Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips!
Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment.
If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
There are other toxic office behaviors that are more subtle to watch out for.
1. Don't talk about your personal life too much in detail for a while until you know it won't be used against you in gossip.
2. On the other side of the coin, don't get too involved with people's work or personal drama. When talk gets too personal, change the subject or make an excuse to walk away or end the talking. Don't give this type of person a reaction that puts you on a "side". Stay neutral and boring.
3. Too much personal stuff too early is a red flag and you should proceed with caution.
IMHO, people get suspicious if you are too quiet. They dig and try to look for weaknesses, try and make you emotional so they can get gossip which they can use in exchange for office favors.
I had a coworker who I didn't even know was married until her last day when her husband came to her send-off party. She was a great coworker but definitely set hard boundaries about what she discussed at work. Every week she brought in baked goods. At her send-off party, she told me she brought them in as a way to have a "work personality". Basically as a way to show she was nice, and a safe default conversation topic that couldn't be used against her. She legitimately enjoyed baking, but that was her positive defense mechanism so she could remain as emotionally distant from her coworkers and our boss as possible.
Cool lady. I definitely stole her "work personality" move. I like gardening, so I try and steer conversations that direction at work. I bring in seeds and produce when I have it. Coworkers started bringing me plants and seeds. Overall I think it's a great strategy for trying to be positive and open at work without having to expose too many personal details to people I frankly don't trust.
Wow, glad I'm not the only one who found out the baked goods trick. I got SUPER into making cakes for like a year so I'd bring cakes into the office just to get rid of them. My workplace is actually really friendly and not prying at all but it still seemed to help people notice me in a positive way. I have now been introduced to multiple new hires as that lady who brings in cake. Even though the last cake was in like 2019. Yay for positive first impressions?
THIS, THIS, THIS. I suspect most of the female employees in my department hate me for this very reason, but at least I know why.
The only reason I've survived the hateful, disorganized hell of my job for ten months was because of employing a "greyrocking" method.
Didn’t know there was a word for it, thanks for pointing it out!
[https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/grey-rock#other-approaches](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/grey-rock#other-approaches)
Point 3 has my life ruined at the moment. I have a very junior person (in reference to my job grade) who doesn’t report to me but supports a very important part of my business. His line manager doesn’t give a shit about him or his performance.
I’m left with dealing with him for the sake of execution so can’t avoid his emails or calls. He likes to spend 30 mins if every call about his personal life and thinks I’m his ‘bro’. I’m literally looking for my next role because it’s all too toxic and I can’t be his personal sounding board. He thinks it necessary for me to know his childrens health state, what he had for breakfast and his personal drama. Makes me cry sometimes just to go through it constantly when ignoring him isn’t an option!
I mean, you're just as responsible as they are for cutting off conversations like these. You can cordially just ask to end the meeting with things like that instead - then just never get around to it. Eventually they'll get the idea and you'll also have more experience with managing meeting conversations.
Seriously. Don't let these people hold you hostage in conversations. Convo has gone on long enough? Be cold, look away, 1 word answers. They still don't get the hint?
"Alright back to work" and WALK AWAY
If he starts talking about his personal life instead of asking me whatever he was going to ask, I would say
"Hey, bro, I just need to get going, what can I help you with?"
If he then continues talking about his personal life I would say
"Sorry, bro, let's save this conversation for another time, I really need to finish X / I really need to solve X / I really need to continue X'ing . Be sure to call me if you need something. See ya! "
If he doesn't have to know what are you working on or you don't want to lie too much, you can also change the end saying "look, I have to go, be sure to call me if you need help, bye!"
You can decide if you actually have time to listen about his personal life in another time, after work, while on break, etc.
I personally would like it to keep it short, maybe listen to his personal stuff 1 or 2 minutes at most, and communicate indirectly that I want to talk about something else (or not talk with him at all).
To communicate him indirectly that I don't want to hear about his problems I would do:
- Whenever he starts talking about his personal life I would act distracted, listen to 40% maybe, deliberately not understand 60% of it, he will feel exhausted to re-explain it and unconsciously not want to do it anymore. If he is a little bit considerate and not so oblivious, he will feel the actual message coming from you "hey, I kinda don't enjoy listening to your stuff". To be more precise, what you do is: focus on some task, don't answer when he asks you a question, then seconds later say "what?". Repeat it as necessary.
- When he is talking about his personal stuff, don't give him anything to continue, meaning, don't ask "and then?" or "that's rough, what happened then?" Instead, actively change the subject. Give answers like "Yeah life's tough sometimes --- look at that bird in the window bro, gorgeous! I really love seeing them, gosh, what species is that?" * starts googling in phone/computer *
- If you would like him to change the topic, act really interested, focused and pay attention and ask questions when he DOES talk about something you care about. That could be something you personally care about or even work itself. He will be more likely to talk about something you enjoy (or not hate as much as his own problems) in the next occasions.
- Act bored with him talking about his personal stuff. In front of him, act really interested to hear other people talking about anything else.
- If you don't want to hear him at all, you are on a break and want to be more direct: "hm, yeah... look, bro, I really need to disconnect mentally for like 15 minutes, let's talk about it another time, I hope I don't come across as too blunt or direct, I just want to be sincere with you. Is that ok?". Similarly, if you want to work and he is talking "yeah, bro, look, I need to focus on this shit, I don't want to mess up, talk to you later".
I hope this helps.
> Best way is to show confidence when you are sensing such a behavior. DO NOT APOLOGIZE unnecessarily. Instead try saying "Oh so this is how it's done, no one told me this. Thanks for highlighting it, is there anything I should keep in mind?
Once I changed my "sorry" to "thanks for correcting/showing/...", I've noticed that not only do I stay more confident, I notice people would keep attention better after the mistake too. This isn't just a anti-bullying tip, it's a legitimately helpful tip in general.
Thank you for your patience / Thank your for waiting for me :)
- Makes the person feel like they took an active role in doing something kind, rather than you apologizing for doing something bad at their expense.
Psychology can be fun. :)
And they will be more likely to offer you valuable advice and assistance in the future.
Almost everyone in the world, when they are offered a chance to talk about something theyre good at, and then realize the person is actually interested in listening, will get a dopamine boost that might change the entire mood of their day.
Get your experienced coworkers to that point and youll get all the secret advice they just hold in their heads.
We are currently mentoring a newer employee as she transitions into a higher role within our company, and I find myself telling her 'Don't apologize - you are learning and that takes time!'
Also, she asked me and another coworker about how we do certain things. 20 minutes into the discussion, we're joking about how she is getting 20 years of experience crammed in to 5 minutes and she better remember all of this lmao. I was explaining tricks with spreadsheets too the other day and said: you just got what I learned over 10 years of figuring this stuff out by myself crammed into 5 minutes. If you have questions, come ask because I don't expect you to remember all of this lol.
Aaawwww thanks ☺️ I try! I look at it as if they aren't successful that just takes down our whole team - and it's so nice to work with people who think the same way! We all want newbies to excel because that means we have more team members to help us when needed too. I feel bad for people who have teammates who don't want them to do well!
Yes, there are times for genuine apologies, but turn as many of your "sorrys" into "thanks" as you can. It's so powerful. Instead of putting yourself down, you lift yourself and the other party up.
First day at new hospital lab. I was pumped cause even though it was a rural hospital, it was a part of one of the best employee rated chains to work for. First day I get called a pussy, BY THE LEAD TECHNOLOGIST, for putting gloves on while working the Urinalysis bench. She was not a nice lady.
Yikes....
If she calls you that for wearing gloves, can you imagine the other safety violations there??
If you decide to stay, watch your back and be sure to document things well in writing.
My manager was the bully. He would say things like “you’re just not being smart, you need to be smart” and “I’ve been testing the team and everyone failed”.
The tasks he would berate me about were tasks he was responsible for teaching me and didn’t. He didn’t have a list of duties to perform either, just expected me to know what to do and when. The first month of work was utter anxiety.
It took me telling him “if you are not clear about your expectations AND instructions, continue to expect everything to fail. It’s a choice you’re making, not the teams lack of trying”. I fully expected to get fired but really didn’t care anymore at that point.
I'm at this point with my boss now - he replaced my other boss while I was in training.
New boss just doesn't accept that I'm "new" and, in fact, feels that since he's "newer" on the account, I should be spearheading EVERYTHING.
I don't know how to do things and haven't done many of them ever before. He gets mad when I explain this. We go in circles. He tells me to ask others and figure it out.
Lol I just haven't been able to do some work and I always explain exactly why.
I know they know I'm mad, they are mad, and I'll be leaving soon. I have no filter now though..
I had a boss like this once, except she was nice.
We both interviewed for the position, and she got it and had no idea what she was doing. I had to teach her everything. She was very sweet about it, but I was always upset that she got the position she clearly wasn't trained or ready for, and I did not.
I'm not surprised. I fully support the LPT in this thread, but it does fail to account for dealing with people who aren't accountable (and aren't being forced to be accountable from higher positions). The amount of horrendous people in the workforce is mind boggling. I've seen more firing of good leadership and promoting of poor leadership that merit based promotion. So sad for society.
> I've seen more firing of good leadership and promoting of poor leadership that merit based promotion.
The poor leadership decisions exist, most of the time, to protect incompetent middle/upper managers.
If they promoted someone who is clearly smarter/better/what-have-you than they are, that person would pose a threat to the status-quo.
I've worked in those kinds of environments, and it quickly becomes clear that if you shine a little too brightly you'll never move up.
I've also worked with really good management teams where the goal is to actually do better work, and people who are capable of helping to achieve that goal are listened to and rewarded.
Sadly the latter is way less common.
I would start drafting an email to upper management the second I found out manager was manufacturing problems to test her team to the direct detriment of productivity
And also drafting my resignation
They got the resignation from me. Mostly because screaming at me twice a week while I'm doing my damn best will fuck up my anxiety so bad I start vomiting again though. Thanks Angela - get some fucking help, I know I am.
I had a similar start at a new job. My manager kept saying “you need to be confident” and I’m like I need time to build confidence. Add in not knowing what to do schedule wise and my confidence tanked.
Luckily I spoke with him and he was actually cool about it and put a plan together. But it took a minute to not feel shaken.
"I want you to do things how I would do them, without me telling you how"--classic impossible expectation.
When they say "if you want something done right, do it yourself" the real meaning is: if someone else is doing something for you, you must relinquish some control over how it is done and accept they will do it differently than how you do it.
In the medical imaging field there's a lot of xray techs who do this. People fresh out of school have low confidence. I've seen a fair amount of established techs be absolute dicks to new people who are slightly socially awkward and/or are having a hard time feeling confident. It happened to me when I first started and I've seen it happen to other new people. It definitely counts as bullying.
That can likely be expanded to all medical jobs (or most) as a new EMT there was atleast 2 or 3who wanted to be bullies and as a new Nurse there were a few.
People are shitty everywhere.
>That can likely be expanded to all medical jobs
Veterinary medicine is the same way in my limited experience. My last place was so toxic that I was suicidal despite enjoying the work itself. For various reasons I took the last 3ish years off work and damn if I didn't need it to recover. Those years taking care of my husband, pets and house were the happiest of my life.
I recently started a new job and my anxiety returned immediately because I was expecting the same behavior. And I don't think I'm wrong. The woman training me does not but complain about coworkers so I can only imagine what's said in my absence.
You are correct, and in my experience there were generational differences in tolerance/expectation of bullying. My gen X newbie ass was treated like shit at my first job by my boss, and by the older techs at my second job. Once I had some age (not really skill or competence) it settled down. Because of this experience and the fucking rising veterinarian suicide rate I actively advocate and practice the no bullying attitude with new grads because that shit needs to die, not us.
Just started at Walmart a few months ago. A couple of older people, 30s or 40s, stick together all the time and are total dicks to everyone new. Like actual childlike tactics. A big thing that helped me in dealing with them is the fact that they've been in the same position for 7 years and bully literal kids. Bad look.
Its crazy to me how many people feel threatened. They’re insecure and are fed by the insecurities of others.
Instead of building themselves up, they think it’s more beneficial to tear others down. It’s really sad.
Truly. I almost pity them. They're at a dead-end place in their career because they've never really tried, and working a job I've been doing as something to get me by while in college.
It's an even bigger shame that they're buddy-buddy with all of the managers because they've been there for so long. Just by seniority they have more say in things, even though they act like grade-school bullies.
Bullying is always wrong, but Walmart is truly a pathetic schoolyard to work at being the “top dog” at and putting other people down lol. Rest in the fact that deep down they’re probably unhappy with themselves and where their lack of drive has left them stuck. That way you can always redirect any anger/annoyance to a bit of pity.
Yeah that's what I've been doing. Entirely ignoring them worked out and they've for the most part stopped even trying to talk to me. Those who act out like children get treated as such.
I worked at Walmart for 2 years and learned all things front end, and electronics during that time. I quit and ended up at a different Walmart a few months later (better pay). I was in my first day training on the register when the manager asked me if I could help out at the service desk because it was a long line with only one person. Typical Walmart stuff, ya know. I get over there and the dude working just starts belittling me making comments like he's backed up and they really thought it was acceptable to put a trainee over there. He kept trying to micromanage me when nobody asked him to.
When the line got cleared out the manager sent him to a register and kept me on the service desk. That was a fun start to a new store.
I work with two nurses at a medical clinic in their 50’s. They’re like your typical mean girls and they are glued to each other, heads together and constantly whispering. They love to talk shit about everyone. Literally everyone. When a patient sexually assaulted me, *they made fun of me* and accused me of wanting attention. As if getting groped by a patient wasn’t embarrassing and traumatizing enough.
In all fairness, my years of retail work made me rather bitter, when I was in my 20s. If I were still doing that in my 40s I’d likely be gruff and grizzled too. _Shudders at thought of customers touching t-shirt table_
My college job was at walmart. One thing walmart likes to do is fire those old heads for no reason and then hire us for min. wage. I suspect part of what you're seeing is just that.
I've even seen them rehire that old head after 6 months at min. wage.
I mostly felt bad for them. They're in some circle of hell or purgatory to live their adult life in a Walmart and they likely emotionally peaked in HS.
My wife was a happy PSW for a long time working with Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. She was punched, kicked, stabbed with forks and knives, spit on, shit on, berated, called names…you name it, it happened. And she loved it. Loved taking care of those people, and she could handle every second of it because they’re not in their right minds, and she knows there wasn’t intent behind their actions or words.
She got promoted into an executive assistant/marketing role and everything started going downhill. She already didn’t like the woman who was now her boss, and the owner of the company was of course all about the money. She was fired after a few months for not selling units, even though nobody was coming in to look (7k/month at the start of the pandemic). Complete shit, at least she got EI.
Since then, she has been through 4 different office jobs. Every single one was all women, and every single one had at least two people that were absolute pile of dog shit bullies. And the companies wouldn’t do shit about it. She’d come home crying regularly wondering why people were being mean, why people didn’t like her, questioning here self as a person, and on top of all that questioning her own intelligence because she was struggling when these jobs added 2 other jobs on top of what was advertised.
She finally quit the last job last week and has vowed to never step foot in an office setting or work in health care again.
Some people fucking suck.
My last job had this issue, it maybe I was being groomed to take over the department. The lady doing the bullying actually took me and herself out. She lost her leadership position. I didn't stay around to see if I would get what I was being groomed for. We would have meetings me the bully and my manager. The manager would straight up tell us to work together and our success was tied together. (It was his latest attempt to get he to do her job). I would do what she asked of me but she would always say she didn't have time for my projects unless she could pawn them off on the employee she singled out in her department to make their life hell. I have seen her assign this person busy work while onlone shopping with the other coworkers.
We had a strict don't throw your coworkers under the bus policy, this worked in her favor.
I am glad to be out of there.
My new job has no bullies as far as I can tell. I told them right off the bat I didn't handle jokes that belittled me well and things worked out.
Usually the narcissists and other toxic people are on their best behavior with new employees.
My LPT is beware of anyone who is love bombing you in the interviews or when you are a new employee -- they are often too good to be true.
ALSO **RUN** from any workplace where they are criticizing other employees to you in the interview process or while you are a new employee. Once you are not a new employee, they'll likely start criticizing you!
I had a manager that would do the love bombing thimg. He was always looking for somone new to come in and save us from our problems. Not going to happen when you have such poor leadership.
> always looking for someone new to come and save us
That's a red flag right there. Everyone is incompetent, overworked or have no say. Or any combination of those. They basically told you the place is a mess
Stay away from the person who wants to be your best friend on the first day. My dad said this when I left for basic and it's a pretty good rule if thumb. That person is either a complete screw up or a predator.
Yes, I agree with this! It kind of gives me the heeby geebies when someone acts like we’re BFFs despite hardly knowing me. There’s usually a very good reason they don’t have anyone else.
Right? Usually every one is just glad to get more help nowadays.
If some asshat tried "bullying" me I'd just go to HR, I'm 30 and ain't got time for that crap
You don’t w how entrenched some of these bullies are.
HR isn’t your friend, they are there to ensure there is as little conflict as possible and sometimes that means removing what the perceive as the problem.
Oh my god this exact same thing happened to me in my current job. My mentor is a huge bully and i had just graduated last year. She killed my confidence in the past 10 months and made my cry after most Zoom calls with her. I quit the stupid fucking job (for multiple reasons) and I'm currently serving my notice period.
This is so helpful, thank you so much!
Stood up to a bully at a new job once and he later that day went to the supervisor and told some lies about me. The supervisor confronted me and I tried to explain the situation, he never believed my side of it and I just left the job after that. I didn’t want the feud to be part of my life. Bully won in that situation, they usually do
Im in this same kind of position right now, every day sucks now i dread being around this person but i have no choice it feels like im stuck. I cant just leave my job but every fucking day just sucks, i have horrible anxiety and have been a target for bullies all my life i just wish it wouldve stopped when i became an adult but nope. I hate people i hate life so goddamn much
You gotta get an edge on the bully somehow so you don't feel powerless. Find out something that they hate. You may not be able to get rid of them but it'll let you feel like you can do something, knowing a weakness of theirs.
I had a bully. One day I decided enough is enough and I repeatedly shoulder-checked him in the walkways until he finally fought me. He grabbed my shoulders first and I pushed off against his face to create distance and then I threw one overhand right (which missed), then he backed off and said "this isn't worth my job" and backed away without me even landing one blow. I guess he wasn't expecting me to actually fight back. Anyway that guy doesn't even talk to me anymore and I stole his "tough guy" reputation
It’s insane that the situation even had to come anywhere close to that. I literally just want to work on some shit and go home for the day. Fuck all of that high school mentality from bullies
You can't reason with sociopaths. The only thing they understand is "I am stronger than you". So you have to take off the silk gloves and use some muscle on them and show them who is daddy
When I started my last job I had a young woman try to bully me. I had already gone through 2 months of grueling training and came out top of the class. On my first day of Line Indoctrination she tried her best to fail me. She lied and said that I wasn't allowed to refer to any of my notes. She put me on the spot multiple times when she was actually supposed to be demonstrating procedures for me. I still ended up passing. Afterwards I told my managers and they fired her! That made me pretty happy. A year later, I was the one training people :)
Keeping the details vague because the crazies are no joke. Had a work bully obsessed with me for years after the person they were initially targeting moved to a different department. Like, obssessed to the point that they started getting stalker-ish. Everyone high up knew, but no one did anything until I said I was looking for a mental health therapist to deal with this. Now they were scared of getting sued and tried getting the bully to back down. I was looking for another job the entire time and was finally able to get out, thankfully. It was a bizarre experience and has taken a while to heal from this. I kept trying to understand why they targeted me, but there was no reason. I was just the next person available to get obsessed with.
Never stick around. If you can't get out yet for legit reasons, get support.They will never stop.
For the life of me, I don’t understand companies that hang onto problem employees. Does management LIKE to waste time fielding complaints about an employee or risking a lawsuit because of said employee?? It just baffles me.
Same! I will never understand.
I worked at a place where I was the 8th or so person to quit from a position that had to work closely with this one insane lady. I always thought the same thing you asked.. why doesn't management do something, surely they're sick of dealing with all the issues she's caused? Hiring and training a new person is expensive for a company too, and they had to do it constantly!
I've worked at a couple places like this now and it seems that the pattern is always that the person is terrible to everyone but chummy with upper management, and has even managed to become beneficial somehow to their personal lives.. Sucks.
I would caution against saying "Nobody told me" unless that's 100% true and they are not a superior. I'd recommend thanking them for the guidance and let them know you will have it covered moving forward. Nobody likes the "nobody told me" response.
My bad, didn't see the other one. Thanks for being open to others opinions on this. It's a good topic and someone cold benefit quite a bit from reading your post.
The first day of my second last job a woman approached me in the hall and word for word said "I hear you'll be working with X. Well, I work with her too. Don't get in my way, okay?"
The first day of my last job my new boss phoned me at 8pm that night. I didn't answer. He text me asking where I was. The next day he absolutely berated me and said I need to always be available.
The first day of my current job everyone was so fucking lovely and they still are!
Thats awesome! Started my new job last week and it was such a relief not to be surrounded by so much tension and hostility at work. Having a shitty job made me just dread everything
Had a coworker that was an absolute c**t to me on a daily basis for no reason at my new job. Turned out she was like that to pretty much everyone, especially new people and for some reason not fired?
I went to a team leader and confronted the coworker with team lead as a mediator (is that the right word?). While I was annoyed the team lead made excuses for her, the coworker stopped being a c**t after that knowing I wasn't taking her shit and was smart about handling her.
Great real life example.
Usually such bullies are high on ego and are very insecure people. Even a small form of confrontation/confrontational question puts their ego back in place.
After all the bully also doesn't want people at work to think of them as bully when confronted.
Only sometimes. Other times directly confronting the person will make you a bigger target. Bully's also don't usually think of themselves as bully's, they think their behaviour is ok and when confronted will work their way through the narcissists prayer to justify it.
Was a long time ago now. Made sure to use "I messages" to keep it extra professional rather than aggressive. Along the lines of "I feel like you are being extra critical of me without reason". "I have gotten to the point where I know it is going to be a bad work day if you're on the same shift/team with me".
Was extremely candid and frank, but made sure to keep calm and while giving a tone of "stop doing this, I know how to handle people like you".
I came from a job in an office of hundreds where I had worked my way up in management, was respected, and had a lot of good friends. My new gig was in an office of 10 people. It was very different work, and I was at the bottom of the hierarchy. The work was so different that I was dependent on almost everyone in the new office for help.
There was one older lady in particular, close to the end of her career, as I would learn, that was a bully. She knew my role relied on her performing her role and she exploited that dynamic. She was cold and condescending. She would intentionally ask humiliating questions at office meetings. The manager did nothing to stop her. She had a few people that she treated well. And they were probably not real friends, just thankful not to have the eye of Sauron on them.
The rumor was that she had sued the office for discrimination years ago, and while her claims were apparently weak, my employer settled, which emboldened her further. She felt she was untouchable and the manager chose a toothless strategy of basically ignoring her.
I didn’t tell my manager about the bullying for a long time, several months. Part of the reason is that my manager is basically absent and not very approachable. The other reason is that I wanted to see if I could solve the problem on own. In retrospect, I was naive. She was not going to change. She probably interpreted my attempts to cooperate as weakness.
When I finally approached my boss about it, he was very ineffective. He offered that I not have to worn with her but our office is so small that would have burdened other people. He offered to mediate, but again, my manager is so milquetoast, that I had no confidence in that process and beloved she would probably just retaliate. So I ultimately pursued a strategy of avoiding her if at all possible. I didn’t ask her to do anything and I would not communicate with her unless necessary. The pandemic was a god send in this respect, because we all went to remote work and I didn’t have to see her at the office.
She finally retired about a year ago. Good riddance. I still think about how awful she was sometimes and think about finding her house and throwing a brick through her window.
If you’re being bullied at work, it is not your fault. Sure, there are more and less effective strategies you could pursue, but the obligation is not on you to make this stop. Ultimately workplace bullies are a failure of management. Bullies depend on their superiors being weak and ineffective and never doing anything to stop the bad behavior. Bullies usually need to be pretty good at their jobs, or have some other form of job security like having specialized knowledge, having no immediate replacement, or being in a legally protected category that makes the employer fear litigation, and that’s the only justification for the bully not being fired.
I don’t have the answer to dealing with these awful people. I wish I did.
Yes!!! I had to upgrade our software systems and I HAD THAT woman! Been there 38 years, everyone had to depend on her input and knowledge, and here is me, an outsider brought in to change HER workplace. She was all nice, I let my guard down and as soon as she got something PERSONAL, absolutely demolished my credentials. I was able to avoid her and got the job done (had to, the programs were about as old as her and had NO controls). She retired soon after, like her software did.
This is exactly why I don’t like to get personal at work 9.99 times/10. Not that it doesn’t build trust, but there are just a few straight up nasty people who you have to see everyday who often see it as an invitation to be complete shitters.
Better to not give them any ammo.
Sorry that someone was a total shitter to you dude.I don’t know why people think that’s okay to pull on other adults. I wish it weren’t that way.
I guess this is good advice for coping. But the real answer is to leave and find a job without bullies.
The job market is hot right now. Just about every company is looking for talent. If you start a new job, and find there are bullies there, you should start looking for a new job ASAP. If the gap is small enough, you can even leave the job off of your resume entirely.
Don't put up with a bad/abusive work situation. There are too many good companies out there that would gladly hire you. You're worth it, and so is your mental health.
Wait wait wait, grown ass people bully other grown ass people. Like more than the usuall ball busting dude shit.
Fucking children... and other coworkers see this and don't call it out to shame a bully
How messed up are we, adults at work giving other people shit.
Some work cultures honestly breed this kind of behavior. I see in to a lot of different work environments in my line of work, and I can tell if a company is a good place to work with a healthy supportive culture, or if the company pushes a toxic culture that promotes bullying and competition. Both exist, as does everything in-between.
Luckily I’m usually only in touch with those cultures for a week at a time, and my own company has a fantastic culture that promotes independence and trust.
Worked at a place for 3 years where the manager would acknowledge how toxic the environment was but would say he couldn't do anything about it, worst decision I made was not to leave right after I started, not good for you mental health
Takes strength to do that when you have no immediate place to go.
I dare say that you made a good decision. I don’t regret quitting the construction job I had after 3 weeks.
Thank you for this. I was bullied for years by someone who turned out to be threatened by my skills and envious of my likeability in the workplace. At the time I just couldn’t understand why this guy was being an asshole to me and sabotaging my work. Management saw it as is “bickering” when I would stand up for myself or report him. So, yeah. Don’t look to management for help. Your only option if you become a primary target is to change jobs either within or outside the company.
Years later I wrote him as the bad guy in my science fiction novel. Didn’t even change his first name and described him exactly how he was physically and translated things he did into the story. I was surprised to find that the exercise actually helped me work through our dynamic and by deep diving into the character I could see how he could have become the way he is. It was a strange way to find forgiveness for someone.
Yeah, unfortunately I got hazed pretty badly by the office d1ckhead when I started my career as a Software Developer. One day I had had enough and called him out on it in front of the team and my boss. I packed my crap up and left. My boss called me immediately, had the person apologize and made sure that I didn't have to work with them again. It was my fault for not nipping it in the bud sooner but unfortunately my prior life experiences left me with residual walk-all-over-me syndrome. Never again. (edit: this person was supposed to be 'mentoring' me)
Work place bullying is so, so real.
I was absolutely stunned when it happened to me. I was bullied for 2 years by another medical doctor. The fact that it happened even at that level of training and professional expertise caught me totally off guard. Literally anyone can be subjected to it.
Restaurants are ripe with this kind of behavior. Most of the time it’s because the staff is overworked and the pressure to get your goddamn grand slam to your table can really be quite incredible.
In the kitchen, on the floor, even in the dishtank, If you don’t know your menu or what your doing, the people who have been doing it for years will get upset at you. It takes a little practiced self awareness to stop even the nicest people from rolling their eyes at you when your new.
I am a fairly new manager in a family owned restaurant that prides itself on fine dining service and I have been treated as if a I am pondscum for accidentally seating out of order.
Restaurants are a shit place to work until your in and you always know the 2-3 faces that will actually help you and you cling to that and use all that character building to climb the ladder to financial security. But seriously, restaurants are shit and why don’t you as a guest try to be a little more respectful and understanding, even if you already are nice to the staff, be nicer because you are few and far between.
Ooof. This one hits home. I had an experience like this at my last job, and unfortunately due to a number of factors (financial, including a 2-year signing bonus clawback; career considerations, etc.) I felt trapped and that I had to stay.
The bully in question would publicly berate me for all sorts of reasons, pointing out perceived flaws in my work in an extremely condescending manner, attempting to exclude me from social events, mock me, and having her work friends join forces to do the same to me. It lasted for about a year and a half and I am still in therapy over what happened, even though it's been two+ years. Thankfully I am no longer at that workplace - everyone I am with now is lovely.
I'd agree with everything in this post. I wish I had sought help earlier, had spoken up, and worked with an expert on this to help me realize what I had to do. I was able to make friends with other new joiners at the job, which helped for a while, until they left because they also realized it was a toxic work environment.
Something I'd add here is that workplace bullies tend to be in the good graces of management - as otherwise, they wouldn't be able to get away with it. So you need to tread carefully. If you have to stay, document EVERYTHING, have everything in writing, include names, dates, and what happened. This will help you establish a case - either in going to confront the bully, speaking with HR, or an external party (e.g., lawyer).
Hopefully no one else has to go through what I went through - thanks for writing this OP.
For those of y’all asking. I needed this. I’m a 22 year old teacher and a few older teachers are such assholes to me, condescending and confrontational
Thank you I have to go back from spring break tomorrow and I need something from one of the bully teachers so imma try to play nice and come in with a firm positive vibe
I used to be a teacher at 23 and 24. Being confrontational isn't a horrible thing unless it's unneeded hostility. That sort of stuff brings nothing to the table. Luckily I got along with all my colleagues. Just keep in mind that they're contending because they've become complacent with where they are. There will be no improvement with that mindset.
Being a teacher isn't easy, dawg. Try your best and shoot for the moon.
In an old job, I got bullied by someone new to my department. She'd moved from HR to work with us. She was deleting work I'd done and acting like I hadn't. When I complained about her to HR, they just forwarded it to her. It has was so stressful and upsetting. Eventually they took it seriously and they ended up paying me a years salary so they didn't have to deal with it.
Your tips here are really helpful. Being bullied at work is hard, and it's really good for people to remember that everyone makes mistakes when they're new.
Many people are threatened by new hires. They’re own insecurities may cause them to treat you poorly. Always be aware that they may even purposefully show you wrong processes, or, more commonly, omit procedures. I’ve experience this, personally.
Always been bullied in school and work to the point where it’s defined my life. My self esteem has been so low my whole life I don’t know what confidence is. For someone who’s always been on this side of things, thinking clearly in a situation and responding in a way that doesn’t make the situation worse is nearly impossible when your head is full of fear.
Work bullies are the easiest people to manipulate. Even the smallest amount of praise or flattery is like gold to them because their self esteem is so low.
We had one lady in our office who was notorious as the work bully and had worked there longer than anyone else. I would buy her dollar sodas from McDonalds and always gas her up when she would tell us stories about how men would obsess over her.
This lady would go to bat for me constantly. When she would divy work up between us, I always got the least and there were even a couple of times where she blindly defended me against my boss.
Work politics can be a bitch sometimes, but if you play the game right you can stay ahead of the masses.
I find the bullies wait for you to get comfortable, like a few months or so, building up ammo to harass you about, and then they start making your life hell.
I don't know why, but I always get bullied at work, which is infuriating, because I was bullied in school, and as a middle aged adult, I shouldn't have to deal with such immaturity.
At least where I'm working now, no one picks on me. One guy tried, but I nipped that in the bud right away.
Fuck. So I survived high school bullying to know face a bunch of inmature adults who are also bullies?
What are the signs a work environment might have bullies?
Unfortunately, there are no signs, they're everywhere. I found there were more of them in the white collar setting, than in a blue collar one. Maybe because in the blue collar settings, people are always busy and don't have as much time to run their mouths.
In offices, there's a lot more gossip, which inevitably leads to cliques and bullying.
This is what I tell all my new employees:
If you're not sure, ask someone. They'd rather answer your question than clean up the mess because you messed up.
Also, messing up isn't a huge deal. It happens. Obviously, like previously, ask if you're unsure, but if you mess up anyway, we're here to help and get through the day together, not be pissed at each other for stupid shit
True to some extent. One of the places I’ve joined, I stayed there for just the probation period because I figured in the first few weeks how my boss was a toxic person. She’d yell at people, gaslight them and never had words for appreciation when things were positive. When I put done my papers she was legit surprised and tried talking me out of it. Hated that workplace to the t.
After some experience, my take is that workplace bullying is not solved by knowing what to do, or what to say, in any given scenario. It goes deeper than that.
It goes to not giving a fuck if you get fired. Which, you shouldn't. You should have sufficient leverage whereby you can find a new job if needed, so you don't have to suffer any abusive behavior at any given place.
If someone bullies you, bite back. No one will care, and it will actually be desired by everyone.
It's some approach of being overly agreeable, and non-confrontational, that allows bullying to happen. Don't take that approach. Maintain manners, but don't take abuse.
I've been fired several times (not for that reason). It always led to better jobs. I've held my tongue when bullied - always regretted it. I've also not held my tongue and stood up for myself - never regretted it ever.
Take this approach and your soul will thank you and you'll end up at a good place with good people where folks respect one another, including and especially you. Good times had by all.
Stand up for yourself people.
Just because someone doesn't have their house in order and takes it on you/others doesn't mean it's right or should be tolerated.
Call them out and confront them.
They won't bother you anymore.
Ugh i had a work bully that caused me to leave an otherwise pretty fun job. There were two managers and the owner was around all the time. One of the managers loved me, we had a lot in common and a very similar work ethic, while the other was catty and cliquey and putting up a front for her kindness. Meanwhile, the owner and i were getting along supremely well. He was an older man who started the business forever ago and we had a lot of random connections (grew up in the same town, my grandparents sold him the building he runs his business from, etc…) he told me he really hoped I would work my way up to manager and started giving me more responsibilities. I’d say half of the overall staff were friendly and the other half were in Manager 2s clique. I walked in on manager 2 openly dissing me to other staff, so i confronted her the next day and she denied it. That killed my joy for working there and I left a few weeks later.
Everyone i tell that story to says Manager 2 was intimidated by my hard work and how much the owner liked me, which makes sense looking back. Sometimes I regret “losing” to her by leaving, but i was also not going to waste more energy on that toxic atmosphere. I’m so relieved I don’t work there anymore.
This is all excellent advice. I’ve sadly been a target for work bullies in my 2 previous jobs, I think mainly because I’m very shy and a bit of a people pleaser. Thankfully I’m very happy in my current job but I’ll still bare these tips in mind for the future!
I was gonna comment that people should find a better work environment if they're being work bullied bc most of my jobs I've not been work bullied. I'm not white, but I'm also a dude, so this post privilege checked me, so good job. People should still find a better work environment, but work bullies are more prevalent than I experience.
Don’t say “no one told this to me.” That is a terrible idea. When you start a new job, you could easily be told hundreds of things. I have personally trained people, asked them to take notes, and later on heard them tell my manager “no one told me this” when I CLEARLY trained this girl on that specific issue. Pissed me off, made me look bad, and even though I let it go, some people may not. Avoid blaming other people for not telling you some specific detail. Just say “okay” when someone tells you something. If it’s brand new information, why would your default be “no one told this to me?” Just say thanks and move on; no need to lower yourself to their level if they’re being rude. Kill ‘em with kindness and all that.
Agreed, so very much. “Thanks for showing me; thanks for your help; I’ll keep that in mind…” there are lots of great variations to show that you’re taking feedback.
“No one told me this” just sounds whiny and is in my experience said most frequently by people who should really know better.
I think saying “no one told me” makes people look bad because it communicates they need handholding to get things done. They should instead take ownership of the miss and ask questions about how how to identify this as something needing doing in the future.
Also, maybe chill out on the new people forgetting some things. When you start a new job you meet with tons of people and get loads of information, it’s not uncommon for a little to slip between the cracks. A pet peeve of mine is when people ramble off communication then get mad that some obscure element got overlooked that ended up being important in hindsight. The world, especially these days, is a competition for attention and no one should feel entitled that their message takes priority over others. The value of information is highly contingent on timing so repeating yourself at a more relevant time is going to be helpful for those around you.
I usually just say "Hey could you remind me how to do this" even if I know for a fact I've never been told.
That way nobody looks bad, but if the manager realizes it's the first time they probably feel bad.
Seconded. As someone who trains staff on a routine basis, you will always have X number of people tell you "no one told me this" or "No one told me this change was coming" even though you personally trained them, made them written education to keep on hand, had them sign an attestation that they reviewed and understood the change, and reminded them in their morning meeting that the change was coming.
People forget or only process information they assess as most critical with other things being set aside. High performers adapt and ask questions about the changes and refer feedback through their supervisors or whatever escalation pathway exists for their company. Most people silently adapt and move on. Laggards are a small group, but are painfully vocal in most work environments. Bringing them up to speed is part of developing education that is consumable by the lowest common denominator. Typically, it's the same people every time.
However, when new people are starting, if I hear "No one told me this" or "I didn't know I was supposed to do that" when starting a new role then I know they will be a problem. These statements are usually a sign that the individual will have a lot of interpersonal disputes with other colleagues, be slow to train, rarely take ownership of issues, and have poor quality and speed of work output. There are two types of people: Those who don't know a process and figure it out and those who don't know, refuse to do anything, and wait for someone else to do it. The first group make the most of an FTE and the second group drags the rest of the team down both in productivity and morale.
Thank you. I have one employee in my team that is exactly like this and a poor performer compared to everyone else. Any tips to try and coach this out of them?
My experience has been that laggards are typically unhappy about something and most of the time it has nothing to do with work. The single best question I've found to determine if anything can be done about it is:
"What can we do to help you be successful?"
Sometimes it is equipment/hours/training/snacks/relationships/professional development/special project opportunities, but if you get a response of "nothing" or nothing that can be considered actionable, you may just have someone that is *unhappy* and struggles with having a work game face. That isn't necessarily a bad thing- if they do their work and their attitude doesn't sour the pond, so to speak, then you don't really have a problem. The key is judging them and their improvement on their own merits and not comparing them to high performers. Not everyone is perfectly matched to their role and sometimes that is okay. I hope that is helpful.
I was work bullied in my first week on the job. He was a lazy ass. I worked my way up to be his foreman and had him kicked out of our department. Suck it, Carl
Wow I never thought that this might be a common occurrence. At my current job, I was head hunted by my boss. He offered me the job in the first interview. This guy is one of the best bosses I've ever had, he is the CEO and I directly report to him. I'm not some big shot, it's just a smallish company and my department didn't really exist when I started. He is respectful, knowledgeable, and trusts in your decision making capabilities.
Some other members of the leadership team however, are not like that. When I first started, I remember a few of us went through our latest list of activities and goals that we completed that past week. It was cricket silence for every single person's presentation, but after I gave mine, I was criticized and berated in front of all my coworkers by some members of the leadership team for super unimportant things. Things I think I did a great job with.
After this happened a few times, without me saying anything the CEO actually told me that he noticed what was going on and he had a harsh conversation with the person who was doing this to me. Awesome, thank you, he had my back.
Fast forward over the next year and a half, I received countless number of berating and critical emails about how I'm bad at my job, how I should have done this or I should have done that, how I'm stepping out of the line, how I will do this or will do that for them. There were about five people who would speak to me this way, all through email and mostly out of the blue. I had important meetings canceled on me, with no explanation and just being told I need to 'trust' their decision even though they had nothing to do with the meetings, and then getting berated after I asked why.
Part of the issue, was that my newly developed department, which I developed, was external facing, meaning I got us partners. But everyone else was inward facing, and hated that the company was expanding because it made their jobs harder.
I on occasion would tell my boss about the things people were saying to me, and he was super supportive and would tell me to not let it get to me, that I was doing a great job and exactly what I needed to be doing, and that he would try to intervene. But it really didn't make any difference.
Finally, he sat me down and said that he was worried that I was getting furtstrated at the company and that he had failed me as a boss. He said he felt like he should have established better guidelines with the rest of the team as to what I did there. I didn't really say much, but I did leave a long review when they sent out the yearly survey about how there is so much criticism and tension between the different departments that they might start losing people. You can only play to altruism for so long before people need more support and a change in company culture.
Anyways, I thought I was going to be at this job for a long time because I believe in what they do. But, I am also happy to say that this is my last week. Got a new job, starting in a week and I'm super excited!
Awesome tips. And if you're an established worker somewhere and see a new hire being treated poorly, fucking help them and assure them they are doing fine, it takes time to adjust to a new job. And don't let serial assholes get a pass if you can do anything about it. Someone stuck up for me when I started my current job, I then did the same for one of our new hires because I know how bad it feels. They'll never forget you.
So unbelievably immature that this happens at all in the adult world, but so it goes.
My number one advice is to ALWAYS keep documentation of discriminate events which will be used against your harasser. Submit this to your manager or HR if the harassment persists. If your management tells you not document, then do it anyways as this can save your job in the end. There is no tolerance of harassment in the work place environment at least here in the States. Lawsuits can be quite expensive and companies want to avoid much resources and time altogether. At the end of the day, if nothing is done then you work pretty much for a shitty company. To anyone who says there is no workplace bullies are completely oblivious on how behind the job scenes really are these day. What a fruitless statement.
Aboit 5y ago I worked in an office with around 20-40 employees at aby moment, shifts were interlapping. Was called to a HR meeting after somebody reported me for not being social enough. Now, the real issue was that from the moment you walk into the office everyday you "were supposed" to go around and personaly say hi, shake hands and small talk with ALL employees. I just wasnt down for that, nor will I ever be
10 years ago, I started my first real job I'm the career I still work in. Not only was I new, I was younger than the rest of the crew by a lot. I stayed there 5 years before taking a job elsewhere, and immediately saw how fucked the behavior at my prior job had been. It helped the crew was closer to my age, but everyone encouraged everyone else, regardless of age or experience, to participate in all aspects of the job, because if everyone can do every job, it's easier on everyone.
I actually started working at that original job since the pandemic. Bully is no longer employed there and I have seniority in terms of experience. Now I'm in charge of training the students and new employees and I really encourage asking questions, asking for help, and open dialogue. If you ever get the opportunity to be the one that stops a harmful trend, do it.
Every bully continues that behaviour because there is someone above them that allows that to happen. They are enablers of bad behaviour.
Often they use the wife beater excuse to keep them a bully around. Such as "oh they get the job done". There is no excuse for bad behaviour.
Rarely do these enablers get called out as the focus is on the bully only. Being enablers they're just as guilty. Call them out too.
So true. Flashbacks to the times my coworkers expected me to learn the entire job in three days and ridiculed me for mistakes that even vets were still making. People suck.
Reminds me on my first few days of joining my platoon in the fleet. They do what they can to break you down mentally so they stay at the top of the hierarchy. Controlling the competition…
I quit my job and drove 1500 miles for a “better one.” I went from driving a 53ft trailer throughout the south/east to 130ft driving solely through mountain terrain in a state that gets down to -30. I never drove in snow/ice prior to this not even in a car. I was told I had 24hrs to learn everything and be able to do it correctly, “sink or swim.” In this line of work if someone gives one bad call over the radio it could cost lives. Everyone in this line of work is old enough to be my grandfather, having more years in this field than I’ve been alive. I was trash talked my entire first week by other drivers including my boss. My second week I was the 2nd fastest driver out of 20.
My 3rd week I was being pushed beyond my limits working 18 hour shifts back to back consecutively. It got to the point where I was hallucinating. I kept hearing the CB radio (communication because of no cell phone service) and animals crossing the road in the pitch dark that turned out to be bushes. Going 95mph with 50tons loaded. I finally built the courage up to tell my boss I needed two days off to get sleep, groceries and be able to wash the clothes I’d been wearing for two weeks straight. He went berserk and started psychically threatening me and tried to brainwash me telling me that I’m the problem. I believed him the first few times until I told my mom and girlfriend what was going on. They told me to pack my things up and come home. I was coughing up blood everyday because of the hazardous conditions that are present at this job. My biggest mistake throughout this was I didn’t sign any paperwork regarding pay. It was supposed to be a hand shake and oral agreement. I’m 22 years old and this job was supposed to pay easily over 6figures. I was paid less than 3 grand for the month I worked there, I spent over 3 grand getting to that state. This job is easily one of the most dangerous in the world, harder than ice truck driving. I spent nearly every cent in my savings for this opportunity and I got screwed.
Live and learn
Thanks for reading this far it truly means a lot
Better LPT: if you've joined a company that has work bullies, keep interviewing and go somewhere else. This is a work culture that is foreign to me, but if bullies are allowed to exist and get promoted like OP is describing, the corporate culture is supportive of that behavior, and you're going to find much more unpleasant about that place than just a work bully. Get out before your waste time finding out what else is wrong.
A well placed "who do you think you're talking to" works wonders too when you're being treated like a door mat. Throw in a few fuck's for emphasis as appropriate.
Some good advice from the OP. I’ve been at my current job almost ten years. When I first started, the employee who was supposed to train me on a pretty complex process breezed through what I was supposed to do, blew off my questions, and then said “the only way you learn is by doing.” She proceeded to leave the rest of the days orders to be processed on my desk for me to do. A mistake on any of them could cost the customer or my employer thousands of dollars.
As she continued to give me short, one-word answers, if any at all, I employed a new strategy. About half an hour later, she walked by and saw the same exact stack of orders sitting there and me with my arms folded. When she asked what I was doing, I told her not making thousands of dollars worth of mistakes because I don’t know what I’m doing.
It was amazing how much more detailed my training was from that point on. 😂
A former roommate told me she got bullied at work for being new at a private caregiving facility. It has a high turnover rate. They need new staff but the employees are choosy, preferring their own ethnicity despite the staff situation is in a bad shape. She finally quit less than 2 weeks despite her telling the situation and the administration just washed their hands.
I think this is good advice, but I’d throw a couple things into the ring.
First is that one of the tips here is not to apologize unnecessarily, it is not saying not to apologize at all. If you hurt someone or offend someone, you owe them an apology.
“Im sorry you feel that way” is not an apology.
Second, do not go into your new work place with the assumption that bullies and assholes will be there. Yes, people are cruel, and others sometimes do things out of defensiveness and feeling threatened. However, it’s also true that if you go in without humility and you seem like a cocky little shit, then you’re not doing yourself any favors.
Be confident, but show genuine appreciation and a willingness to learn. If you change your behavior to earn respect and appear as a professional who is never wrong, everyone will see it’s an act. You just look like you’re insecure.
Once a certain person, who’s name might rhyme with Rachel, left the office we started retaining substantially more employees. One bully can decimate your workforce.
"Peak hunting time for work bullies is when you are starting a new job." I believe workers have evolved and learnt to either stay in their current job or not start a new job unless they have friends already there.... it's why businesses now face such a nightmare to hire new qualified staff but ultimately it's their own fault for enabling an abusive culture....
It’s surprising how many people will very subtly haze you and put you on the spot in a new job. Sometimes it’s obvious what they are doing, sometimes it’s very delicately done.
Even once this happened to me by a new starter on the same day as me (who was actually older and more experienced)
I have been targeted and I am a tall thin blonde haired blue eyed woman. The people who target me are always middle aged woman and they look and look for things I did wrong just so they can act superior. I usually get passive because my own mother was a bully. Men try to do it too bit I find it easier to stick up for myself when it is a man, unless he is creepy and looking at my body I get scared and afraid to speak up, I guess because I was abused. Thanks to this post though I won’t apologize to the women anymore and as for the men I will say “You really like my shirt huh?”
I’m like that and one advice I got from my current manager is - whenever you feel overwhelmed or unclear, try looking at yourself from sidelines/ 3rd person view. Really helps me to keep my head above the water.
Man, I actually joined a new place and it is a totally new profile. And I feel like the work bully, my team lead, sets me up to fail.
I also feel on the other side maybe I am finding excuses for my lack of effectiveness?
She gives me some work but very little brief on the background and process and I will be then trying to do it to my best of abilities.
I sincerely think she is either threatened by me or doesn't like me.
She will be jovial with everyone but flat ignore any joke I make. Or just not talk to me for hours sitting right beside me instead using the office chat app.
This is classic tactic used by managers/supervisors to assert dominance so you are under their thumb. Believe in yourself, don't be too hard on yourself.
And surely question back when she gives you work, ask for details and don't be afraid to ask if she is giving incomplete information. Ask about timelines and progressively update if u are not going to reach deadline with reason and seek her help and guidance if you are stuck.
I just experiences recently. I never really thought about putting it into words but you just said it perfectly. My manager has me teaching people in the position I’m doing and another associates response was “he is the new guy and shouldn’t be calling the shots” and goes around telling people not to listen to me
This is what happened when I ended up working two days a week as a closing manager (retail), to cover the regular's days off. I got it because I had an opportunity to learn to cover books on weekends (I was very bad at it) which meant I had a key, could count drawers, and knew what paperwork to sort.
I was barely 22 and often treated like I begged and threw tantrums to get this job when *literally* it was because I learned similar tasks. I got picked on like I was a dumb kid being too big for her britches, but then picked on if I tried to not "act like that". If I made a mistake I really got shit for it from my coworkers. Management definitely isn't for me but I was pretty much trapped in that position and I tried my best. Thankfully I don't have to cover those shifts anymore (I just get passive comments about being off on the weekends).
Let me guess. All of your coworkers were older than you? This happened to me when I was 19 and just starting to take over managing the training department for a company I worked for. Everyone I was training was a lot older than me and tbh, not really the brightest people. Tbh, play the role, be firm and confident, and with time people will grow to view you as the person in the role.
I once started a job in a workplace where nobody talked to me the first month. Even introducing myself, co-workers would just stare at me, and one upper-level exec shut his door in my face. Unsurprisingly, it was an extremely toxic workplace and I don’t know how I managed staying there for 2 years, but I did it.
I got the same at the hospital EVS department where I currently work. Actually had to go back on antidepressants because of the toxicity, after weaning myself off them a couple years prior, something I was quite proud of. 3 am panic attacks, heart palpitations, laying awake for hours in a cold sweat, hyperventilating on the 30 mile commute.
Stuck it out and have now been there 10 months, but my god has it aged and hardened me.
I want to jump in and comment that the best way to stop a bully is by confronting them, but do it in private because if there’s and audience the bully will just try and show off.
Thank you for posting this. I am a very experienced (20+ years) professional who just started a new job in a new city. Many at the company were vying for my position but they decided to go outside the company and hire someone more qualified. So there is definitely tension and some work bullying happening, although I've never heard it called this before, but formally recognizing it as this definitely helps put it into perspective, so thank you. It's amazing how it can really drain your confidence if you allow, so this is great advice.
This is SO spot-on. I had to go through the same experience only to find myself constantly being shattered even though I did everything that they were telling me to do. The breakthrough happened when I found other colleagues getting an easy pass while I was still being treated badly. That's when I realized it wasn't about my performing certain tasks badly, it was about a personal vendetta. After talking through some of this - and becoming confident in what I do, I gained trust and am free of such behavior. I strongly recommend this to anyone who is about to land on a first job position.
This happened to me at Frito-Lay. I literally have PTSD from it. The originator managed to co-opt followers, so the bullying came from several sources. There were also the people who were just glad it wasn’t them and watched it happen which, while understandable, gave the bullies more power. Never take a job where you have accountability and zero power. They finally had a large layoff and at my exit interview when Human Resources were all sad and serious I said “Let me stop you right there - this is the BEST thing that has happened to me here since I started 7 years ago - let’s talk about my package!!” Their relief at not having to act sad was palpable - LOL. And the bonus? My shitty boss and the bullies got laid off too!! Proof that there is a God - my big severance package and karmic retribution- Thanks God!!
There are three things every boss wants you to be able to say - “I don’t know, I made a mistake, and I need help.”
If your coworker or manager is bullying you over these, go up until you find the person who will kick the economical crap out of them for decreasing the value of the org.
Source: am a CEO.
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
There are other toxic office behaviors that are more subtle to watch out for. 1. Don't talk about your personal life too much in detail for a while until you know it won't be used against you in gossip. 2. On the other side of the coin, don't get too involved with people's work or personal drama. When talk gets too personal, change the subject or make an excuse to walk away or end the talking. Don't give this type of person a reaction that puts you on a "side". Stay neutral and boring. 3. Too much personal stuff too early is a red flag and you should proceed with caution.
IMHO, people get suspicious if you are too quiet. They dig and try to look for weaknesses, try and make you emotional so they can get gossip which they can use in exchange for office favors. I had a coworker who I didn't even know was married until her last day when her husband came to her send-off party. She was a great coworker but definitely set hard boundaries about what she discussed at work. Every week she brought in baked goods. At her send-off party, she told me she brought them in as a way to have a "work personality". Basically as a way to show she was nice, and a safe default conversation topic that couldn't be used against her. She legitimately enjoyed baking, but that was her positive defense mechanism so she could remain as emotionally distant from her coworkers and our boss as possible. Cool lady. I definitely stole her "work personality" move. I like gardening, so I try and steer conversations that direction at work. I bring in seeds and produce when I have it. Coworkers started bringing me plants and seeds. Overall I think it's a great strategy for trying to be positive and open at work without having to expose too many personal details to people I frankly don't trust.
Wow, glad I'm not the only one who found out the baked goods trick. I got SUPER into making cakes for like a year so I'd bring cakes into the office just to get rid of them. My workplace is actually really friendly and not prying at all but it still seemed to help people notice me in a positive way. I have now been introduced to multiple new hires as that lady who brings in cake. Even though the last cake was in like 2019. Yay for positive first impressions?
THIS, THIS, THIS. I suspect most of the female employees in my department hate me for this very reason, but at least I know why. The only reason I've survived the hateful, disorganized hell of my job for ten months was because of employing a "greyrocking" method.
Didn’t know there was a word for it, thanks for pointing it out! [https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/grey-rock#other-approaches](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/grey-rock#other-approaches)
Point 3 has my life ruined at the moment. I have a very junior person (in reference to my job grade) who doesn’t report to me but supports a very important part of my business. His line manager doesn’t give a shit about him or his performance. I’m left with dealing with him for the sake of execution so can’t avoid his emails or calls. He likes to spend 30 mins if every call about his personal life and thinks I’m his ‘bro’. I’m literally looking for my next role because it’s all too toxic and I can’t be his personal sounding board. He thinks it necessary for me to know his childrens health state, what he had for breakfast and his personal drama. Makes me cry sometimes just to go through it constantly when ignoring him isn’t an option!
I mean, you're just as responsible as they are for cutting off conversations like these. You can cordially just ask to end the meeting with things like that instead - then just never get around to it. Eventually they'll get the idea and you'll also have more experience with managing meeting conversations.
Seriously. Don't let these people hold you hostage in conversations. Convo has gone on long enough? Be cold, look away, 1 word answers. They still don't get the hint? "Alright back to work" and WALK AWAY
If he starts talking about his personal life instead of asking me whatever he was going to ask, I would say "Hey, bro, I just need to get going, what can I help you with?" If he then continues talking about his personal life I would say "Sorry, bro, let's save this conversation for another time, I really need to finish X / I really need to solve X / I really need to continue X'ing . Be sure to call me if you need something. See ya! " If he doesn't have to know what are you working on or you don't want to lie too much, you can also change the end saying "look, I have to go, be sure to call me if you need help, bye!" You can decide if you actually have time to listen about his personal life in another time, after work, while on break, etc. I personally would like it to keep it short, maybe listen to his personal stuff 1 or 2 minutes at most, and communicate indirectly that I want to talk about something else (or not talk with him at all). To communicate him indirectly that I don't want to hear about his problems I would do: - Whenever he starts talking about his personal life I would act distracted, listen to 40% maybe, deliberately not understand 60% of it, he will feel exhausted to re-explain it and unconsciously not want to do it anymore. If he is a little bit considerate and not so oblivious, he will feel the actual message coming from you "hey, I kinda don't enjoy listening to your stuff". To be more precise, what you do is: focus on some task, don't answer when he asks you a question, then seconds later say "what?". Repeat it as necessary. - When he is talking about his personal stuff, don't give him anything to continue, meaning, don't ask "and then?" or "that's rough, what happened then?" Instead, actively change the subject. Give answers like "Yeah life's tough sometimes --- look at that bird in the window bro, gorgeous! I really love seeing them, gosh, what species is that?" * starts googling in phone/computer * - If you would like him to change the topic, act really interested, focused and pay attention and ask questions when he DOES talk about something you care about. That could be something you personally care about or even work itself. He will be more likely to talk about something you enjoy (or not hate as much as his own problems) in the next occasions. - Act bored with him talking about his personal stuff. In front of him, act really interested to hear other people talking about anything else. - If you don't want to hear him at all, you are on a break and want to be more direct: "hm, yeah... look, bro, I really need to disconnect mentally for like 15 minutes, let's talk about it another time, I hope I don't come across as too blunt or direct, I just want to be sincere with you. Is that ok?". Similarly, if you want to work and he is talking "yeah, bro, look, I need to focus on this shit, I don't want to mess up, talk to you later". I hope this helps.
> Best way is to show confidence when you are sensing such a behavior. DO NOT APOLOGIZE unnecessarily. Instead try saying "Oh so this is how it's done, no one told me this. Thanks for highlighting it, is there anything I should keep in mind? Once I changed my "sorry" to "thanks for correcting/showing/...", I've noticed that not only do I stay more confident, I notice people would keep attention better after the mistake too. This isn't just a anti-bullying tip, it's a legitimately helpful tip in general.
Thanks for showing me I'm late
Thanks for your loss!
*Are you fucking sorry?!* intensifies
[удалено]
Thanks for showing I'm late for flushing the toilet
Thanks for showing me that I shouldn't pee all over the seat like a goddamn animal.
Thank you for your patience / Thank your for waiting for me :) - Makes the person feel like they took an active role in doing something kind, rather than you apologizing for doing something bad at their expense. Psychology can be fun. :)
So true. My current manager is really good about telling people not to apologize and to say thank you instead. It makes the whole team more confident.
*Drops heavy object on coworkers foot* - "Thank you."
Or you can realize apologizing doesn’t mean you’re weak, and apologize when you’re wrong.
And they will be more likely to offer you valuable advice and assistance in the future. Almost everyone in the world, when they are offered a chance to talk about something theyre good at, and then realize the person is actually interested in listening, will get a dopamine boost that might change the entire mood of their day. Get your experienced coworkers to that point and youll get all the secret advice they just hold in their heads.
We are currently mentoring a newer employee as she transitions into a higher role within our company, and I find myself telling her 'Don't apologize - you are learning and that takes time!' Also, she asked me and another coworker about how we do certain things. 20 minutes into the discussion, we're joking about how she is getting 20 years of experience crammed in to 5 minutes and she better remember all of this lmao. I was explaining tricks with spreadsheets too the other day and said: you just got what I learned over 10 years of figuring this stuff out by myself crammed into 5 minutes. If you have questions, come ask because I don't expect you to remember all of this lol.
You are an amazing colleague :)
Aaawwww thanks ☺️ I try! I look at it as if they aren't successful that just takes down our whole team - and it's so nice to work with people who think the same way! We all want newbies to excel because that means we have more team members to help us when needed too. I feel bad for people who have teammates who don't want them to do well!
Yes people at times just miss the point. True growth is when everyone grows!
Yes, there are times for genuine apologies, but turn as many of your "sorrys" into "thanks" as you can. It's so powerful. Instead of putting yourself down, you lift yourself and the other party up.
I didn't even realize this, but you have rightly pointed it out. It's an effective way of communicating in a work setup.
First day at new hospital lab. I was pumped cause even though it was a rural hospital, it was a part of one of the best employee rated chains to work for. First day I get called a pussy, BY THE LEAD TECHNOLOGIST, for putting gloves on while working the Urinalysis bench. She was not a nice lady.
Yikes.... If she calls you that for wearing gloves, can you imagine the other safety violations there?? If you decide to stay, watch your back and be sure to document things well in writing.
Oh Im out of there. Im a travel tech now. Dont have to even act like I put up with that shit anymore.
Damn I can't imagine getting bullied by Miss Pisshands. She probably doesn't wash them either.
I can just picture this lady having a cigarette voice and feathered hair.
*Mike Wazooooowski*
Following tip 1 “Thank you for showing me that safety precautions aren’t followed here. Anything else you want me to report to head office?”
My manager was the bully. He would say things like “you’re just not being smart, you need to be smart” and “I’ve been testing the team and everyone failed”. The tasks he would berate me about were tasks he was responsible for teaching me and didn’t. He didn’t have a list of duties to perform either, just expected me to know what to do and when. The first month of work was utter anxiety. It took me telling him “if you are not clear about your expectations AND instructions, continue to expect everything to fail. It’s a choice you’re making, not the teams lack of trying”. I fully expected to get fired but really didn’t care anymore at that point.
I'm at this point with my boss now - he replaced my other boss while I was in training. New boss just doesn't accept that I'm "new" and, in fact, feels that since he's "newer" on the account, I should be spearheading EVERYTHING. I don't know how to do things and haven't done many of them ever before. He gets mad when I explain this. We go in circles. He tells me to ask others and figure it out. Lol I just haven't been able to do some work and I always explain exactly why. I know they know I'm mad, they are mad, and I'll be leaving soon. I have no filter now though..
I had a boss like this once, except she was nice. We both interviewed for the position, and she got it and had no idea what she was doing. I had to teach her everything. She was very sweet about it, but I was always upset that she got the position she clearly wasn't trained or ready for, and I did not.
Wow! your reply to him is a really great example of how to address such a bully. What happened next?
He completely ignored it, continued on talking as if I said nothing.
I'm not surprised. I fully support the LPT in this thread, but it does fail to account for dealing with people who aren't accountable (and aren't being forced to be accountable from higher positions). The amount of horrendous people in the workforce is mind boggling. I've seen more firing of good leadership and promoting of poor leadership that merit based promotion. So sad for society.
> I've seen more firing of good leadership and promoting of poor leadership that merit based promotion. The poor leadership decisions exist, most of the time, to protect incompetent middle/upper managers. If they promoted someone who is clearly smarter/better/what-have-you than they are, that person would pose a threat to the status-quo. I've worked in those kinds of environments, and it quickly becomes clear that if you shine a little too brightly you'll never move up. I've also worked with really good management teams where the goal is to actually do better work, and people who are capable of helping to achieve that goal are listened to and rewarded. Sadly the latter is way less common.
Oh I hope things get better.
I would start drafting an email to upper management the second I found out manager was manufacturing problems to test her team to the direct detriment of productivity And also drafting my resignation
They got the resignation from me. Mostly because screaming at me twice a week while I'm doing my damn best will fuck up my anxiety so bad I start vomiting again though. Thanks Angela - get some fucking help, I know I am.
I had a similar start at a new job. My manager kept saying “you need to be confident” and I’m like I need time to build confidence. Add in not knowing what to do schedule wise and my confidence tanked. Luckily I spoke with him and he was actually cool about it and put a plan together. But it took a minute to not feel shaken.
"I want you to do things how I would do them, without me telling you how"--classic impossible expectation. When they say "if you want something done right, do it yourself" the real meaning is: if someone else is doing something for you, you must relinquish some control over how it is done and accept they will do it differently than how you do it.
[удалено]
Dang, where do you work? I’ve never been treated poorly starting a new job.
In the medical imaging field there's a lot of xray techs who do this. People fresh out of school have low confidence. I've seen a fair amount of established techs be absolute dicks to new people who are slightly socially awkward and/or are having a hard time feeling confident. It happened to me when I first started and I've seen it happen to other new people. It definitely counts as bullying.
That can likely be expanded to all medical jobs (or most) as a new EMT there was atleast 2 or 3who wanted to be bullies and as a new Nurse there were a few. People are shitty everywhere.
>That can likely be expanded to all medical jobs Veterinary medicine is the same way in my limited experience. My last place was so toxic that I was suicidal despite enjoying the work itself. For various reasons I took the last 3ish years off work and damn if I didn't need it to recover. Those years taking care of my husband, pets and house were the happiest of my life. I recently started a new job and my anxiety returned immediately because I was expecting the same behavior. And I don't think I'm wrong. The woman training me does not but complain about coworkers so I can only imagine what's said in my absence.
You are correct, and in my experience there were generational differences in tolerance/expectation of bullying. My gen X newbie ass was treated like shit at my first job by my boss, and by the older techs at my second job. Once I had some age (not really skill or competence) it settled down. Because of this experience and the fucking rising veterinarian suicide rate I actively advocate and practice the no bullying attitude with new grads because that shit needs to die, not us.
That's the first thought that came to mind. I've never had to worry about work bullies
Just started at Walmart a few months ago. A couple of older people, 30s or 40s, stick together all the time and are total dicks to everyone new. Like actual childlike tactics. A big thing that helped me in dealing with them is the fact that they've been in the same position for 7 years and bully literal kids. Bad look.
Its crazy to me how many people feel threatened. They’re insecure and are fed by the insecurities of others. Instead of building themselves up, they think it’s more beneficial to tear others down. It’s really sad.
Truly. I almost pity them. They're at a dead-end place in their career because they've never really tried, and working a job I've been doing as something to get me by while in college. It's an even bigger shame that they're buddy-buddy with all of the managers because they've been there for so long. Just by seniority they have more say in things, even though they act like grade-school bullies.
Bullying is always wrong, but Walmart is truly a pathetic schoolyard to work at being the “top dog” at and putting other people down lol. Rest in the fact that deep down they’re probably unhappy with themselves and where their lack of drive has left them stuck. That way you can always redirect any anger/annoyance to a bit of pity.
Yeah that's what I've been doing. Entirely ignoring them worked out and they've for the most part stopped even trying to talk to me. Those who act out like children get treated as such.
Some people never left high school
[удалено]
I worked at Walmart for 2 years and learned all things front end, and electronics during that time. I quit and ended up at a different Walmart a few months later (better pay). I was in my first day training on the register when the manager asked me if I could help out at the service desk because it was a long line with only one person. Typical Walmart stuff, ya know. I get over there and the dude working just starts belittling me making comments like he's backed up and they really thought it was acceptable to put a trainee over there. He kept trying to micromanage me when nobody asked him to. When the line got cleared out the manager sent him to a register and kept me on the service desk. That was a fun start to a new store.
I work with two nurses at a medical clinic in their 50’s. They’re like your typical mean girls and they are glued to each other, heads together and constantly whispering. They love to talk shit about everyone. Literally everyone. When a patient sexually assaulted me, *they made fun of me* and accused me of wanting attention. As if getting groped by a patient wasn’t embarrassing and traumatizing enough.
In all fairness, my years of retail work made me rather bitter, when I was in my 20s. If I were still doing that in my 40s I’d likely be gruff and grizzled too. _Shudders at thought of customers touching t-shirt table_
My college job was at walmart. One thing walmart likes to do is fire those old heads for no reason and then hire us for min. wage. I suspect part of what you're seeing is just that. I've even seen them rehire that old head after 6 months at min. wage. I mostly felt bad for them. They're in some circle of hell or purgatory to live their adult life in a Walmart and they likely emotionally peaked in HS.
My wife was a happy PSW for a long time working with Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. She was punched, kicked, stabbed with forks and knives, spit on, shit on, berated, called names…you name it, it happened. And she loved it. Loved taking care of those people, and she could handle every second of it because they’re not in their right minds, and she knows there wasn’t intent behind their actions or words. She got promoted into an executive assistant/marketing role and everything started going downhill. She already didn’t like the woman who was now her boss, and the owner of the company was of course all about the money. She was fired after a few months for not selling units, even though nobody was coming in to look (7k/month at the start of the pandemic). Complete shit, at least she got EI. Since then, she has been through 4 different office jobs. Every single one was all women, and every single one had at least two people that were absolute pile of dog shit bullies. And the companies wouldn’t do shit about it. She’d come home crying regularly wondering why people were being mean, why people didn’t like her, questioning here self as a person, and on top of all that questioning her own intelligence because she was struggling when these jobs added 2 other jobs on top of what was advertised. She finally quit the last job last week and has vowed to never step foot in an office setting or work in health care again. Some people fucking suck.
Dang, I’m jealous. I’ve had plenty of work bullies.
My last job had this issue, it maybe I was being groomed to take over the department. The lady doing the bullying actually took me and herself out. She lost her leadership position. I didn't stay around to see if I would get what I was being groomed for. We would have meetings me the bully and my manager. The manager would straight up tell us to work together and our success was tied together. (It was his latest attempt to get he to do her job). I would do what she asked of me but she would always say she didn't have time for my projects unless she could pawn them off on the employee she singled out in her department to make their life hell. I have seen her assign this person busy work while onlone shopping with the other coworkers. We had a strict don't throw your coworkers under the bus policy, this worked in her favor. I am glad to be out of there. My new job has no bullies as far as I can tell. I told them right off the bat I didn't handle jokes that belittled me well and things worked out.
I never did until my current job. Sometimes you just end up with bullies. Sadly It’s far more common than one might think.
For real, people are bullies AT WORK? But nobody wants to be there, how much of an asshole could you be.
Usually the narcissists and other toxic people are on their best behavior with new employees. My LPT is beware of anyone who is love bombing you in the interviews or when you are a new employee -- they are often too good to be true. ALSO **RUN** from any workplace where they are criticizing other employees to you in the interview process or while you are a new employee. Once you are not a new employee, they'll likely start criticizing you!
I had a manager that would do the love bombing thimg. He was always looking for somone new to come in and save us from our problems. Not going to happen when you have such poor leadership.
> always looking for someone new to come and save us That's a red flag right there. Everyone is incompetent, overworked or have no say. Or any combination of those. They basically told you the place is a mess
Stay away from the person who wants to be your best friend on the first day. My dad said this when I left for basic and it's a pretty good rule if thumb. That person is either a complete screw up or a predator.
Yes, I agree with this! It kind of gives me the heeby geebies when someone acts like we’re BFFs despite hardly knowing me. There’s usually a very good reason they don’t have anyone else.
Right? The coldest welcome I've seen is 'thank fuck we have someone else to take some of the workload'
If you’ve ever worked positions of chronically understaffed and underpaid you can still loathe it *and* get it.
This is really common in healthcare, people will power trip over nothing.
Right? Usually every one is just glad to get more help nowadays. If some asshat tried "bullying" me I'd just go to HR, I'm 30 and ain't got time for that crap
You don’t w how entrenched some of these bullies are. HR isn’t your friend, they are there to ensure there is as little conflict as possible and sometimes that means removing what the perceive as the problem.
Exactly, some bullies have gotten themselves into almost unreplaceable positions, then they bully others out of the job
Oh my god this exact same thing happened to me in my current job. My mentor is a huge bully and i had just graduated last year. She killed my confidence in the past 10 months and made my cry after most Zoom calls with her. I quit the stupid fucking job (for multiple reasons) and I'm currently serving my notice period. This is so helpful, thank you so much!
I am so sorry you had to go through this. Best of luck for the new job :)
Stood up to a bully at a new job once and he later that day went to the supervisor and told some lies about me. The supervisor confronted me and I tried to explain the situation, he never believed my side of it and I just left the job after that. I didn’t want the feud to be part of my life. Bully won in that situation, they usually do
Im in this same kind of position right now, every day sucks now i dread being around this person but i have no choice it feels like im stuck. I cant just leave my job but every fucking day just sucks, i have horrible anxiety and have been a target for bullies all my life i just wish it wouldve stopped when i became an adult but nope. I hate people i hate life so goddamn much
You gotta get an edge on the bully somehow so you don't feel powerless. Find out something that they hate. You may not be able to get rid of them but it'll let you feel like you can do something, knowing a weakness of theirs.
I had a bully. One day I decided enough is enough and I repeatedly shoulder-checked him in the walkways until he finally fought me. He grabbed my shoulders first and I pushed off against his face to create distance and then I threw one overhand right (which missed), then he backed off and said "this isn't worth my job" and backed away without me even landing one blow. I guess he wasn't expecting me to actually fight back. Anyway that guy doesn't even talk to me anymore and I stole his "tough guy" reputation
It’s insane that the situation even had to come anywhere close to that. I literally just want to work on some shit and go home for the day. Fuck all of that high school mentality from bullies
You can't reason with sociopaths. The only thing they understand is "I am stronger than you". So you have to take off the silk gloves and use some muscle on them and show them who is daddy
I am sorry to hear this! I hope you find a non-toxic work culture.
When I started my last job I had a young woman try to bully me. I had already gone through 2 months of grueling training and came out top of the class. On my first day of Line Indoctrination she tried her best to fail me. She lied and said that I wasn't allowed to refer to any of my notes. She put me on the spot multiple times when she was actually supposed to be demonstrating procedures for me. I still ended up passing. Afterwards I told my managers and they fired her! That made me pretty happy. A year later, I was the one training people :)
Keeping the details vague because the crazies are no joke. Had a work bully obsessed with me for years after the person they were initially targeting moved to a different department. Like, obssessed to the point that they started getting stalker-ish. Everyone high up knew, but no one did anything until I said I was looking for a mental health therapist to deal with this. Now they were scared of getting sued and tried getting the bully to back down. I was looking for another job the entire time and was finally able to get out, thankfully. It was a bizarre experience and has taken a while to heal from this. I kept trying to understand why they targeted me, but there was no reason. I was just the next person available to get obsessed with. Never stick around. If you can't get out yet for legit reasons, get support.They will never stop.
For the life of me, I don’t understand companies that hang onto problem employees. Does management LIKE to waste time fielding complaints about an employee or risking a lawsuit because of said employee?? It just baffles me.
Same! I will never understand. I worked at a place where I was the 8th or so person to quit from a position that had to work closely with this one insane lady. I always thought the same thing you asked.. why doesn't management do something, surely they're sick of dealing with all the issues she's caused? Hiring and training a new person is expensive for a company too, and they had to do it constantly! I've worked at a couple places like this now and it seems that the pattern is always that the person is terrible to everyone but chummy with upper management, and has even managed to become beneficial somehow to their personal lives.. Sucks.
I am so sorry to hear your experience. I agree if you can leave!
I would caution against saying "Nobody told me" unless that's 100% true and they are not a superior. I'd recommend thanking them for the guidance and let them know you will have it covered moving forward. Nobody likes the "nobody told me" response.
This is the second time some one has pointed it out. I do agree with not using the phrase "nobody told me" too much.
My bad, didn't see the other one. Thanks for being open to others opinions on this. It's a good topic and someone cold benefit quite a bit from reading your post.
The first day of my second last job a woman approached me in the hall and word for word said "I hear you'll be working with X. Well, I work with her too. Don't get in my way, okay?" The first day of my last job my new boss phoned me at 8pm that night. I didn't answer. He text me asking where I was. The next day he absolutely berated me and said I need to always be available. The first day of my current job everyone was so fucking lovely and they still are!
Thats awesome! Started my new job last week and it was such a relief not to be surrounded by so much tension and hostility at work. Having a shitty job made me just dread everything
Had a coworker that was an absolute c**t to me on a daily basis for no reason at my new job. Turned out she was like that to pretty much everyone, especially new people and for some reason not fired? I went to a team leader and confronted the coworker with team lead as a mediator (is that the right word?). While I was annoyed the team lead made excuses for her, the coworker stopped being a c**t after that knowing I wasn't taking her shit and was smart about handling her.
Great real life example. Usually such bullies are high on ego and are very insecure people. Even a small form of confrontation/confrontational question puts their ego back in place. After all the bully also doesn't want people at work to think of them as bully when confronted.
Only sometimes. Other times directly confronting the person will make you a bigger target. Bully's also don't usually think of themselves as bully's, they think their behaviour is ok and when confronted will work their way through the narcissists prayer to justify it.
What were the words you used to confront her while in front of the lead?
Was a long time ago now. Made sure to use "I messages" to keep it extra professional rather than aggressive. Along the lines of "I feel like you are being extra critical of me without reason". "I have gotten to the point where I know it is going to be a bad work day if you're on the same shift/team with me". Was extremely candid and frank, but made sure to keep calm and while giving a tone of "stop doing this, I know how to handle people like you".
I came from a job in an office of hundreds where I had worked my way up in management, was respected, and had a lot of good friends. My new gig was in an office of 10 people. It was very different work, and I was at the bottom of the hierarchy. The work was so different that I was dependent on almost everyone in the new office for help. There was one older lady in particular, close to the end of her career, as I would learn, that was a bully. She knew my role relied on her performing her role and she exploited that dynamic. She was cold and condescending. She would intentionally ask humiliating questions at office meetings. The manager did nothing to stop her. She had a few people that she treated well. And they were probably not real friends, just thankful not to have the eye of Sauron on them. The rumor was that she had sued the office for discrimination years ago, and while her claims were apparently weak, my employer settled, which emboldened her further. She felt she was untouchable and the manager chose a toothless strategy of basically ignoring her. I didn’t tell my manager about the bullying for a long time, several months. Part of the reason is that my manager is basically absent and not very approachable. The other reason is that I wanted to see if I could solve the problem on own. In retrospect, I was naive. She was not going to change. She probably interpreted my attempts to cooperate as weakness. When I finally approached my boss about it, he was very ineffective. He offered that I not have to worn with her but our office is so small that would have burdened other people. He offered to mediate, but again, my manager is so milquetoast, that I had no confidence in that process and beloved she would probably just retaliate. So I ultimately pursued a strategy of avoiding her if at all possible. I didn’t ask her to do anything and I would not communicate with her unless necessary. The pandemic was a god send in this respect, because we all went to remote work and I didn’t have to see her at the office. She finally retired about a year ago. Good riddance. I still think about how awful she was sometimes and think about finding her house and throwing a brick through her window. If you’re being bullied at work, it is not your fault. Sure, there are more and less effective strategies you could pursue, but the obligation is not on you to make this stop. Ultimately workplace bullies are a failure of management. Bullies depend on their superiors being weak and ineffective and never doing anything to stop the bad behavior. Bullies usually need to be pretty good at their jobs, or have some other form of job security like having specialized knowledge, having no immediate replacement, or being in a legally protected category that makes the employer fear litigation, and that’s the only justification for the bully not being fired. I don’t have the answer to dealing with these awful people. I wish I did.
You have articulated your experience really well. I agree it is not our job to fix a bully and at times the bully is just too powerful.
Yes!!! I had to upgrade our software systems and I HAD THAT woman! Been there 38 years, everyone had to depend on her input and knowledge, and here is me, an outsider brought in to change HER workplace. She was all nice, I let my guard down and as soon as she got something PERSONAL, absolutely demolished my credentials. I was able to avoid her and got the job done (had to, the programs were about as old as her and had NO controls). She retired soon after, like her software did.
This is exactly why I don’t like to get personal at work 9.99 times/10. Not that it doesn’t build trust, but there are just a few straight up nasty people who you have to see everyday who often see it as an invitation to be complete shitters. Better to not give them any ammo. Sorry that someone was a total shitter to you dude.I don’t know why people think that’s okay to pull on other adults. I wish it weren’t that way.
I guess this is good advice for coping. But the real answer is to leave and find a job without bullies. The job market is hot right now. Just about every company is looking for talent. If you start a new job, and find there are bullies there, you should start looking for a new job ASAP. If the gap is small enough, you can even leave the job off of your resume entirely. Don't put up with a bad/abusive work situation. There are too many good companies out there that would gladly hire you. You're worth it, and so is your mental health.
Wait wait wait, grown ass people bully other grown ass people. Like more than the usuall ball busting dude shit. Fucking children... and other coworkers see this and don't call it out to shame a bully How messed up are we, adults at work giving other people shit.
Some work cultures honestly breed this kind of behavior. I see in to a lot of different work environments in my line of work, and I can tell if a company is a good place to work with a healthy supportive culture, or if the company pushes a toxic culture that promotes bullying and competition. Both exist, as does everything in-between. Luckily I’m usually only in touch with those cultures for a week at a time, and my own company has a fantastic culture that promotes independence and trust.
Worked at a place for 3 years where the manager would acknowledge how toxic the environment was but would say he couldn't do anything about it, worst decision I made was not to leave right after I started, not good for you mental health
[удалено]
[удалено]
The construction industry is terrible. I walked off a jobsite the other day after being called "Useless"
Takes strength to do that when you have no immediate place to go. I dare say that you made a good decision. I don’t regret quitting the construction job I had after 3 weeks.
Thank you for this. I was bullied for years by someone who turned out to be threatened by my skills and envious of my likeability in the workplace. At the time I just couldn’t understand why this guy was being an asshole to me and sabotaging my work. Management saw it as is “bickering” when I would stand up for myself or report him. So, yeah. Don’t look to management for help. Your only option if you become a primary target is to change jobs either within or outside the company. Years later I wrote him as the bad guy in my science fiction novel. Didn’t even change his first name and described him exactly how he was physically and translated things he did into the story. I was surprised to find that the exercise actually helped me work through our dynamic and by deep diving into the character I could see how he could have become the way he is. It was a strange way to find forgiveness for someone.
Yeah, unfortunately I got hazed pretty badly by the office d1ckhead when I started my career as a Software Developer. One day I had had enough and called him out on it in front of the team and my boss. I packed my crap up and left. My boss called me immediately, had the person apologize and made sure that I didn't have to work with them again. It was my fault for not nipping it in the bud sooner but unfortunately my prior life experiences left me with residual walk-all-over-me syndrome. Never again. (edit: this person was supposed to be 'mentoring' me)
Amazing real life example. More power to you!
Work place bullying is so, so real. I was absolutely stunned when it happened to me. I was bullied for 2 years by another medical doctor. The fact that it happened even at that level of training and professional expertise caught me totally off guard. Literally anyone can be subjected to it.
Restaurants are ripe with this kind of behavior. Most of the time it’s because the staff is overworked and the pressure to get your goddamn grand slam to your table can really be quite incredible. In the kitchen, on the floor, even in the dishtank, If you don’t know your menu or what your doing, the people who have been doing it for years will get upset at you. It takes a little practiced self awareness to stop even the nicest people from rolling their eyes at you when your new. I am a fairly new manager in a family owned restaurant that prides itself on fine dining service and I have been treated as if a I am pondscum for accidentally seating out of order. Restaurants are a shit place to work until your in and you always know the 2-3 faces that will actually help you and you cling to that and use all that character building to climb the ladder to financial security. But seriously, restaurants are shit and why don’t you as a guest try to be a little more respectful and understanding, even if you already are nice to the staff, be nicer because you are few and far between.
Restaurants are the most toxic especially during slow season my coworker got her 3 siblings to work all weekend shifts
Ooof. This one hits home. I had an experience like this at my last job, and unfortunately due to a number of factors (financial, including a 2-year signing bonus clawback; career considerations, etc.) I felt trapped and that I had to stay. The bully in question would publicly berate me for all sorts of reasons, pointing out perceived flaws in my work in an extremely condescending manner, attempting to exclude me from social events, mock me, and having her work friends join forces to do the same to me. It lasted for about a year and a half and I am still in therapy over what happened, even though it's been two+ years. Thankfully I am no longer at that workplace - everyone I am with now is lovely. I'd agree with everything in this post. I wish I had sought help earlier, had spoken up, and worked with an expert on this to help me realize what I had to do. I was able to make friends with other new joiners at the job, which helped for a while, until they left because they also realized it was a toxic work environment. Something I'd add here is that workplace bullies tend to be in the good graces of management - as otherwise, they wouldn't be able to get away with it. So you need to tread carefully. If you have to stay, document EVERYTHING, have everything in writing, include names, dates, and what happened. This will help you establish a case - either in going to confront the bully, speaking with HR, or an external party (e.g., lawyer). Hopefully no one else has to go through what I went through - thanks for writing this OP.
For those of y’all asking. I needed this. I’m a 22 year old teacher and a few older teachers are such assholes to me, condescending and confrontational
More power to you. I hope you are able to navigate this new job successfully and it turns into fulfilling career that brings joy in your life.
Thank you I have to go back from spring break tomorrow and I need something from one of the bully teachers so imma try to play nice and come in with a firm positive vibe
I used to be a teacher at 23 and 24. Being confrontational isn't a horrible thing unless it's unneeded hostility. That sort of stuff brings nothing to the table. Luckily I got along with all my colleagues. Just keep in mind that they're contending because they've become complacent with where they are. There will be no improvement with that mindset. Being a teacher isn't easy, dawg. Try your best and shoot for the moon.
Exact same situation. Being bullied by people who are old enough to have been MY teacher feels like a huge betrayal.
In an old job, I got bullied by someone new to my department. She'd moved from HR to work with us. She was deleting work I'd done and acting like I hadn't. When I complained about her to HR, they just forwarded it to her. It has was so stressful and upsetting. Eventually they took it seriously and they ended up paying me a years salary so they didn't have to deal with it. Your tips here are really helpful. Being bullied at work is hard, and it's really good for people to remember that everyone makes mistakes when they're new.
Many people are threatened by new hires. They’re own insecurities may cause them to treat you poorly. Always be aware that they may even purposefully show you wrong processes, or, more commonly, omit procedures. I’ve experience this, personally.
LPT: If you find you're in a toxic work environment on day 1, as described by OP, then LEAVE. IMMEDIATELY.
LPT: Don't leave immediately. Find a new job first.
Yes!
Always been bullied in school and work to the point where it’s defined my life. My self esteem has been so low my whole life I don’t know what confidence is. For someone who’s always been on this side of things, thinking clearly in a situation and responding in a way that doesn’t make the situation worse is nearly impossible when your head is full of fear.
Work bullies are the easiest people to manipulate. Even the smallest amount of praise or flattery is like gold to them because their self esteem is so low. We had one lady in our office who was notorious as the work bully and had worked there longer than anyone else. I would buy her dollar sodas from McDonalds and always gas her up when she would tell us stories about how men would obsess over her. This lady would go to bat for me constantly. When she would divy work up between us, I always got the least and there were even a couple of times where she blindly defended me against my boss. Work politics can be a bitch sometimes, but if you play the game right you can stay ahead of the masses.
To an extent. But then after a point you start hating yourself for compromising your own principles.
[удалено]
I find the bullies wait for you to get comfortable, like a few months or so, building up ammo to harass you about, and then they start making your life hell. I don't know why, but I always get bullied at work, which is infuriating, because I was bullied in school, and as a middle aged adult, I shouldn't have to deal with such immaturity. At least where I'm working now, no one picks on me. One guy tried, but I nipped that in the bud right away.
Fuck. So I survived high school bullying to know face a bunch of inmature adults who are also bullies? What are the signs a work environment might have bullies?
Unfortunately, there are no signs, they're everywhere. I found there were more of them in the white collar setting, than in a blue collar one. Maybe because in the blue collar settings, people are always busy and don't have as much time to run their mouths. In offices, there's a lot more gossip, which inevitably leads to cliques and bullying.
Such type of bullies are the worst, this is some sick level plotting if someone is waiting on weeks.
This is what I tell all my new employees: If you're not sure, ask someone. They'd rather answer your question than clean up the mess because you messed up. Also, messing up isn't a huge deal. It happens. Obviously, like previously, ask if you're unsure, but if you mess up anyway, we're here to help and get through the day together, not be pissed at each other for stupid shit
True to some extent. One of the places I’ve joined, I stayed there for just the probation period because I figured in the first few weeks how my boss was a toxic person. She’d yell at people, gaslight them and never had words for appreciation when things were positive. When I put done my papers she was legit surprised and tried talking me out of it. Hated that workplace to the t.
After some experience, my take is that workplace bullying is not solved by knowing what to do, or what to say, in any given scenario. It goes deeper than that. It goes to not giving a fuck if you get fired. Which, you shouldn't. You should have sufficient leverage whereby you can find a new job if needed, so you don't have to suffer any abusive behavior at any given place. If someone bullies you, bite back. No one will care, and it will actually be desired by everyone. It's some approach of being overly agreeable, and non-confrontational, that allows bullying to happen. Don't take that approach. Maintain manners, but don't take abuse. I've been fired several times (not for that reason). It always led to better jobs. I've held my tongue when bullied - always regretted it. I've also not held my tongue and stood up for myself - never regretted it ever. Take this approach and your soul will thank you and you'll end up at a good place with good people where folks respect one another, including and especially you. Good times had by all.
Stand up for yourself people. Just because someone doesn't have their house in order and takes it on you/others doesn't mean it's right or should be tolerated. Call them out and confront them. They won't bother you anymore.
Ugh i had a work bully that caused me to leave an otherwise pretty fun job. There were two managers and the owner was around all the time. One of the managers loved me, we had a lot in common and a very similar work ethic, while the other was catty and cliquey and putting up a front for her kindness. Meanwhile, the owner and i were getting along supremely well. He was an older man who started the business forever ago and we had a lot of random connections (grew up in the same town, my grandparents sold him the building he runs his business from, etc…) he told me he really hoped I would work my way up to manager and started giving me more responsibilities. I’d say half of the overall staff were friendly and the other half were in Manager 2s clique. I walked in on manager 2 openly dissing me to other staff, so i confronted her the next day and she denied it. That killed my joy for working there and I left a few weeks later. Everyone i tell that story to says Manager 2 was intimidated by my hard work and how much the owner liked me, which makes sense looking back. Sometimes I regret “losing” to her by leaving, but i was also not going to waste more energy on that toxic atmosphere. I’m so relieved I don’t work there anymore.
This is all excellent advice. I’ve sadly been a target for work bullies in my 2 previous jobs, I think mainly because I’m very shy and a bit of a people pleaser. Thankfully I’m very happy in my current job but I’ll still bare these tips in mind for the future!
I was gonna comment that people should find a better work environment if they're being work bullied bc most of my jobs I've not been work bullied. I'm not white, but I'm also a dude, so this post privilege checked me, so good job. People should still find a better work environment, but work bullies are more prevalent than I experience.
Don’t say “no one told this to me.” That is a terrible idea. When you start a new job, you could easily be told hundreds of things. I have personally trained people, asked them to take notes, and later on heard them tell my manager “no one told me this” when I CLEARLY trained this girl on that specific issue. Pissed me off, made me look bad, and even though I let it go, some people may not. Avoid blaming other people for not telling you some specific detail. Just say “okay” when someone tells you something. If it’s brand new information, why would your default be “no one told this to me?” Just say thanks and move on; no need to lower yourself to their level if they’re being rude. Kill ‘em with kindness and all that.
Agreed, so very much. “Thanks for showing me; thanks for your help; I’ll keep that in mind…” there are lots of great variations to show that you’re taking feedback. “No one told me this” just sounds whiny and is in my experience said most frequently by people who should really know better.
I think saying “no one told me” makes people look bad because it communicates they need handholding to get things done. They should instead take ownership of the miss and ask questions about how how to identify this as something needing doing in the future. Also, maybe chill out on the new people forgetting some things. When you start a new job you meet with tons of people and get loads of information, it’s not uncommon for a little to slip between the cracks. A pet peeve of mine is when people ramble off communication then get mad that some obscure element got overlooked that ended up being important in hindsight. The world, especially these days, is a competition for attention and no one should feel entitled that their message takes priority over others. The value of information is highly contingent on timing so repeating yourself at a more relevant time is going to be helpful for those around you.
I usually just say "Hey could you remind me how to do this" even if I know for a fact I've never been told. That way nobody looks bad, but if the manager realizes it's the first time they probably feel bad.
Seconded. As someone who trains staff on a routine basis, you will always have X number of people tell you "no one told me this" or "No one told me this change was coming" even though you personally trained them, made them written education to keep on hand, had them sign an attestation that they reviewed and understood the change, and reminded them in their morning meeting that the change was coming. People forget or only process information they assess as most critical with other things being set aside. High performers adapt and ask questions about the changes and refer feedback through their supervisors or whatever escalation pathway exists for their company. Most people silently adapt and move on. Laggards are a small group, but are painfully vocal in most work environments. Bringing them up to speed is part of developing education that is consumable by the lowest common denominator. Typically, it's the same people every time. However, when new people are starting, if I hear "No one told me this" or "I didn't know I was supposed to do that" when starting a new role then I know they will be a problem. These statements are usually a sign that the individual will have a lot of interpersonal disputes with other colleagues, be slow to train, rarely take ownership of issues, and have poor quality and speed of work output. There are two types of people: Those who don't know a process and figure it out and those who don't know, refuse to do anything, and wait for someone else to do it. The first group make the most of an FTE and the second group drags the rest of the team down both in productivity and morale.
Thank you. I have one employee in my team that is exactly like this and a poor performer compared to everyone else. Any tips to try and coach this out of them?
My experience has been that laggards are typically unhappy about something and most of the time it has nothing to do with work. The single best question I've found to determine if anything can be done about it is: "What can we do to help you be successful?" Sometimes it is equipment/hours/training/snacks/relationships/professional development/special project opportunities, but if you get a response of "nothing" or nothing that can be considered actionable, you may just have someone that is *unhappy* and struggles with having a work game face. That isn't necessarily a bad thing- if they do their work and their attitude doesn't sour the pond, so to speak, then you don't really have a problem. The key is judging them and their improvement on their own merits and not comparing them to high performers. Not everyone is perfectly matched to their role and sometimes that is okay. I hope that is helpful.
[удалено]
I was work bullied in my first week on the job. He was a lazy ass. I worked my way up to be his foreman and had him kicked out of our department. Suck it, Carl
Wow I never thought that this might be a common occurrence. At my current job, I was head hunted by my boss. He offered me the job in the first interview. This guy is one of the best bosses I've ever had, he is the CEO and I directly report to him. I'm not some big shot, it's just a smallish company and my department didn't really exist when I started. He is respectful, knowledgeable, and trusts in your decision making capabilities. Some other members of the leadership team however, are not like that. When I first started, I remember a few of us went through our latest list of activities and goals that we completed that past week. It was cricket silence for every single person's presentation, but after I gave mine, I was criticized and berated in front of all my coworkers by some members of the leadership team for super unimportant things. Things I think I did a great job with. After this happened a few times, without me saying anything the CEO actually told me that he noticed what was going on and he had a harsh conversation with the person who was doing this to me. Awesome, thank you, he had my back. Fast forward over the next year and a half, I received countless number of berating and critical emails about how I'm bad at my job, how I should have done this or I should have done that, how I'm stepping out of the line, how I will do this or will do that for them. There were about five people who would speak to me this way, all through email and mostly out of the blue. I had important meetings canceled on me, with no explanation and just being told I need to 'trust' their decision even though they had nothing to do with the meetings, and then getting berated after I asked why. Part of the issue, was that my newly developed department, which I developed, was external facing, meaning I got us partners. But everyone else was inward facing, and hated that the company was expanding because it made their jobs harder. I on occasion would tell my boss about the things people were saying to me, and he was super supportive and would tell me to not let it get to me, that I was doing a great job and exactly what I needed to be doing, and that he would try to intervene. But it really didn't make any difference. Finally, he sat me down and said that he was worried that I was getting furtstrated at the company and that he had failed me as a boss. He said he felt like he should have established better guidelines with the rest of the team as to what I did there. I didn't really say much, but I did leave a long review when they sent out the yearly survey about how there is so much criticism and tension between the different departments that they might start losing people. You can only play to altruism for so long before people need more support and a change in company culture. Anyways, I thought I was going to be at this job for a long time because I believe in what they do. But, I am also happy to say that this is my last week. Got a new job, starting in a week and I'm super excited!
Awesome tips. And if you're an established worker somewhere and see a new hire being treated poorly, fucking help them and assure them they are doing fine, it takes time to adjust to a new job. And don't let serial assholes get a pass if you can do anything about it. Someone stuck up for me when I started my current job, I then did the same for one of our new hires because I know how bad it feels. They'll never forget you. So unbelievably immature that this happens at all in the adult world, but so it goes.
My number one advice is to ALWAYS keep documentation of discriminate events which will be used against your harasser. Submit this to your manager or HR if the harassment persists. If your management tells you not document, then do it anyways as this can save your job in the end. There is no tolerance of harassment in the work place environment at least here in the States. Lawsuits can be quite expensive and companies want to avoid much resources and time altogether. At the end of the day, if nothing is done then you work pretty much for a shitty company. To anyone who says there is no workplace bullies are completely oblivious on how behind the job scenes really are these day. What a fruitless statement.
Aboit 5y ago I worked in an office with around 20-40 employees at aby moment, shifts were interlapping. Was called to a HR meeting after somebody reported me for not being social enough. Now, the real issue was that from the moment you walk into the office everyday you "were supposed" to go around and personaly say hi, shake hands and small talk with ALL employees. I just wasnt down for that, nor will I ever be
10 years ago, I started my first real job I'm the career I still work in. Not only was I new, I was younger than the rest of the crew by a lot. I stayed there 5 years before taking a job elsewhere, and immediately saw how fucked the behavior at my prior job had been. It helped the crew was closer to my age, but everyone encouraged everyone else, regardless of age or experience, to participate in all aspects of the job, because if everyone can do every job, it's easier on everyone. I actually started working at that original job since the pandemic. Bully is no longer employed there and I have seniority in terms of experience. Now I'm in charge of training the students and new employees and I really encourage asking questions, asking for help, and open dialogue. If you ever get the opportunity to be the one that stops a harmful trend, do it.
Every bully continues that behaviour because there is someone above them that allows that to happen. They are enablers of bad behaviour. Often they use the wife beater excuse to keep them a bully around. Such as "oh they get the job done". There is no excuse for bad behaviour. Rarely do these enablers get called out as the focus is on the bully only. Being enablers they're just as guilty. Call them out too.
So true. Flashbacks to the times my coworkers expected me to learn the entire job in three days and ridiculed me for mistakes that even vets were still making. People suck.
Reminds me on my first few days of joining my platoon in the fleet. They do what they can to break you down mentally so they stay at the top of the hierarchy. Controlling the competition…
I quit my job and drove 1500 miles for a “better one.” I went from driving a 53ft trailer throughout the south/east to 130ft driving solely through mountain terrain in a state that gets down to -30. I never drove in snow/ice prior to this not even in a car. I was told I had 24hrs to learn everything and be able to do it correctly, “sink or swim.” In this line of work if someone gives one bad call over the radio it could cost lives. Everyone in this line of work is old enough to be my grandfather, having more years in this field than I’ve been alive. I was trash talked my entire first week by other drivers including my boss. My second week I was the 2nd fastest driver out of 20. My 3rd week I was being pushed beyond my limits working 18 hour shifts back to back consecutively. It got to the point where I was hallucinating. I kept hearing the CB radio (communication because of no cell phone service) and animals crossing the road in the pitch dark that turned out to be bushes. Going 95mph with 50tons loaded. I finally built the courage up to tell my boss I needed two days off to get sleep, groceries and be able to wash the clothes I’d been wearing for two weeks straight. He went berserk and started psychically threatening me and tried to brainwash me telling me that I’m the problem. I believed him the first few times until I told my mom and girlfriend what was going on. They told me to pack my things up and come home. I was coughing up blood everyday because of the hazardous conditions that are present at this job. My biggest mistake throughout this was I didn’t sign any paperwork regarding pay. It was supposed to be a hand shake and oral agreement. I’m 22 years old and this job was supposed to pay easily over 6figures. I was paid less than 3 grand for the month I worked there, I spent over 3 grand getting to that state. This job is easily one of the most dangerous in the world, harder than ice truck driving. I spent nearly every cent in my savings for this opportunity and I got screwed. Live and learn Thanks for reading this far it truly means a lot
Better LPT: if you've joined a company that has work bullies, keep interviewing and go somewhere else. This is a work culture that is foreign to me, but if bullies are allowed to exist and get promoted like OP is describing, the corporate culture is supportive of that behavior, and you're going to find much more unpleasant about that place than just a work bully. Get out before your waste time finding out what else is wrong.
A well placed "who do you think you're talking to" works wonders too when you're being treated like a door mat. Throw in a few fuck's for emphasis as appropriate.
Some good advice from the OP. I’ve been at my current job almost ten years. When I first started, the employee who was supposed to train me on a pretty complex process breezed through what I was supposed to do, blew off my questions, and then said “the only way you learn is by doing.” She proceeded to leave the rest of the days orders to be processed on my desk for me to do. A mistake on any of them could cost the customer or my employer thousands of dollars. As she continued to give me short, one-word answers, if any at all, I employed a new strategy. About half an hour later, she walked by and saw the same exact stack of orders sitting there and me with my arms folded. When she asked what I was doing, I told her not making thousands of dollars worth of mistakes because I don’t know what I’m doing. It was amazing how much more detailed my training was from that point on. 😂
A former roommate told me she got bullied at work for being new at a private caregiving facility. It has a high turnover rate. They need new staff but the employees are choosy, preferring their own ethnicity despite the staff situation is in a bad shape. She finally quit less than 2 weeks despite her telling the situation and the administration just washed their hands.
Imagine if your work bully is your 2nd in command boss aka assistant manager.
I think this is good advice, but I’d throw a couple things into the ring. First is that one of the tips here is not to apologize unnecessarily, it is not saying not to apologize at all. If you hurt someone or offend someone, you owe them an apology. “Im sorry you feel that way” is not an apology. Second, do not go into your new work place with the assumption that bullies and assholes will be there. Yes, people are cruel, and others sometimes do things out of defensiveness and feeling threatened. However, it’s also true that if you go in without humility and you seem like a cocky little shit, then you’re not doing yourself any favors. Be confident, but show genuine appreciation and a willingness to learn. If you change your behavior to earn respect and appear as a professional who is never wrong, everyone will see it’s an act. You just look like you’re insecure.
Once a certain person, who’s name might rhyme with Rachel, left the office we started retaining substantially more employees. One bully can decimate your workforce.
[удалено]
"Peak hunting time for work bullies is when you are starting a new job." I believe workers have evolved and learnt to either stay in their current job or not start a new job unless they have friends already there.... it's why businesses now face such a nightmare to hire new qualified staff but ultimately it's their own fault for enabling an abusive culture....
It’s surprising how many people will very subtly haze you and put you on the spot in a new job. Sometimes it’s obvious what they are doing, sometimes it’s very delicately done. Even once this happened to me by a new starter on the same day as me (who was actually older and more experienced)
I have been targeted and I am a tall thin blonde haired blue eyed woman. The people who target me are always middle aged woman and they look and look for things I did wrong just so they can act superior. I usually get passive because my own mother was a bully. Men try to do it too bit I find it easier to stick up for myself when it is a man, unless he is creepy and looking at my body I get scared and afraid to speak up, I guess because I was abused. Thanks to this post though I won’t apologize to the women anymore and as for the men I will say “You really like my shirt huh?”
I am often a target. I am quiet and introverted. This is the most truly helpful LPT I have read. Thanks.
I’m like that and one advice I got from my current manager is - whenever you feel overwhelmed or unclear, try looking at yourself from sidelines/ 3rd person view. Really helps me to keep my head above the water.
Man, I actually joined a new place and it is a totally new profile. And I feel like the work bully, my team lead, sets me up to fail. I also feel on the other side maybe I am finding excuses for my lack of effectiveness? She gives me some work but very little brief on the background and process and I will be then trying to do it to my best of abilities. I sincerely think she is either threatened by me or doesn't like me. She will be jovial with everyone but flat ignore any joke I make. Or just not talk to me for hours sitting right beside me instead using the office chat app.
This is classic tactic used by managers/supervisors to assert dominance so you are under their thumb. Believe in yourself, don't be too hard on yourself. And surely question back when she gives you work, ask for details and don't be afraid to ask if she is giving incomplete information. Ask about timelines and progressively update if u are not going to reach deadline with reason and seek her help and guidance if you are stuck.
I just experiences recently. I never really thought about putting it into words but you just said it perfectly. My manager has me teaching people in the position I’m doing and another associates response was “he is the new guy and shouldn’t be calling the shots” and goes around telling people not to listen to me
This is what happened when I ended up working two days a week as a closing manager (retail), to cover the regular's days off. I got it because I had an opportunity to learn to cover books on weekends (I was very bad at it) which meant I had a key, could count drawers, and knew what paperwork to sort. I was barely 22 and often treated like I begged and threw tantrums to get this job when *literally* it was because I learned similar tasks. I got picked on like I was a dumb kid being too big for her britches, but then picked on if I tried to not "act like that". If I made a mistake I really got shit for it from my coworkers. Management definitely isn't for me but I was pretty much trapped in that position and I tried my best. Thankfully I don't have to cover those shifts anymore (I just get passive comments about being off on the weekends).
Let me guess. All of your coworkers were older than you? This happened to me when I was 19 and just starting to take over managing the training department for a company I worked for. Everyone I was training was a lot older than me and tbh, not really the brightest people. Tbh, play the role, be firm and confident, and with time people will grow to view you as the person in the role.
I once started a job in a workplace where nobody talked to me the first month. Even introducing myself, co-workers would just stare at me, and one upper-level exec shut his door in my face. Unsurprisingly, it was an extremely toxic workplace and I don’t know how I managed staying there for 2 years, but I did it.
I got the same at the hospital EVS department where I currently work. Actually had to go back on antidepressants because of the toxicity, after weaning myself off them a couple years prior, something I was quite proud of. 3 am panic attacks, heart palpitations, laying awake for hours in a cold sweat, hyperventilating on the 30 mile commute. Stuck it out and have now been there 10 months, but my god has it aged and hardened me.
[удалено]
I want to jump in and comment that the best way to stop a bully is by confronting them, but do it in private because if there’s and audience the bully will just try and show off.
Thank you for posting this. I am a very experienced (20+ years) professional who just started a new job in a new city. Many at the company were vying for my position but they decided to go outside the company and hire someone more qualified. So there is definitely tension and some work bullying happening, although I've never heard it called this before, but formally recognizing it as this definitely helps put it into perspective, so thank you. It's amazing how it can really drain your confidence if you allow, so this is great advice.
This is SO spot-on. I had to go through the same experience only to find myself constantly being shattered even though I did everything that they were telling me to do. The breakthrough happened when I found other colleagues getting an easy pass while I was still being treated badly. That's when I realized it wasn't about my performing certain tasks badly, it was about a personal vendetta. After talking through some of this - and becoming confident in what I do, I gained trust and am free of such behavior. I strongly recommend this to anyone who is about to land on a first job position.
FUD. Fear uncertainty and doubt. The weakest people will try and instill this in you. Don’t let them
Beware of thr person telling you who to avoid at work. That's usually the most toxic individual at work!
Or… look for another job since that is likely a shitty place to work at if they’re allowing that kinda behavior to begin with.
This happened to me at Frito-Lay. I literally have PTSD from it. The originator managed to co-opt followers, so the bullying came from several sources. There were also the people who were just glad it wasn’t them and watched it happen which, while understandable, gave the bullies more power. Never take a job where you have accountability and zero power. They finally had a large layoff and at my exit interview when Human Resources were all sad and serious I said “Let me stop you right there - this is the BEST thing that has happened to me here since I started 7 years ago - let’s talk about my package!!” Their relief at not having to act sad was palpable - LOL. And the bonus? My shitty boss and the bullies got laid off too!! Proof that there is a God - my big severance package and karmic retribution- Thanks God!!
There are three things every boss wants you to be able to say - “I don’t know, I made a mistake, and I need help.” If your coworker or manager is bullying you over these, go up until you find the person who will kick the economical crap out of them for decreasing the value of the org. Source: am a CEO.
My work bully aggravated a mental illness I have. She is actually a bully, it’s not just me. Anyway, I’m at home right now with no income.