularly and over trivial things
• uncharacteristic irritability and angry outbursts
• hypervigilance (feels like but is not paranoia), being constantly on edge
• hypersensitivity, fragility, isolation, withdrawal
• reactive depression, a feeling of woebegonenss, lethargy, hopelessness, anger, futility and more
• shattered self-confidence, low self-worth, low self-esteem, loss of self-love, etc. (www.bullyonline.org/workbully/amibeing.htm)

At one time or another during this sojourn covering both workplace abuse situations and the aftermath, I have encountered almost all of these symptoms - or signs - at one time or another.

In fact, the above describes not just the symptoms that may arise during the abusive situation but ones which not only follow survivors out of the workplace but may rear their ugly heads months after the abusive situation has ended - as I have discovered for myself on this journey.

Today, though, I want to focus on those symptoms which I experienced during the first situation.  The first signs that something was wrong in the workplace.  The signs which I ignored thinking, somehow, that they were "normal".  And, concurrently, that I was not.  Not normal that is.  That there was something wrong with me.  Desperately wrong.

Exhaustion was the first and most persistent sign.  Beginning the day I took over half of my co-worker's responsibilities until long after I'd left.   I thought it was normal because I was working longer days.  Perhaps, it was initially.  I attributed the fatigue, which later moved into exhaustion, as being a normal by-product of working 1 1/2 jobs never realizing how much of a number the constant criticism and stress in the workplace were working on me.

I was under a constant state of high levels of stress and anxiety.  My job, before tacking on my co-worker's responsibilities, was a high stress, demanding job in and of itself.  Never-ending.  Only one phone call, one email away from another disaster in the making.  A problem to look into and resolve.  An unhappy customer.  Stock which didn't arrive in time to fill an order.  A constant learning process.  Throw in the growing anxiety about my position as a contract employee and how much longer my job would last plus the constant criticism no matter how hard I tried from my supervisor - and you've got a recipe for disaster.  Or rather a recipe in the making for workplace abuse and it's resulting symptoms.

I mentioned earlier how I developed sleep problems often waking up after only a few hours of sleep in the middle of the night and then turning and tossing for hours.  My mind racing with yesterday's problems.  Not the ones that were solved and put away into their file folders, but the ones still waiting for resolution.  Conversations with the supervisor in which I futilely tried to defend myself.  More times than I want to admit, I ended up at the kitchen table drinking cup after cup of warm milk, playing Sudoko and reading my Bible until my mind started to calm down and come back under my control.  Until I felt I could trudge back to my bed and attempt to go back to sleep.  Many days, I felt that as I was heading down the stairs to the kitchen that my butt was dragging so low that it was actually going bump, bump, bump down the stairs behind me.  And that was at the beginning of the day.  With an entire work day ahead of me to survive.

Trembling.  Shaking.  Especially in the hands.  Again, I ignored it as I've had shaking and trembling in the past.  In fact, I usually didn't notice it myself unless I was actually looking at my hands.  But others noticed it.  I put it down to nerves.  I would try to hide my hands so that no one, especially my boss, would notice as I recognized that like the one tear that slid down my cheek that one day, she would place some label, some judgement on it.  Something that would say that I was not fit for the workplace because my hands shook due to the brutal levels of stress I was enduring.

I started having extreme outbursts of anger - outside of the workplace fortunately - which escalated as the end date of the last contract in March drew near.  I would come out of these outbursts puzzled.  Why?  This wasn't like me at all.  I couldn't understand what was causing these uncharacteristic episodes.  Even now, the memory of them is so real and so brutal that I am ashamed to admit what I would think.  I started attending a group of people who were on the road to recovery from different life experiences.  One day just a few weeks before the end of the contract, I mentioned my puzzlement about this extreme emotionality.  Depression I know.  This didn't appear to be depression.  At least as I knew it.  But what was it?  It wasn't until almost 18 months later that I realized I was going through a traumatic episode at the time.  The extreme anger and its outbursts were manifestations of the trauma as it was happening continuing on post workplace abuse to become PTSD.

All of the above were enough to wreck havoc on both my physical and emotional life but what threatened me most was my shattered self-esteem which occurred during this time.  Truth be told, I'd never had much of a self-esteem.  In fact, most of what positive self-concept I had was derived from the occasional "pat on the head", the word of appreciation.  I needed that compliment, that praise which my supervisor withheld.  I feel in retrospect that I was needy emotionally.  I often felt like a puppy dog waiting at its master's feet for that pat, that kind word, that recognition which never came.  Nothing I did was ever good enough for her.  I could be amazing at my job but that wasn't good enough for her.  I was told that I was probably the best person they'd ever had at that job - but even being the best wasn't good enough.

What little self-esteem I had was totally shattered by the end of the last contract.

I walked out of there badly bruised and battered.  Dumped at the foot of the steps outside the back door like yesterday's garbage.

Suffering emotions and symptoms I had no idea what to do with.

So how do we go from yesterday's garbage to today's butterfly?  From a shadow figure to a person in her own right?  Standing on her own two feet?  With a smile on her face yet?  How do we get from here to there?  Or is it there to here?  Regardless, we survivors of workplace abuse are butterflies in the process of becoming.

The Effects of Workplace Bullying on the Victim aka Target

The landscape of bullying aka workplace abuse is difficult to describe as it is constantly changing, especially if - as in my case with situation #2 - I was steadily working through my previous life time long issues and becoming healthier emotionally.  That progress, though, didn't stop or even detour the abuse.  If anything, it seemed to escalate the behaviours.

At its best, the landscape of bullying might resemble this picture taken in Scotland in 2009 with low-hanging, threatening clouds.  At its worst....

In the past, I was not allowed to talk about what had happened to me in the workplace.  First, my immediate supervisor imposed arbitrary standards of what she considered professional - or not professional - in the workplace.  I ended up feeling imposed silence and isolation due to the constant barrage of criticisms - most of which were based on behaviour rather than work-related issues.

To compound everything, while I felt a lot of pain, excruciating pain, and a compulsion to talk about what had happened to me, I had no idea that I had survived what constituted a trauma with resultant PTSD.  And nobody else was aware of it either.

I felt well and truly isolated even after the situation had ended.

I also carried with me a bagful of nasty emotions.  And confusion.  I simply could not understand why my best was not good enough.  Why being amazing was not good enough.  Why a customer reference was considered "unprofessional".  Things were constantly being thrown at me.  Thrown at me in sudden meetings which since they were sudden I could not prepare for in advance.  It just didn't seem logical - to me.  Nothing made any sense.  Since I'm a left-brained person, the left brain being the logical part, the cognitive part, the part that tries to make sense of things, my mind seemed to always be racing - trying to find the logic in something that essentially had none.

As I write this series, I am becoming more and more aware of the dynamics which were taking place at the time.

For one, there was not a chance in hell that I could win in this situation.  Breaking even?  I doubt that was even possible.

As I've researched the last few days re: the specific dynamics which were happening in this workplace specifically the overload of work and the lack of appreciation, I came across other symptoms which at first glance I rejected out of hand.  These were not what was happening to in the workplace me but rather how my body (and my emotions) were reacting to the constant onslaught.  The brutal stress I was enduring in the workplace.  At first I rejected even looking at these points.  Now, though, I think it's important for those of us who have been, and who currently are, being subjected to bullying behaviour in the workplace to recognize what it is doing to us so that we can recognize that we are being the victims of workplace abuse by what our bodies and emotions are telling us.

If I had only known then what I know now???  An open-ended question to be sure.  Would I have continued to strive to be recognized?  To gain that coveted permanent job which was constantly being held like a carrot on a string in front of me?  Too late I realized that that string was attached to my own tail.  Leading me on, but not in a productive (for me) way.

Or would I have followed my heart and emotions and walked out the door one day for my usual after lunch walk and simply never come back?  However, since I didn't know these things at the time, my options were few and far between.  Limited because of my (skewed) understanding of the dynamics behind the situation.

As I mentioned yesterday, I keyed in these words, "You know you've been bullied at work when".  One of the matches actually contained those exact words as a sub-heading under the heading:  Early Signs of Bullying."

So here goes:

Early Signs of Bullying

You know you've been bullied at work when ....

Experiences Outside Work

• You feel like throwing up the night before the start of your work week
• Your frustrated famly demands that you stop obsessing about work at home
• Your doctor asks what could be causing your skyrocketing blood pressure and recent health problems, and tells you to change jobs
• You feel too ashamed of being controlled by another person at work to tell your spouse or partner.
• All your paid time off is used for "mental health breaks" from the misery
• Days off are spent exhausted and lifeless, your desire to do anything is gone
• Your favorite activities and fun with family are no longer appealing or enjoyable
• You begin to believe that you provoked the workplace cruelty. (ww.worlplacebullying.org/individuals/problem/early-signs/)

Although, not all of the above applies me to, especially the bullet point about mental health days since I didn't have any and to take any would have validated their view that I was "unstable", enough of the bullets apply.  My blood pressure went sky high the first week I was alone doing 1 1/2 jobs and never did go down until later ... much later.  I was under my doctor's care for months - even after the contract ended.  Towards the end, I was tired and listless and was spending all my time outside work, including evenings trying to regroup to endure and survive the next work day.  Although I never was nauseous (that I can recall), I do vividly remember waking up on Monday mornings feeling like my entire innards had sunk into my spine, like something heavy was on my chest.  Sometimes the pressure on my chest was so great that I would struggle to breathe.  My mind would be in a deep fog, so deep that it felt like I was swimming in molasses to get to the top.   I would struggle to remember what day of the week it was.  When I realized that it was Monday and I not only had to make it through that work day but had the entire work week in front of me, I would sink in despair.  I had no clue how I was going to make it through the work week until friday at 6 p.m.

I became more and more irritable outside of work and my family became increasingly frustrated with me.  At that time (pre-recovery), I did not know how to communicate with my loved ones and tended to keep things bottled up inside until they would ferment to the point of overflowing.  Not pretty.  Definitely not healthy.  And certainly not in the best interests of my home life and marriage.

On top of the above, I had trouble sleeping.  I could get to sleep, but if I woke up in the middle of the night, I could not get back to sleep.  My mind was churning overtime.  I would toss and turn and turn and toss over and over.  It was not unusual to get four hours of sleep per night.  The rest of the time being spent thinking.  Warm milk became my good friend.  It worked - to a degree.  So did middle of the night games of Sudoku.  As did reading my Bible - especially the Psalms.

Many a time in those last three months, the contract from hell, I would sit at my kitchen table, alone, miserable while the other family members slept, afraid that I would wake them up.  Playing Sudoko, reading my Bible - or both - while drinking several cups of warm milk until my mind felt fuzzy enough and blank enough to try going to sleep again.

While I was struggling through each night, drinking warm milk, reading my Bible and playing Sudoku at my kitchen table, the "storm" clouds in the workplace continued to gather, continued to grow stronger.

Soon, we will get back into the narrative - the story - of those last three months and the horrific ending to that contract.  For now, though, we will look at the gathering storm, marvelling at it's intensity, destructive possibilities all the while aware of its incredible wildness, majesty and, yes, beauty (at least in the setting of nature).

Until tomorrow....