Here is a new bullying story, but it doesn't involve my now old (yeah!) boss.
I was working in another area of our plant yesterday and I observed someone being bullied quite loudly and aggressively by their boss. They were being yelled at, and spoken to in a condescending manner, interrupted, and challenged "to just leave if they didn't like it!" The male employee who was being bullied looked like he was going to cry. I kept thinking that this exchange could have happened in the bosses' office, out of earshot of me and a few others in the room, and didn't need to involve yelling and verbal abuse.
Well, needless to say I was shocked/scared.
What to do? My mind was racing, I couldn't concentrate on my work. I left and went to our Human Resources website (again) to review our policies on Harassment/Bullying to figure out what I should do. Oddly, the other ~4 or 5 people in the room had nervously ignored what was going on - I found it impossible to ignore, though.
I finally decided to email the fellow and just volunteer that I would back him up if he needed it. I also said "I'm not sure if I need to report this or not.."
The catch 22 is that our policy is that if you observe something like this you Must report it. But in doing so, what if that makes it worse for all? (now HR has to do something - I didn't want this employee to get fired) Anyway, I ended up letting my boss know what I saw, saying "I felt I should report this because I had to."
Later, I started doubting whether I imagined the whole thing (and fearing people would think I made it up! my stupid self doubt coming to the surface again!)..and was relieved when the guy finally did respond to my email and he agreed that the behavior violated our Mutual Respect policy.
He asked me to just jot down what I remembered, in case he ever needed me to explain to HR what I saw. He said that this was not the first time his boss had spoken to him in this manner, but that he had not been keeping track - and needed to. He thought the other people he worked with would be too afraid to say anything against their boss, if HR approached them.
Well - was I having flashbacks to my own situation!
Anyway, hopefully this will have a happy ending.
I know that our policy is to report this, but in my own experience, people did not respond well to me pointing out that bosses are routinely bullying subordinates, saying "well, maybe they deserved it..". I think this is such a cop-out for Doing nothing.
crazy. In a recent survey our management sent out, regarding Management, I answered honestly, although a lot of people at work are afraid to do so, since no one believe the surveys are anonymous. They asked us several questions about our direct managers and whether they were "supportive" and "positive." Since I still worked for my old boss, I rated him the lowest, "Do Not Agree" and commented that there is too much bullying in general at this place. After writing that, I feared/wondered if I had imagined it. Yesterday reinforced that I made the right decision to point this out, as it seems it's not limited to my old department, this problem is like a plague!
bean
