I came across this article about workplace bullying on Time magazine’s Business and Money site. Before now, I’d never seen in print what many, many of us have commonly experienced throughout our careers. “When Good Things Happen to Bad People,” by Gary Belsky, nails it.
“A lot of bullies are keen analyzers and manipulators of social dynamics and reputations; they are highly political animals, with finely tuned antennae that allow them to identify and abuse their victims without anyone else noticing. ‘Due to their social competence,’ the [report] authors write, ‘[bullies] are able to strategically abuse coworkers and yet be evaluated positively by their supervisor.’”
In many cases, in my experience, the manipulators eventually are outed. The Peter Principle comes into play and they trip themselves up. But in the meantime a long treacherous road riddled with consternation lay before their victims.
As a sports clerk, I was bullied at the Rocky by a coworker who insisted every mistake that made it into the sports pages was my fault. My “I didn’t do agate last night” protests were met with skepticism until members on the sports desk started to notice I hadn’t been scheduled to work many of the editions for which I was blamed.
Before that, as a sales clerk for Christian Dior at May D&F, I watched a woman on the team blatantly ignore a customer so as she could tell another coworker about her weekend. I finally went over and — because the woman behind the counter was a bitch — quietly tried to help the customer. The woman screamed at me, “This is my counter! How DARE you take one of my customers!” The customer screamed at her, “I stood here for several minutes and you ignored me!” I was shaking. The customer reported the woman, and the woman was fired.
I was fired at the New Mexico newspaper in part because of a skilled bully that paralleled the profile in the above article excerpt. It took me a few years, but I still came out ahead. I’ve always felt sorry for that woman because she felt threatened by me.
My friends and I have noticed the higher you go in your career, the more skilled the bully. Several women I adore are enduring precisely this unfortunate phenomena. In fact, it is a constant topic among all my friends, many of whom deal with women bullies (coincidence? Regardless, I find it all the more unfortunate because we could be so much more constructive if we all support each other). I was alerted yesterday that one of my besties will be leaving her situation. We are ecstatic for her!
I wonder how many, many good, dedicated and talented workers move on simply to avoid a bully. Another article on workplace environment, Top 10 Ways to Guarantee Your Best People Will Quit, by Mel Kleiman, cited why good employees walk, saying an exit interview is not the time to find out about these sorts of problems, but often that’s the only time employees feel comfortable enough to bring up issues. It also noted, and I thought this was good, that people in authority often make the mistake of treating everyone on their team equally instead of fairly, that the best workers need to benefit more from their dedication and commitment than those who are calling it in.
In the meantime, for my friends, we consistently discuss strategic ways to address the debasing, fatigue and sleep deprivation. Unfortunately, the conclusion is always the same: do nothing, say nothing. All are fearful of being pigeonholed as whistle-blowers, whiners, not team players, malcontents; they are afraid it will cost them their job.
” . . . the bullies are good at masking their behavior and/or fooling their superiors.”
Yet, the support system among my friend group is so phenomenal that often we’re able to laugh about this plight and, frankly, at the bullies. And as Ellen has pointed out, the Buddhist way isn’t to wish ill of the perpetrators, such as being eviscerated by a runaway velociraptor, rather to wish them well and hope that they achieve their goals . . . such as getting a more prestigious, higher-paid position . . . somewhere in another state.
At Least They're Committed 
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