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Jerks, backstabbers and bullies at work

April 26, 2012 @ 2:21 am (Updated: 10:15 am - 4/26/12 )

Look around the office. Do you know someone who berates and belittles co-workers? Maybe it's the boss who interrogates and intimidates employees?

Business research from Zogby finds about 35 percent of adults have been, or are currently, bullied at work. It's a problem that's gotten worse because of the tight job market where people are reluctant to complain or leave their jobs.

Ruth Namie, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology, knows what it's like to work for "the boss from hell."

Her first two weeks at a local psychiatry clinic were fine, but then her female boss became more critical of Ruth's work as a mental health therapist.

"She picked on me. She criticized every little thing I did. She said 'I don't like what you're doing. I don't like the way you sit. I don't like what you say in group,'" Namie recalls. "Really picky, picky things."

We've all worked for demanding people at times. Ruth tried to shrug it off. It got worse for her.

"In staff meetings she'd point out mistakes that I made, trying to humiliate me. She would go to the reception area and make sure the clients heard her chastising me," Namie says, as she talked about the digs and jabs that became deeper and more frequent.

At that point, Ruth wondered, is it me? She had exceptional reviews in her previous jobs.

She went to every person in the clinic - made up of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers - and asked them for help with "Sheila." What could she do to please the boss? They told her "this has happened before" with the boss, and took a "better you than me" attitude.

Co-workers didn't want to have lunch with Ruth or be seen talking with her. They feared the boss would target them too if they were socializing with her.

"I was totally isolated. Totally isolated," she says.

Ruth felt alone at home too because for many months she didn't tell her husband what was going on at work. When she did, Gary Namie was determined to solve the problem for his wife.

"I dusted off the cape and put on the tights and was going to save her," he says. "We were clearly going to have the solution. We'd both been corporate training directors. We tried this. We tried that. All it did was frustrate Ruth and I felt terribly frustrated that I couldn't help my wife. She fell apart relatively quickly after that."

Ruth finally stood up to her boss, telling her "You're not going to talk to me like that ever again" as she slammed the door. The boss put Ruth on administrative leave. She never went back to that job.

That five-month experience was 15 years ago. It was the beginning of the Namies' new calling to start the first center of its kind in the country dealing with adult bullying - the Workplace Bullying Institute in Bellingham.

The word "bully" gets tossed around a lot.

"We're not talking about an arching of an eyebrow or an occasional raised voice," he says. "It's mistreatment that's repeated, it's systemic and it takes the form of verbal abuse, intimidation, humiliation, threats or sabotage. That's serious undermining of a person's job, health and career."

Who are these bullies? If they're not the boss, they're often the people who are closest to the boss. Work bullies are controlling, self-centered, narcissistic and easily threatened, but otherwise they're "normal people."

A highly skilled bully usually has the dedication, focus and business acumen to create success, or at least the appearance of success. Bullies thrive in competitive environments that pit one employee against another, which is common with some technology companies. Health care and higher education - colleges and universities - are also industries that have a lot of workplace bullies, according to the Namies.

How should you deal with "jerks, weasels and snakes," as the Namies call them?

Confronting the bully can make it worse for the individual. Telling the boss often doesn't work because he or she might consider the victim to be the problem, especially if the company has a greater investment in the bully than in the person complaining. Human resources might be able to help if employee documents the workplace intimidation and can show how the bully is causing financial harm to the business.

Based on their experience, the Namies say HR departments are more likely to sweep the problem under the rug.

"Enough of sending these clowns off to anger management classes, and sending them off to training that they'll ignore," Gary says. "They need a comeuppance. They need to be sat down and told 'You're not the only one in this world you narcissistic fool,' but no one is going to do it at the company."

The Namies are working on legislation to make workplace bullying illegal, just as sexual harassment is against the law. So far 21 states, including Washington, have drafted bills related to workplace bullying. No laws have been enacted yet.

Five tips if you are a bully's target at work from licensed mental health therapist Jessi Brown.

1. Don't get emotional. Bullies take pleasure in emotionally manipulating people. Stay calm and rational to diffuse the situation.

2. Don't blame yourself. Don't lose your confidence.

3. Do your best work. The bully's behavior will seem more justified if you aren't performing well on the job.

4. Build a support network. Instead of allowing the bully to make you retreat into your office, work on building your relationships with your coworkers.

5. Document everything. Write, on your own computer at home, what happened, when it happened and who witnessed it.

By LINDA THOMAS

Boss

There have been many Hollywood dramas and comedies about bad bosses. Jason Bateman and Kevin Spacey were in a Warner Bros. movie last year called "Horrible Bosses." 20th Century Fox's The Devil Wears Prada, starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway.

Prada

More from Linda Thomas

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Comments (25)


  • Add A Comment

  • rescuemama wrote...
    A bully is different from a jerk
    April 26, 2012 5:53 am
    I have worked with/for jerks. A jerk is different from a bully. A jerk is rude and has poor social skills. A bully systematically undermines a person. A bully is vindictive and and spiteful. I work with a coworker who is a bully who doesn't just focus on me but also on our supervisor. This person does whatever they can to sabatoge and undermine the people that this person focuses on. If you don't know the difference then you haven't been bullied and I'm glad for you. For those of us who are being bullied at work, yes there should be some law saying that the employer has to address the issue. In my case everyone is aware of the bully and what this person is doing but no one does anything about it. I was told that although what the person was doing is wrong, it's not bad enough to address. The manager who said this is not one of the victims and by saying that they basically gave permission for the bully to harass me. Harassment of any kind is wrong. It doesn't matter if you are in a protected class or not. If I'm a white male with no disabilities, that doesn't give someone the right to harass me.
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  • MainEvent wrote...
    Just....
    April 26, 2012 5:56 am
    shut up, stop complaining and do your job. If they really are that bad they will get fired or move on in time. Its called life.......
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • ron prevost wrote...
    why do you think wage slaves are called slaves ?
    April 26, 2012 6:10 am
    Somebody always wants to be the master, or at least the boss man. Deserving or not. ................... Thank God bullies in the world of the self employed tend to self emulate and disappear after time. .............. But in any office or such where you somewhat randomly throw a lot of different people together, you get the schoolyard all over again. Your only hope is that the REAL bosses see a bully for what he or she is, rather than as management material.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • DesertRez wrote...
    Grow thicker skin
    April 26, 2012 6:11 am
    this isn't kindergarden. Everyone has a bad boss at some point.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Zagnut wrote...
    There clearly are some "bullies", but the bigger problem are the rising number of hyper-sensitive weaklings.
    April 26, 2012 6:18 am
    She's mean to me. He doesn't like me. My work isn't appreciated. I need a lawyer.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    They are working on legislation to make bullying illegal in the workplace?
    April 26, 2012 6:27 am
    Good luck with that. Might as well outlaw just plain rude behavior and unkind thoughts.

    Moral of the story; be very, very good at what you do and live far enough below your means to have some money in the bank. Then it's a case of "I was looking for a job when I found this one, I can certainly survive until I find another."

    People living in desperation from paycheck to paycheck are much more easily victimized by a workplace bully. The bully will realize the victim "needs" their lousy, abusive job and will get an additional kick out of piling it on.

    Does resigning mean the bully wins? Not at all. The bully wants you to spend the rest of your life eating their garbage,in constant terror that the decision to terminate your employment might be made by the bully. Hit the road, and let the screwball jerk with no people skills terrorize somebody else.

    Your boss should be able to buy your time- not your soul.

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  • Oly80 wrote...
    #5 on that list of tips...
    April 26, 2012 6:31 am
    is key. document EVERYTHING. save all emails, memos, and keep track of when the boss/bully/whomever at work does the things they do. i learned that lesson years ago and when they saw that i was keeping track of THEM and that i'd be no doormat for them, they backed right the heck up. bully bosses and supervisors are probably some of the MOST common bullies in the workplace, you gotta be ready to CYA.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Ron_Spins wrote...
    Vengeance is best served on a cold platter.
    April 26, 2012 6:45 am
    Go ahead mess around with me.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • cg5611 wrote...
    even if you're good
    April 26, 2012 7:53 am
    at what you do you can be fired. I became the object of work place harassment. The boss (a woman) did all she could to belittle the two woman in a crew of 9. I got the worst of it since I was the foreman. I was just about to quit when I got fired. That was actually good news because I got unemployment benefits and moved my 401K to a personal IRA account. 2 weeks after I was fired a bad investment came home to roost and the company 401K lost 50% of it's value. All that aside the firing did effect me. I was raised to do my very best on the job and it took a while to understnad the situation was not about me doing my best, which I clearly was, but about the boss and her contol issues. Clearly MainEvent and DesertRez have never been truly harassed on the job. Once you get targeted by a boss who has control issues life on the job becomes hell.
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  • anotherfencewalker wrote...
    The Office..
    April 26, 2012 8:01 am
    Not to get into a gender argument but I have found that the biggest bullies in a concentrated work environment are women. Sorry gals, but some of you are just plain nasty to each other. Bullies are very often those that are ladder climbers (or trying to be) as well as employees that have been passed over for promotion or pay grade increase. How to stop it? Somewhat the same way you do when you were a lot younger. Sock them in the nose or push them to the ground. You can actually do the "adult" version of that with good results. Direct confrontation, one on one, close quarters face to face can usually bring about a change. Unfortunatly, thats a social skill that most of the bullied have a difficult time doing. Its torture for them Hence, thats why the bullies migrate to the weak. Easy pickin's..Most bullies of any age though are generally cowards and very VERY insecure. Dwight Shrute's are everywhere...
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