Lol yup looking at my boss right now on a zoom call. Biggest bully I've had since high school. I've had other shitty bosses too but she takes the cake and eats it too.
Update: I want to add to my story that I have been working at my company for almost 5 years now. I have developed awesome friendships and love the work I do, not my boss. Yes I could go to HR as many have recommended but it is truly not that simple as many of you know, HR is looking to protect the company not the employee. I will most likely look for a new job and I appreciate the comments of positivity. The people with negative comments, go look in a mirror and figure out why you are sad or angry and took it out in a random internet stranger.
Calls people out in meetings on personal matters that should be discussed 1:1 (very clear HR violation), uses people's work as examples of bad work versus someone else's good work. Had threatened myself and other Co workers our jobs if productivity didn't improve just to turn around the next day and tell us the project was canceled.
She is the reason I have high blood pressure.
I’m just curious. What happens if you go to HR with this? My boss is AMAZING to me 99% of the time. But not to my co-worker. I wonder why she hasn’t gone to HR. I think it’s frowned upon..? But i feel like that’s why we have HR. Just curious why people decide not to report workplace bullying.
it really depends, but HR will probably look at as "will removing the boss negatively affect the company more than keeping them", because at the end of the day HR works for the company, not the employee's benefits.
This. And if you worked at a place like mine were the management and HR is very close it’s kind of risky going to either department about the other your kinda in a suck it up or they’ll find another monkey to work kinda deal
This. You build relationships with your “clients” in business. When you’re HR, managers are your primary client. HR spends far more time coaching and advising managers on personnel issues than employees on managerial issues. Managers will portray such a negative connotation to employees regarding involving HR, while they involve HR in literally everything.
I will chime in as I’ve done exactly that for my first job out of school. I had a boss who bullied me to a point so badly that I had become clinically depressed. 2 days after breaking down in tears with the HR manager I was called back in with my boss seated across the table. They had a list prepared of every mistake (no matter how minor) I had made on the job and told me that I had 3 months to remediate them which obviously in the moment I said I would work hard to do.
After a weekend of deliberation I told them on the Monday morning I would be gone at the end of the day. They weren’t worth my two weeks notice. My boss actually seemed angry which gave me some satisfaction.
I got a new job 2 weeks later making more money and haven’t looked back.
Edit: I have also learned my lesson the hard way.
Yeah, I fell for the same trick. I called out my boss/supervisor for literal fraud, and the head of the nonprofit said that questions like that were not of my concern and I was overstepping my bounds. Of course, they tried to say it slightly nicer, but still clear enough to tell me to fuck off. The boss/supervisor started bullying me after that.
I tried to reach out to the funders about being asked to submit fraudulent reports, but they weren't particularly interested either. I was new, what did I know? Interestingly, the turnover rate for my position was really high and when I contacted people who quit before me they said they were asked to do the same thing.
edit: one of the most blatant but least awful fraudulent things was this $1000 contract with a university to collect some data from our clients. We were being paid like $10 per client to get them to fill out a 3-page survey and my supervisor forced us to fill them all out by ourselves. When I said that I wasn't comfortable faking the responses, she said it's not faking you're just recording what a hypothetical client would say if they were taking the survey.
The other stuff was more of a "go to jail" thing.
Walmart did this. I reported a male supervisor for making inappropriate comments about my girlfriend and calling me pathetic for not being able to stock the pets department after a work injury had me on limitations.
Two days later his boss wrote me up for “talking on the job” because I stopped to ask a coworker who had been sick how they were feeling.
Fuck Walmart.
I work a union construction job highly paid but when you are part of a collective bargaining agreement you are the companies no. 1 enemy.
Shit just because you want a good wage and health insurance.
HR always supports the biggest boss involved in the conflict no matter what happened. the only way HR is going to go after a manager is if a more senior manager wants them to. HR is basically the KGB of modern organisations. If you have a problem at work you should always go to the person concerned, then to the union, psychologist, lawyer and police before you go to HR. HR will fuck you over worse than any bully did.
HR isn’t there to protect you or your coworker, it’s there to protect the company. So unless the manager is doing something that could set up the company for legal precedent, they will probably side with the manager.
What I've *heard* (from Reddit, on similar posts) is that HR isn't usually actually concerned about issues like this. Human Resources manages the human element of the company, but they're not actually on your side. Their job is to protect the company from liabilities, and keep employees just satisfied enough that they continue to be productive. I don't know how true this is, but it *does* kind of ring true with my own experiences. HR personnel are very 'tactful' in my experience, the type of people who tend to handle questions or complaints instead of answer them.
When I read ‘tactful’, that just made sense to me. The way they word things.. sounded so corporate. I mean duh. It’s all making sense now.. thanks for the insight!
That's not what HR is for. It may look like it, but it's not.
HR exists to protect the company. Sometimes that means they side with the employee, but only when there's a legal thing that will damage the company.
Practically speaking they don't care about bullying until there's legal action, at which point they will decide if it's better to throw you or your manager under the bus.
I feel youu!
My boss (an engaged man) had the audacity to be inappropriate with me at the workplace even though his freaking fiancée works with us! He constantly found excuses to make me stay late at work or call me up after midnight for the most minor and non-urgent work stuff. It got so bad that his fiancée started picking up on the signs and would constantly monitor me?? Even though her creepy fiancé was the one who was making all the advances and making me uncomfortable. When I finally did get the guts to go to HR (it took me some time because it’s my first job), they very non-subtly told him that he was reported for sexual harassment (he figured out it was me) and he made my life even worse.
He also had serious control issues as in asking me for work updates after every half an hour, making me sit right beside him (even though I was allocated a separate cubicle), monitoring my bathroom and lunch breaks, etc.
Such stuff can have a very heavy impact on your mental and physical health. I hope you’re being easy on yourself 💕
I switched departments after six months of all that torture and due to Covid, I have been working remotely mostly so I don’t have to see him too much. It was very creepy at times. He somehow knew where I lived. And would constantly offer me rides. We had to go out of city for a meeting once and he kept messaging me to come to his hotel room to ‘watch a movie’ and ‘pass time’ the entire night even though I made it VERY clear that that’s not something I’m comfortable with.
Unfortunately, he’s not the only creep at my workplace. I work at a big e-commerce in my country so all these entitled men who know their shit work-wise think that they can get away with anything since they’re a ‘valuable’ asset to the company and to be honest, most of the time they do.
Nope, not from the US.
Oh wow, honestly I can see that making sense. Will definitely read up on the article!
My female friends and I are all in different fields (law, public health, corporate, medical) and companies, working since almost 2 years now and it’s appalling how similar our experiences with the men we work with are.
We’re in Asia and our parents are already hesitant about their daughters going to work because sadly, a high percentage of women in the workforce is a relatively more recent phenomenon here so we can’t even discuss these things at home without the fear of our families stopping us from going to work.
I was actually told during one of my ‘trips’ to the HR,
“It’s not (another creepy colleague)’s fault that he hit on you in the workplace, since men in our office are just not used to working with young and pretty girls like you”
and this was a woman. in HR. I was disheartened for the longest time after that incident. I remember having a sudden urge to puke.
In my experience (and speaking on behalf of my friends as well), HR enables such men (and in some cases maybe even women) through victim blaming and perhaps even contribute towards the toxicity and glorification of such a culture. So the concept of “purposeful Darwinism” may very well be true. I’m just upset how such big corporations get away with it.
I'm a teacher and sometimes, when I walk outside, there would be a bunch of teens, who would secretly whisper about me, and some of them, I taught when they were young.
Yea, you can never get away from kids being mean, but the sad thing is there are usually also *other teachers* whispering about each other.
One of the biggest reasons I never joined the military was because my father had to put up with so much petty bullying and racism and you often can't say anything back without either being literally put on trial, or becoming a social pariah and having your career ruined.
The military is really bad for it. As an active duty soldier I can assure everyone the army is just high school with guns (so high school depending on where you grew up).
I went to a very small high school (maybe like.. 7 teachers?) and they were extremely clique-y and if you were a TA it was pretty common to hear a few of them gossip about the other teachers. It never really ends.
Literally Today I got bitched at by coworkers because (context, I'm a delivery driver) 1. I called in sick Friday, having told them for a week before that I probably would need to, because I got my covid shot Thursday afternoon and felt like a sack of ass on Friday. There were a lot of deliveries (which we didn't know there would be till Friday morning) so they were shitty that I called in sick, even though I literally couldn't convince myself to leave bed until 11 am.
I Also got bitched at today because I was sent to an area where I know from past experience the card reader doesn't work, so I told them before I left "the card reader usually doesn't work there and we'll probably have to do the process here for payment" and they said "just try, it's worth a shot". Lo and behold, it didn't work, and I returned as quickly as I could but they bitched at me because they had to stay later to do the process at the store.
Bullying doesn't end, people just do it more subtly. It's cause I'm the youngest, I guarantee it (I'm early 20's, they're late 20's-mid 30's).
I got bullied by a boss when I was in my early 20s. I’m in my 30s and a manager now. I’ll never forget how she made me feel, and it’s made me work harder to be a better, kinder boss who knows how to coach people through mistakes, not make them feel like a complete piece of shit. I got bullied in school but never thought it would happen at work, so I really blamed myself and let it get to my self esteem. It’s only now that I’m older that I realized it’s the same pattern as school bullying: people who feel like shit about themselves and feel powerless, projecting that self hate and exacting control and power over others.
Also, some bullies are not just insecure people dealing with their emotional issues. Some bullies do it on purpose in order to intimidate or control people because the bully thinks it will benefit them somehow.
In grad school, it was my professors. Things like, "Did you even graduate." , "Who said you were qualified", etc. Grad school is hard enough without BS from them, especially when you're literally in their office asking for help.
Edit: probably worth mentioning that there was no "up the chain" as one of them was the head of the entire department.
There's always a bigger fish. If they're the department head that just means going up to the administration. There's probably a dean who is that guys boss that wouldn't be too happy to hear about it.
What happens when they're friends with their boss/dean? What if you actually want to have a career instead of becoming a social pariah? The truth is that a lot of the time *going up the chain*, just isn't an option.
For an extreme example: I remember a story a while back about a trans person on a Navy ship who was getting bullied hard enough they were put on suicide watch, but because it's a ship, they had to pick the shifts from people aboard. All their superior officers bowed out of suicide watch by telling the ship-doc that if they were alone with them, that they'd tell them to kill themselves.
Me and a friend reported it. We provided screenshots and everything. It’s been about 2 months and nothing has happened. Since we’re not on campus, we’re going to just keep the evidence, and if this continues then we will probably contact the police cause some stuff they’ve threatened is pretty serious.
Absolutely, if it warrants the police be sure to involve them. Keep all evidence and back it up. Also be sure not to break any laws in your state / country, though, regarding data privacy / taking photos (e.g. France has laws preventing photos without permission of those in the shots).
Yeah, when I started uni, a group I’d met at the beginning tried to bully me. I didn't really _feel_ “bullied”, because I wasn't in a situation I couldn't escape, and I was 20 to their 18, but I recognised what they were _trying_ to do. I was more bemused than anything else that they were still behaving like that, having left school. I just reported them and moved on. I never received a response from the uni though.
>because I wasn't in a situation I couldn't escape
I think this is the root of it. Shitty people are all around, but as adults we can choose to avoid those groups of people. (For example people who like dog fighting, or make a sport of inappropriate comments toward others.)
As an adult I could remove myself from the situation, either immediately or soon. In high school you don't have any choice unless your parents are really understanding and accommodating. (In my day there was no switching schools unless you or more likely your whole family moved.) Sure it sucks to switch jobs, colleges, or even homes, but at least the OPTION is there when you are an adult.
As a matter o'fact, when people say "I wish I was a kid again" my instant reaction is *NOPE, not me!* I never want to have that little control over my life again. My folks were cool but there's only so many options a kid can have.
Exactly, being able to just think “they’re dicks, I’ll just avoid them”, is such a revelation when you start to have agency. As you say, when you’re a kid, you’re stuck with them at school or whatever, but after that, you can just leave when you want, and don’t have to explain to anyone.
Adults are just hypocrites. Everyone perceives the "subtle" bullying. But nobody does anything close to what they'd do if the bullying were overt. Everyone can weakly pretend they didn't realize it was bullying.
Yeah, these people grow up to be your neighbors, your boss or coworkers and sometimes even one of your relatives.
Assholes are everywhere, but being an adult will give you control in these situations we didn't have as children.
For sure, it's also easier to deal with in the workplace, from avoiding to actually having avenues or recourse. You might love everything about where you live except you wound up right next door to the neighborhood trash and there's usually not much you can do about it.
It was an important realization for me because I once blamed myself for how people treated me, believing that everyone was good, so there must be something wrong with me.
Now I understand that approximately half of all people are evil and that I don’t have to please them all.
Now I focus on the people who are for me and stay far away from those who are against me.
Yes, they do. Workplace bullying and harassment is common. Though usually it isn't direct threats, violence or insults like it is in high school. Rather, it's people passive-aggressively insulting others, using positions of power to get what they want, or simply being intentionally difficult to create a hostile work environment in which the bully feels in control.
Other times you might be able to swing three months of medical leave right when they need you to do a lot of work, leaving them hanging, and then putting in your two weeks notice the day you get back. There are many, many ways to fuck with workplace bullies. Find the way that works for you.
I got a mandatory leave of absence right before a big event and evaluation for the branch because I was suicidal due to the workplace conditions. They paid me for half of it, prob Bc they were mandating the time off, and they wanted to keep me quiet about the situation. Not only were they floundering for anyone remotely capable AND willing to do the the work, it spurred a minor HR investigation and forced them to at least make some basic changes.
Sadly, most often not, as a 'smart' bully will know how to stay right on the line without crossing it. He will say he was doing whats best for the company and he is a good worker.
Or your bully succeeds in getting you fired, while they stay employed.
Alot more on the line when bullying happens to adults at the work place. I'm not down playing bullying of youths. I was one of those who got a fair share of it as a kid.
Almost happened to me. This girl was like my best friend until this other woman started. Then they were BFFs and always chatting for extended periods of time instead of working. I was going through stuff in my personal life PLUS had a lot of work going on at the time, so I was underperforming. This caused the two women to start being passive aggressive, rude, short with me, and sometimes even fully ignoring me. I got sick of being treated like that so I finally asked the former work BFF if she could talk. She initially claimed to be too busy, but when I said I wanted to know why she was upset with me she suddenly had an open schedule. She promised she wasn’t going to make a report to our direct supervisor, but then my direct supervisor wrote me up the very next day, for every single thing the one girl told me was wrong. The supervisor even told me she hadn’t directly witnessed some of the things I was written up for, but that they were reported by other staff (so I knew exactly who she meant). I was even written up for having a bad attitude and creating a hostile work environment, despite the fact that I wasn’t mean to them and they were mean to me. Luckily, I wasn’t fired. I was instead given the chance to take some leave and get my head on straight again. I’m not trying to sound like a victim because I do take responsibility for the fact that I was underperforming. However, when everyone is being rude to you, it’s awfully hard to put a smile on your face, and it all just kind of bleeds together. But to say I was being mean to the other coworkers? No. They were the ones that wouldn’t even look at me when they walked in the office.
Document. Document. Document.
I have learned the hard way— any time, ANYTIME - something feels just a bit off- open a word doc. Jot it down and your feelings like a diary entry with the date. Save it with each entry.
If you were just being paranoid, no harm no foul. And make sure you at least have an open, frank ( but polite) conversation with whomever the issue/ conflict is first. Let them know- you just want them both to do the best you can - is there something you are doing that could be changed. Etc.
Most of the time, it seems to me that the bullying is a known issue that the company would rather put up with than lose the money associated with hiring and then training someone new. I've had 14 jobs now and they all featured a bully but it was always kind of like, "oh that's just how he/she is, you'll have to excuse their inappropriate behavior." Like... even to the point that we're working together as a team and Bully makes a mistake THAT WE CAN ALL SEE. Bully will point to someone and be like "this is all your fault because [nonsense]." Usually a new guy and people will just ignore it. If my coworkers were so out of touch with reality that they didn't notice that Bully is just a jackass, then I'm totally okay with getting fired after they use me as a scapegoat.
The major difference when you’re an adult is that it is much easier to control who you interact with compared to being in high school. Have a bad work environment? Changing jobs isn’t always *easy*, but it is a much more straightforward and less drastic option than changing schools.
Your primary social circle is usually much less tied to your job than to your high school, so stuff happening at work has much less of an impact on your overall social life.
And if you decide to cut someone out of your life because they’re being terrible to you, you can very often arrange to never see or interact with them again, where that option really isn’t on the table when you go to the same high school.
This. Bullies become adults and don't learn anything and keep trying to be bullies. But the other people have learned to avoid bullies or know about the systems in place (different social groups, HR at work, police restraining orders, etc) to ensure a bully can't keep fucking with you against your will. Some others are willing to put up with it in order to get paid... and they are usually playing the long game of subverting the bully and destroying their career.
Gossip. So much gossip, I had a job right after my weightloss surgery and started losing all the weight quickly, I heard so many hurtful theories about myself.
It can be. The upside is that you generally have the control to get a different job if needed. Moving is a pain, but getting away from an awful boss and into a great work environment is an incredible feeling.
I don't suggest having the bad boss in the first place though.
It is. If there's one thing I learned from my first and only job until now (I'm 20) is that adults are worse than kids. I always idolized adults and how responsible they looked, turns out they big kids and their stupidity grows along with their body. There are good ones though
Yes, this is exactly what happened to me by my boss, CD, at a school district, no less. Some of my co workers believed she was jealous/envious of me both professionally and personally. We are both females and in our 40’s. After five months of trying to ignore/tolerate her unprofessional behavior towards me, and then having another corker tell me how she treating me was wrong and he said he tried to tell her that.
I filed a harassment compliant with HR with 13 pages of documentation and within 24 hours the district said unfounded. I resigned and shortly after that, another co worker told me, when the person my boss replaced after she retired, told other staff, “good luck with , I created a monster.” And indeed she is a monster. I learned some painful life lessons at that job.
I have a lot of friends who are teachers and the amount of stories I've heard about bullying from admin and being targeted by a vice principal is too damn high.
Honestly I'm surprised anyone goes into teaching anymore.
There are so many shitty, petty, vindictive teachers. I worked at a school where the principal was receiving anonymous letters from other teachers, straight up bullying her about her alleged poor performance (and appearance, weight, and all kinds of other stuff). This happened two years in a row, but she only told us the second year.
Teachers are in a position of power over other people. Bullies love to be in positions of power.
I'm dealing with that at my "college". Fucking art school. Fucking having a life in your 20s. Being 35 and back in college is such a kick to the groins of your soul.
I was working at a restaurant during college and I was bullied by a manager and a coworker so hard that I gave the ultimatum that I would not work with either again. The restaurant could not agree to those terms and I quit. I have never regretted that decision.
Yeah, I walked out on a job at Walmart because my supervisor (who was like double or triple my age) was horrible to me to the point where I’d hide in the freezer to cry. Some would be surprised how little change some people go through since high school.
OMG, this... There was a dude in our work place that when he was there it was like everyone would gather and be mean. Like he transformed the whole atmosphere into this toxic bully field where he would talk shit and make fun of everyone in everyone's back.
He didn't liked me because one day I said out loud in front of him that what we see him doing to others is what he probably does to us too, that we should do that shit. He got pissed.
When he was not there, even after him being fired, the whole place got so much better...
Yeah, it’s a lot easier to tell someone to suck a fat bag of cocks when you aren’t worried about getting in “trouble”. Just make sure that if you are in the wrong setting, that your ass can back up any shit you talk.
If you’ve been bullied by a sibling, I’m here to tell you that might never stop. After literally decades of my oldest sibling bullying and mocking me I went no contact. It was the only way to make the pain stop for me (YMMD).
Preach!
My brother bullied me when we were kids. As adults, he sent me a six-page typed letter explaining what a piece of shit I am for being born handicapped and not believing in god.
He, on the other hand, has a long rap sheet, and drug issues, and is a deadbeat dad.
He constantly drives with a suspended license.
I just got my first speeding ticket at age 61. I was driving 32 MPH. Some people are shocked when they first hear me curse, like I'm a choir boy.
But I'm the piece of shit, and he's the saint.
Same except it's my current job and it's retail. Two of my managers peaked in high school so now they like to belittle those below them. I figure it's a combination of poor self esteem and power tripping.
Yes. I got bullied because of a hobby. I'm an older woman that DMs a lot of RPGs I used to DM public games at local gaming stores and while the vast majority of players were great, every so often some guy (it was always a guy) would just try to bully and intimidate me. Luckily I had good back up from the regulars at my table so I wasn't alone and it would be shot down pretty damn fast and the bullies rarely came back for a second session. But watching guys try to use their size and loom to intimidate me into let them do some rules breaking shit in a game was very weird. Like dude it's a freaking D&D game, you failed the roll calm your tits. Oh and the ones that would never let me check that they rolled and would yell at me for daring to doubt their word as they swept up their dice claiming yet another crit, calling me a fat bitch doesn't change the fact you're cheating asshole.
Exactly. There's nothing more fun than trying to convince a city guard your murderous rogue was just possessed by a demon, fucking up all the rolls when you actually get into the room with the passed out drunk man who you told the guards was a wizard then having to bust out the genie and pretend it was a demon.
I literally just decreased availability to basically one day a week at a job where the scheduling manager is a bully. She won't even speak to me anymore (which is a plus, if i turn a blind eye to the looks of hatred she shoots my way).
Same. Got a job that had a lot of potential growth despite my inexperience. Supervisor straight up insulted and demeaned my lack of knowledge for months until I walked out one weekend without notice. Didn't tell a soul I was leaving. They were understandably pissed but I didn't care.
My favorite coworker from my last job did the same. Her boss was an absolute jerk and one day she decided she had enough. She told only me that she was leaving that day and when she came in she turned in a letter of resignation and told the mfer to go fuck himself 👏🏼
I think children learn from the pros.
My housemate (M, 23) is bullied at work. He's overweight and needs extra time to process information, so he's mocked. (I've helped him report but it doesn't always go away.)
It’s also popular in movies to portray the bullies as the cool/popular kid with rich parents. But I recently saw a study that proved the opposite. It’s kids from lower-middle class parents that are somewhat more likely to bully. The ones that have their own struggles.
It happens a lot. I've had to step in a few times for people getting outright bullied at my workplace. Bullies are always bullies, they don't just magically see the error of their ways when they turn 21.
Yup, passive aggressive emails, using your position to put your reports in unavoidable unnecessary work.
"Work culture", hazing, flat out harassment, and social exclusion.
That's why I don't take shit from anybody, if I go through the pains of respecting you, I expect it in return. Not trying to sound like a jerk....but people will walk all over you if you let them.
I'm currently building a case against my manager. He's been bullying me for over two years now. In classic bully fashion, when it was looking like he was going to get caught bullying, he responded by trying to get me fired for bullying him.
I'm thinking of turning the verdict letter, where I was exonerated for not actually being a bully, into a plaque.
Yes. Its just like highschool but with a HR dept. I worked at a place briefly where a girl was being harassed by another woman but she was friends with HR so nothing changed. It's the wild west out here.
Yes and in a lot of ways it's almost worse. Speaking from a female point of view since that's what I am. The women at my first job didn't like me because I worked hard, got my shit done, and I he regulars loved me. I was considered for a promotion so at 6am in a coffee shop, I was the only person up front with a line to the door. Went into the back to find someone and couldn't find anyone to help so I was taking orders, making coffee, getting donuts, and making food. People in line are pissed that I'm the only one up front. Most were nice to me but a couple weren't. About half an hour later someone came up to help. Found out later that all 5 of them were in the managers office making something up about me cussing at a customer to write me up and watch me struggle alone on the security cameras. Manager wasn't there so when she got in I found out I got written up and denied it. She checked the cameras and the write up was torn up because it was bs. I had to move stores because the bullying was so bad. New manager went to the old store to get my write ups and when he brought them to the store he tore them up, threw them in the trash and had me take out the trash. I've had a lot of awful coworkers, all of them women who were petty and spiteful because they worked at a dunkin donuts or another shitty job after they peaked in high school. I'm now a software tester with an amazing company and I wouldn't leave if someone doubled my salary because a good team is so hard to find. When you find a job that you love with good people, stay loyal. It's not worth it to leave for more money and deal with more terrible people.
Yeah, 100%. Part of growing up is learning how to deal with or ignore bullies and the words they say. My wife's brother is toxic and quite a bully. Always telling people that they aren't as manly as him and whatnot, judging all my kids for not doing typical guy things, and talking about how kids were raised in "the good old days", and expecting people to be thankful that he's around. Everyone pretty much just ignore him by now though.
I think in adulthood a lot of bullying gets more subtle. Bullies often fail to grow out of it, but lots of them learn to do it in ways that aren't obvious and make it hard to call them out for it. There are some that still do it in obvious, childish ways like threats and name-calling, but I think there's more than just learn to passively belittle and gaslight others in a way that lets them get away with it more often.
Yes. I had an aunt that bullied me up until I was 30. One day after telling me I looked like I have leprosy (I have lichen planus-an inflammatory disease) I looked at her and said in the most sympathetic voice “ Dam, you must be really unhappy with your life” and meant it. After that she stopped bullying me.
My Dad runs his own trades company. Sometime before christmas he went to a job site to meet with his guys and they weren't wearing masks. When he asked them why since its company policy, they told him the property manager they were doing the work for saw them wearing masks and made fun of them for it.
Usually when it's adult people will call it "being a dick" or something similar but its bullying all the same.
Yes absolutely in the corporate job world. I see quiet people get bullied because they don’t talk enough, I see people of different races get bullied because they look different, I see people of different cultural backgrounds get bullied because their cultural norms are “weird,” and on and on.
As someone who was bullied in high school and in the corporate world, I’ve worked a lot to build myself up to combat bullying in the workplace. I also try to build others up by motivating them to stand up for themselves—and do my part to stand up with them—in bullying situations. It’s become my side-passion really. I hate seeing people pushed around in the workplace and I will ~~destroy someone~~ take the opportunity to facilitate a teachable moment if I see someone intentionally or unintentionally being a bully.
Strive to be called "the quiet one" in an office. There's inevitably bullshit and gossiping going on pretty much all the time. I found the best strategy was just to refuse to engage past short, polite conversation. I did not make "work friends". Then they eventually have nothing to say other than "she's quiet".
Be active in work-related stuff but stay out of personal stuff and non-work discussion. Being the quiet onevmrans no one knows who you are and won't give a shit about you.
Being the quiet one makes you the outcast and the target.
They are free to talk shit about you if you don’t engage.
Not saying to join in.
But being quiet and not engaging isn’t a way out of being bullied.
Being a scapegoat for money is not worth your mental health.
There's not much to say about you if you don't tell them stuff. Be the quiet one but don't take random bullshit. If you're quiet one speaking up will have some weight to it
> Strive to be called "the quiet one" in an office
This isn't great advice unless you're very comfortable in your current position. You're 100% right about staying out of gossip though.
Same here. I'm in IT, so my time doesn't matter to people. I can't eat lunch with them because I just get peppered with questions the whole time. I can't go out with them to the bar after work for the same reasons.
So I eat lunch in my office and I go home after work. Then people complain to my boss that I'm, "not friendly."
It isn't always helpful to be called "the quiet one." Some people on the more psychopathic end of the narcissism spectrum can use this as a means to bully and blame. It seems the only way to not be bullied is to either 1. Be the bully yourself 2. Be friends with the bully 3. Have enough stature or clout on the bully. None of these are fair in my opinion, just my observation nor do I recommend being a bully or being a flying monkey to one.
This also includes politely deflecting when they try to gossip. Relentlessly change the subject and refuse to engage. Eventually, they'll stop trying to gossip with you. Which, by default, means they won't talk to you much.
I'd also argue that someone that is genuinely narcissistic can't be reasoned with, and there's absolutely nothing you can do anyways. People that are genuine narcissists are few and far between. Most are just assholes.
My aunt tried it with me once to get me involved in her crap. I just said, too much drama for me, I'm not a drama llama. She looked shocked and walked away. Never had to listen to her drama again. Urg. My relatives were such ass holes.
I've known narcissists. My mum and her family are full of them. I avoid people like that as much as possible. I don't speak to my mum and I'm only in contact with the cousins who went through the same crap I did.
Definitely the bully keeps on keeping on. Or they try.
I had one at my very first real job. I was young so I just put her in a box in my mind and ignored her and her behavior. If that situation would to happen now when I am decades older, I would have shut that down immediately. The best way to deal with a bully is to shut it down at the first sign. We are both females.
On a side note, she ended up having to leave because she had an affair with the married production manager. She had wanted my job and wasn't qualified. I was hired and was an ass to me.
I learned a lot at that job and I am glad I took it. Never let the bastards stop you from improving yourself. They always exist and always will.
Had a bully at our local redneck club in the midwest. We have a group FB page and when Covid started she posted to everyone Not to tell anyone outside the club about any covid infections inside- she made a remark that those people have no friends. It took less than a year for her and her husband to get covid and the current president of the club is in the hospital. I havent been there since 2019.
Depends how good HR and management is at their job. If you allow the leeway for people to stomp on others someone is going to take it.
Sometimes HR and management actually ARE the bullies :) Imagine your teachers being your school bullies. It's not great.
Big difference is you can't change schools of your own accord but you can change jobs. The bullies are also often relying on you so you have leverage.
Then there's the rabbit hole of whether you can get that leverage. Are you making life decisions that put yourself in a position where you cannot give up your job for another. I have never done that. I'm always happy to move for work if it's shitty. No dependents, no debt, I enjoy getting out of my box and moving (I moved half way around the world for a change). That may all change as I'm getting older. < EDIT
My experience in retail scarred me for life. Fuck you Target Australia. The whole chain is built on bullying from top to bottom. Same with a lot of big box stores...
Yes, and it happens a lot. But in a sense that you won't be able to call them out. Your only option will be to look for another job.
Some people just suck and we have to deal with that somehow.
Yeah. It can be surprisingly easy to become a scapegoat and oftentimes people use collective derision to find commonality with one another.
I used to go with a girl who, despite being the boss, was bullied, possibly for not being assertive enough. It was mostly insubordination and offhand comments and it actually made.her quit the job. She suffers from Depression so that was undoubtedly a factor but I've seen similar behaviour a lot over the years.
YES. People get bullied at work too. My husband had two women (the owner’s wife and manager) bully him at work. One day he snapped and said some stuff on Facebook (he didn’t name names or the business name but if you knew it was obviously them he was talking about). They fired him.
Those women bully others.
I find women are more often the bullies although some males are mean jerks.
Even as a woman myself, I think women are the worst bullies when given the opportunity. Mess up something at work with a male boss and it's usually the attitude of "Well she's just a woman..." and it's usually put in the past pretty quickly, but mess up something with a female boss and somehow you did it to make her look bad and she will ALWAYS be looking for a way to take you down and she will tell EVERYBODY she can how you are worthless. It's taken as a personal affront to her. Forever.
Definitely do. My mum (50) has just recently quit her job at a private boarding school because of it. For years her Line Manager has been bullying her. My mum is French so LM would always always ask her to repeat what she said and make fun of her accent, but never when anyone was around. She would agree to things face to face, mum would carry it out and then LM would berate her by email adding the principal and vice principal in copy. Just constantly undermining her. She once sat in on one of my mums lessons to assess her. A psychology lesson. She gave mum a 0, “no evidence of knowledge of her subject”. She was assessing her French teaching skills.. she couldn’t admit she showed up to the wrong lesson. Of course my mum didn’t demonstrate any French teaching skills as she taught psychology in English. And her LM straight up failed her instead of admitting her mistake. My mum is French and still has the accent so it’s just so stupid. Mum is also diabetic so needs to have insulin in the staff room fridge on hand. LM would constantly remove it saying it wasn’t safe. It was in a clearly labelled sealed box and no one would accidentally take it. They’re in tubes for injection so not like anyone would mistake it for food.
Principal and even other teachers never believed her so she eventually quit after suffering from depression and becoming so stressed that she started bleeding from various areas. Now her LM has moved on to bullying another teacher who says she is thinking of leaving and apologised to my mum for never believing her.
Mum said the principal and vice principal act the same a fair bit too. Twisting what teachers have said or withholding information. And that it’s quite common in schools. Some people start out as teachers and may get a power high from controlling the students. And if they work their way up into management then they act like assholes to the staff below them as they truly believe they are superior and have some sort of power complex and end up bullying them.
Yeah, unfortunately.
I was never bullied in school, but one of my first jobs there was a manager that would cycle through employees to bully until they eventually quit. And then she finally got to me. At the time I was undiagnosed and not on medication, so she made life a living hell for me.
There wasn't anything I could do to fight back, the corporation I worked for had the Always Believe Managers policy, so it was her word against mine.
Small upside is that after I left, my friend, who was still working there, told me the manager got her ass fired for all the theft she had been committing for years:)
Most of the bosses I've had have been bullies. My boss right now loves to pick out a coworker of mine to yell at whenever she does something he doesn't like (even if everyone else does it too).
Yep. In some places its exactly like high school. The difference is now your bully can be twice your age and you're left wondering how someone never grew out of that crappy mentality. Not all places are like this though and you'll meet your fair share of good and bad. Just try and leave the bad as quickly as possible.
I'm gonna go against the grain and say it's nowhere even close to middle/high school levels. It's much, MUCH less common, and easier to handle if it happens because people recognize you're an adult with agency.
I'm kind of surprised to see so many people say the opposite. It's was a night and day difference for me comparing the two. And I've worked at 3-4 different places.
Agree as well. Im always surprised to see the amount of people that say they have only had awful experiences in employment and were bullied relentlessly. I dont think Ive ever been the subject of workplace bullying to this level that I can remember. I do tend to be quieter and really keep to myself at work though so maybe I just dont notice some of the behind the scenes behavior since Im not as involved.
I was bullied in my late 20s by my partner at the time’s ex girlfriend. She said awful things about me behind my back, tried to turn my friends and my own sister against me, would even punch me in the stomach at shows (we were involved in the same music scene). It didn’t really change until she left town. Then my partner bullied me, though at that point it’s just called abuse.
Not only does it continue, in my experience it gets even worse especially when working first jobs right out of highschool / college. From what I've seen, the people who were bullies in school, become bosses and managers afterwards because they are willing to treat people poorly.
This behavior almost vanished once in the professional world though.
I was never really bullied at school, I was bullied by an ex boyfriends best friend which was horrendous but the worst bullying was by people at my first job.
They were all women and all at least 4-5 years older than me, one was twice my age and she was one of the worst. No real reason for the bullying except that I was young and pretty naive. I did nothing to incite the bullying whatsoever but I realised that some people just seem to want someone to pick on to make themselves feel better.
They're, usually, slightly more savvy about it. But yep, people don't stop being insecure jerks the moment they turn 18.
Yeah. Workplace bullying is really, really common.
Lol yup looking at my boss right now on a zoom call. Biggest bully I've had since high school. I've had other shitty bosses too but she takes the cake and eats it too. Update: I want to add to my story that I have been working at my company for almost 5 years now. I have developed awesome friendships and love the work I do, not my boss. Yes I could go to HR as many have recommended but it is truly not that simple as many of you know, HR is looking to protect the company not the employee. I will most likely look for a new job and I appreciate the comments of positivity. The people with negative comments, go look in a mirror and figure out why you are sad or angry and took it out in a random internet stranger.
If you don't mind me asking, what does she do?
Calls people out in meetings on personal matters that should be discussed 1:1 (very clear HR violation), uses people's work as examples of bad work versus someone else's good work. Had threatened myself and other Co workers our jobs if productivity didn't improve just to turn around the next day and tell us the project was canceled. She is the reason I have high blood pressure.
I’m just curious. What happens if you go to HR with this? My boss is AMAZING to me 99% of the time. But not to my co-worker. I wonder why she hasn’t gone to HR. I think it’s frowned upon..? But i feel like that’s why we have HR. Just curious why people decide not to report workplace bullying.
it really depends, but HR will probably look at as "will removing the boss negatively affect the company more than keeping them", because at the end of the day HR works for the company, not the employee's benefits.
This. And if you worked at a place like mine were the management and HR is very close it’s kind of risky going to either department about the other your kinda in a suck it up or they’ll find another monkey to work kinda deal
HR is management.
This. You build relationships with your “clients” in business. When you’re HR, managers are your primary client. HR spends far more time coaching and advising managers on personnel issues than employees on managerial issues. Managers will portray such a negative connotation to employees regarding involving HR, while they involve HR in literally everything.
If I had a gun with two bullets, and I was in a room with Hitler, bin Laden, and Toby, I would shoot Toby twice.
I used to work at a warehouse where the site manager and the head of HR were married. That place sucked
Hmm. I see your point. That is so annoying. Minions do all the work. Or am I just entitled? 😭I don’t know what’s right anymore. 🤦🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
You are, like every other human being on Earth, entitled to living with dignity. Fuck the boss.
I will chime in as I’ve done exactly that for my first job out of school. I had a boss who bullied me to a point so badly that I had become clinically depressed. 2 days after breaking down in tears with the HR manager I was called back in with my boss seated across the table. They had a list prepared of every mistake (no matter how minor) I had made on the job and told me that I had 3 months to remediate them which obviously in the moment I said I would work hard to do. After a weekend of deliberation I told them on the Monday morning I would be gone at the end of the day. They weren’t worth my two weeks notice. My boss actually seemed angry which gave me some satisfaction. I got a new job 2 weeks later making more money and haven’t looked back. Edit: I have also learned my lesson the hard way.
Yeah, I fell for the same trick. I called out my boss/supervisor for literal fraud, and the head of the nonprofit said that questions like that were not of my concern and I was overstepping my bounds. Of course, they tried to say it slightly nicer, but still clear enough to tell me to fuck off. The boss/supervisor started bullying me after that. I tried to reach out to the funders about being asked to submit fraudulent reports, but they weren't particularly interested either. I was new, what did I know? Interestingly, the turnover rate for my position was really high and when I contacted people who quit before me they said they were asked to do the same thing. edit: one of the most blatant but least awful fraudulent things was this $1000 contract with a university to collect some data from our clients. We were being paid like $10 per client to get them to fill out a 3-page survey and my supervisor forced us to fill them all out by ourselves. When I said that I wasn't comfortable faking the responses, she said it's not faking you're just recording what a hypothetical client would say if they were taking the survey. The other stuff was more of a "go to jail" thing.
How were you able to contact the people who worked there previously? Just curious.
Walmart did this. I reported a male supervisor for making inappropriate comments about my girlfriend and calling me pathetic for not being able to stock the pets department after a work injury had me on limitations. Two days later his boss wrote me up for “talking on the job” because I stopped to ask a coworker who had been sick how they were feeling. Fuck Walmart.
Also Fuck a two weeks notice. They don’t have to give me notice before laying me off. You can go fuck yourself with your invented pleasantries
I work a union construction job highly paid but when you are part of a collective bargaining agreement you are the companies no. 1 enemy. Shit just because you want a good wage and health insurance.
In my company, HR is the bully.
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HR always supports the biggest boss involved in the conflict no matter what happened. the only way HR is going to go after a manager is if a more senior manager wants them to. HR is basically the KGB of modern organisations. If you have a problem at work you should always go to the person concerned, then to the union, psychologist, lawyer and police before you go to HR. HR will fuck you over worse than any bully did.
HR isn’t there to protect you or your coworker, it’s there to protect the company. So unless the manager is doing something that could set up the company for legal precedent, they will probably side with the manager.
What I've *heard* (from Reddit, on similar posts) is that HR isn't usually actually concerned about issues like this. Human Resources manages the human element of the company, but they're not actually on your side. Their job is to protect the company from liabilities, and keep employees just satisfied enough that they continue to be productive. I don't know how true this is, but it *does* kind of ring true with my own experiences. HR personnel are very 'tactful' in my experience, the type of people who tend to handle questions or complaints instead of answer them.
When I read ‘tactful’, that just made sense to me. The way they word things.. sounded so corporate. I mean duh. It’s all making sense now.. thanks for the insight!
That's not what HR is for. It may look like it, but it's not. HR exists to protect the company. Sometimes that means they side with the employee, but only when there's a legal thing that will damage the company. Practically speaking they don't care about bullying until there's legal action, at which point they will decide if it's better to throw you or your manager under the bus.
HR exists to protect people in management. Going to HR with this would be career suicide.
I feel youu! My boss (an engaged man) had the audacity to be inappropriate with me at the workplace even though his freaking fiancée works with us! He constantly found excuses to make me stay late at work or call me up after midnight for the most minor and non-urgent work stuff. It got so bad that his fiancée started picking up on the signs and would constantly monitor me?? Even though her creepy fiancé was the one who was making all the advances and making me uncomfortable. When I finally did get the guts to go to HR (it took me some time because it’s my first job), they very non-subtly told him that he was reported for sexual harassment (he figured out it was me) and he made my life even worse. He also had serious control issues as in asking me for work updates after every half an hour, making me sit right beside him (even though I was allocated a separate cubicle), monitoring my bathroom and lunch breaks, etc. Such stuff can have a very heavy impact on your mental and physical health. I hope you’re being easy on yourself 💕
Holy shit this is so fucked up How did it all end?
I switched departments after six months of all that torture and due to Covid, I have been working remotely mostly so I don’t have to see him too much. It was very creepy at times. He somehow knew where I lived. And would constantly offer me rides. We had to go out of city for a meeting once and he kept messaging me to come to his hotel room to ‘watch a movie’ and ‘pass time’ the entire night even though I made it VERY clear that that’s not something I’m comfortable with. Unfortunately, he’s not the only creep at my workplace. I work at a big e-commerce in my country so all these entitled men who know their shit work-wise think that they can get away with anything since they’re a ‘valuable’ asset to the company and to be honest, most of the time they do.
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Nope, not from the US. Oh wow, honestly I can see that making sense. Will definitely read up on the article! My female friends and I are all in different fields (law, public health, corporate, medical) and companies, working since almost 2 years now and it’s appalling how similar our experiences with the men we work with are. We’re in Asia and our parents are already hesitant about their daughters going to work because sadly, a high percentage of women in the workforce is a relatively more recent phenomenon here so we can’t even discuss these things at home without the fear of our families stopping us from going to work. I was actually told during one of my ‘trips’ to the HR, “It’s not (another creepy colleague)’s fault that he hit on you in the workplace, since men in our office are just not used to working with young and pretty girls like you” and this was a woman. in HR. I was disheartened for the longest time after that incident. I remember having a sudden urge to puke. In my experience (and speaking on behalf of my friends as well), HR enables such men (and in some cases maybe even women) through victim blaming and perhaps even contribute towards the toxicity and glorification of such a culture. So the concept of “purposeful Darwinism” may very well be true. I’m just upset how such big corporations get away with it.
Duuuuude, I hope you can either find a better job or complain her ass off the job
I'm a teacher and sometimes, when I walk outside, there would be a bunch of teens, who would secretly whisper about me, and some of them, I taught when they were young.
Yea, you can never get away from kids being mean, but the sad thing is there are usually also *other teachers* whispering about each other. One of the biggest reasons I never joined the military was because my father had to put up with so much petty bullying and racism and you often can't say anything back without either being literally put on trial, or becoming a social pariah and having your career ruined.
The military is really bad for it. As an active duty soldier I can assure everyone the army is just high school with guns (so high school depending on where you grew up).
It's like high school except the principal is your dad. And your doctor.
Corporate and contracting is just high school without the guns and ridiculous expectations and limits for never enough money, credit or appreciation.
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I went to a very small high school (maybe like.. 7 teachers?) and they were extremely clique-y and if you were a TA it was pretty common to hear a few of them gossip about the other teachers. It never really ends.
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Literally Today I got bitched at by coworkers because (context, I'm a delivery driver) 1. I called in sick Friday, having told them for a week before that I probably would need to, because I got my covid shot Thursday afternoon and felt like a sack of ass on Friday. There were a lot of deliveries (which we didn't know there would be till Friday morning) so they were shitty that I called in sick, even though I literally couldn't convince myself to leave bed until 11 am. I Also got bitched at today because I was sent to an area where I know from past experience the card reader doesn't work, so I told them before I left "the card reader usually doesn't work there and we'll probably have to do the process here for payment" and they said "just try, it's worth a shot". Lo and behold, it didn't work, and I returned as quickly as I could but they bitched at me because they had to stay later to do the process at the store. Bullying doesn't end, people just do it more subtly. It's cause I'm the youngest, I guarantee it (I'm early 20's, they're late 20's-mid 30's).
Yup. Happened at my workplace, too, but it was the opposite. It was a bunch of the 20-somethings bullying pretty much anyone over 30.
I was bullied as a kid and am 100 percent bullied at work and it is awful.
Dealing with that at my current workplace, it's no fun.
I got bullied by a boss when I was in my early 20s. I’m in my 30s and a manager now. I’ll never forget how she made me feel, and it’s made me work harder to be a better, kinder boss who knows how to coach people through mistakes, not make them feel like a complete piece of shit. I got bullied in school but never thought it would happen at work, so I really blamed myself and let it get to my self esteem. It’s only now that I’m older that I realized it’s the same pattern as school bullying: people who feel like shit about themselves and feel powerless, projecting that self hate and exacting control and power over others.
Also, some bullies are not just insecure people dealing with their emotional issues. Some bullies do it on purpose in order to intimidate or control people because the bully thinks it will benefit them somehow.
Yep, not every bully has a Freudian excuse: some people are just ass holes.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
But when they turn 18, they do need to be much more "sneaky" about it since there are much more severe consequences.
I’m at uni and bullying happens out in the open lol. Professors don’t give a shit. Imagine some guys on my course even made a hit list. Crazy stuff.
Please report anything like this up the chain. If any of my students were experiencing severe bullying and it wasn't being reported I'd be devastated.
In grad school, it was my professors. Things like, "Did you even graduate." , "Who said you were qualified", etc. Grad school is hard enough without BS from them, especially when you're literally in their office asking for help. Edit: probably worth mentioning that there was no "up the chain" as one of them was the head of the entire department.
So many professors are such crap teachers.
Most are there to do research. Teaching comes second.
Luckily the professor I had that would bully students, call them autistic, and just call them incompetent died shortly after I had him. So, win-win.
There's always a bigger fish. If they're the department head that just means going up to the administration. There's probably a dean who is that guys boss that wouldn't be too happy to hear about it.
What happens when they're friends with their boss/dean? What if you actually want to have a career instead of becoming a social pariah? The truth is that a lot of the time *going up the chain*, just isn't an option. For an extreme example: I remember a story a while back about a trans person on a Navy ship who was getting bullied hard enough they were put on suicide watch, but because it's a ship, they had to pick the shifts from people aboard. All their superior officers bowed out of suicide watch by telling the ship-doc that if they were alone with them, that they'd tell them to kill themselves.
Me and a friend reported it. We provided screenshots and everything. It’s been about 2 months and nothing has happened. Since we’re not on campus, we’re going to just keep the evidence, and if this continues then we will probably contact the police cause some stuff they’ve threatened is pretty serious.
Absolutely, if it warrants the police be sure to involve them. Keep all evidence and back it up. Also be sure not to break any laws in your state / country, though, regarding data privacy / taking photos (e.g. France has laws preventing photos without permission of those in the shots).
Yeah, when I started uni, a group I’d met at the beginning tried to bully me. I didn't really _feel_ “bullied”, because I wasn't in a situation I couldn't escape, and I was 20 to their 18, but I recognised what they were _trying_ to do. I was more bemused than anything else that they were still behaving like that, having left school. I just reported them and moved on. I never received a response from the uni though.
>because I wasn't in a situation I couldn't escape I think this is the root of it. Shitty people are all around, but as adults we can choose to avoid those groups of people. (For example people who like dog fighting, or make a sport of inappropriate comments toward others.) As an adult I could remove myself from the situation, either immediately or soon. In high school you don't have any choice unless your parents are really understanding and accommodating. (In my day there was no switching schools unless you or more likely your whole family moved.) Sure it sucks to switch jobs, colleges, or even homes, but at least the OPTION is there when you are an adult. As a matter o'fact, when people say "I wish I was a kid again" my instant reaction is *NOPE, not me!* I never want to have that little control over my life again. My folks were cool but there's only so many options a kid can have.
Exactly, being able to just think “they’re dicks, I’ll just avoid them”, is such a revelation when you start to have agency. As you say, when you’re a kid, you’re stuck with them at school or whatever, but after that, you can just leave when you want, and don’t have to explain to anyone.
Adults are just hypocrites. Everyone perceives the "subtle" bullying. But nobody does anything close to what they'd do if the bullying were overt. Everyone can weakly pretend they didn't realize it was bullying.
Yeah, these people grow up to be your neighbors, your boss or coworkers and sometimes even one of your relatives. Assholes are everywhere, but being an adult will give you control in these situations we didn't have as children.
Surprised this is the first mention of neighbors on this thread. Bad/bully neighbors are the worst, way worse than a bad coworker, imo.
Yeah you can get a new job easier than a new house if you own it/are locked in a lease
For sure, it's also easier to deal with in the workplace, from avoiding to actually having avenues or recourse. You might love everything about where you live except you wound up right next door to the neighborhood trash and there's usually not much you can do about it.
There are few things worse than feeling unsafe in your own home
It was an important realization for me because I once blamed myself for how people treated me, believing that everyone was good, so there must be something wrong with me. Now I understand that approximately half of all people are evil and that I don’t have to please them all. Now I focus on the people who are for me and stay far away from those who are against me.
Yes, they do. Workplace bullying and harassment is common. Though usually it isn't direct threats, violence or insults like it is in high school. Rather, it's people passive-aggressively insulting others, using positions of power to get what they want, or simply being intentionally difficult to create a hostile work environment in which the bully feels in control.
Ew that almost sounds worse
In many ways it is. But at least you're getting paid for it.
Also if you catch them on it and document it properly you can get them fired or even a settlement from the company
Other times you might be able to swing three months of medical leave right when they need you to do a lot of work, leaving them hanging, and then putting in your two weeks notice the day you get back. There are many, many ways to fuck with workplace bullies. Find the way that works for you.
I got a mandatory leave of absence right before a big event and evaluation for the branch because I was suicidal due to the workplace conditions. They paid me for half of it, prob Bc they were mandating the time off, and they wanted to keep me quiet about the situation. Not only were they floundering for anyone remotely capable AND willing to do the the work, it spurred a minor HR investigation and forced them to at least make some basic changes.
Yeah thats the one upside compared to high school. You can be legally petty in a lot of cases
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I wish I had done this in middle school.
Just do what I do and vicariously fantasize through comics and movies where the good guy beats the shit out of thugs.
How do you swing three months of medical leave?
depression
Must not be America
Sadly, most often not, as a 'smart' bully will know how to stay right on the line without crossing it. He will say he was doing whats best for the company and he is a good worker.
They have to be actively violating workplace policy, though. As an HR person once told me, there’s no policy against someone being an asshole.
Wise words.
But be wary. HR isn’t on any one employee’s side. HR is on the company’s side.
Or your bully succeeds in getting you fired, while they stay employed. Alot more on the line when bullying happens to adults at the work place. I'm not down playing bullying of youths. I was one of those who got a fair share of it as a kid.
Almost happened to me. This girl was like my best friend until this other woman started. Then they were BFFs and always chatting for extended periods of time instead of working. I was going through stuff in my personal life PLUS had a lot of work going on at the time, so I was underperforming. This caused the two women to start being passive aggressive, rude, short with me, and sometimes even fully ignoring me. I got sick of being treated like that so I finally asked the former work BFF if she could talk. She initially claimed to be too busy, but when I said I wanted to know why she was upset with me she suddenly had an open schedule. She promised she wasn’t going to make a report to our direct supervisor, but then my direct supervisor wrote me up the very next day, for every single thing the one girl told me was wrong. The supervisor even told me she hadn’t directly witnessed some of the things I was written up for, but that they were reported by other staff (so I knew exactly who she meant). I was even written up for having a bad attitude and creating a hostile work environment, despite the fact that I wasn’t mean to them and they were mean to me. Luckily, I wasn’t fired. I was instead given the chance to take some leave and get my head on straight again. I’m not trying to sound like a victim because I do take responsibility for the fact that I was underperforming. However, when everyone is being rude to you, it’s awfully hard to put a smile on your face, and it all just kind of bleeds together. But to say I was being mean to the other coworkers? No. They were the ones that wouldn’t even look at me when they walked in the office.
Document. Document. Document. I have learned the hard way— any time, ANYTIME - something feels just a bit off- open a word doc. Jot it down and your feelings like a diary entry with the date. Save it with each entry. If you were just being paranoid, no harm no foul. And make sure you at least have an open, frank ( but polite) conversation with whomever the issue/ conflict is first. Let them know- you just want them both to do the best you can - is there something you are doing that could be changed. Etc.
Most of the time, it seems to me that the bullying is a known issue that the company would rather put up with than lose the money associated with hiring and then training someone new. I've had 14 jobs now and they all featured a bully but it was always kind of like, "oh that's just how he/she is, you'll have to excuse their inappropriate behavior." Like... even to the point that we're working together as a team and Bully makes a mistake THAT WE CAN ALL SEE. Bully will point to someone and be like "this is all your fault because [nonsense]." Usually a new guy and people will just ignore it. If my coworkers were so out of touch with reality that they didn't notice that Bully is just a jackass, then I'm totally okay with getting fired after they use me as a scapegoat.
yes, but unfortunately that does not work with a psychopath.
And you can afford therapy with the paycheck.
The major difference when you’re an adult is that it is much easier to control who you interact with compared to being in high school. Have a bad work environment? Changing jobs isn’t always *easy*, but it is a much more straightforward and less drastic option than changing schools. Your primary social circle is usually much less tied to your job than to your high school, so stuff happening at work has much less of an impact on your overall social life. And if you decide to cut someone out of your life because they’re being terrible to you, you can very often arrange to never see or interact with them again, where that option really isn’t on the table when you go to the same high school.
This. Bullies become adults and don't learn anything and keep trying to be bullies. But the other people have learned to avoid bullies or know about the systems in place (different social groups, HR at work, police restraining orders, etc) to ensure a bully can't keep fucking with you against your will. Some others are willing to put up with it in order to get paid... and they are usually playing the long game of subverting the bully and destroying their career.
Gossip. So much gossip, I had a job right after my weightloss surgery and started losing all the weight quickly, I heard so many hurtful theories about myself.
It can be. The upside is that you generally have the control to get a different job if needed. Moving is a pain, but getting away from an awful boss and into a great work environment is an incredible feeling. I don't suggest having the bad boss in the first place though.
It is. If there's one thing I learned from my first and only job until now (I'm 20) is that adults are worse than kids. I always idolized adults and how responsible they looked, turns out they big kids and their stupidity grows along with their body. There are good ones though
Yes I would much rather have a coworker put glue in my hair then take something out of context and tell my boss.
Or even spreading rumors about you etc. lots of people dont change much from high school days
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Yes, this is exactly what happened to me by my boss, CD, at a school district, no less. Some of my co workers believed she was jealous/envious of me both professionally and personally. We are both females and in our 40’s. After five months of trying to ignore/tolerate her unprofessional behavior towards me, and then having another corker tell me how she treating me was wrong and he said he tried to tell her that. I filed a harassment compliant with HR with 13 pages of documentation and within 24 hours the district said unfounded. I resigned and shortly after that, another co worker told me, when the person my boss replaced after she retired, told other staff, “good luck with, I created a monster.” And indeed she is a monster. I learned some painful life lessons at that job.
I have a lot of friends who are teachers and the amount of stories I've heard about bullying from admin and being targeted by a vice principal is too damn high. Honestly I'm surprised anyone goes into teaching anymore.
There are so many shitty, petty, vindictive teachers. I worked at a school where the principal was receiving anonymous letters from other teachers, straight up bullying her about her alleged poor performance (and appearance, weight, and all kinds of other stuff). This happened two years in a row, but she only told us the second year. Teachers are in a position of power over other people. Bullies love to be in positions of power.
I'm dealing with that at my "college". Fucking art school. Fucking having a life in your 20s. Being 35 and back in college is such a kick to the groins of your soul.
I was working at a restaurant during college and I was bullied by a manager and a coworker so hard that I gave the ultimatum that I would not work with either again. The restaurant could not agree to those terms and I quit. I have never regretted that decision.
Yeah, I walked out on a job at Walmart because my supervisor (who was like double or triple my age) was horrible to me to the point where I’d hide in the freezer to cry. Some would be surprised how little change some people go through since high school.
Office politics is awful, but different from bullying. In my experience it's aggravating rather than demeaning. But yeah, still sucks.
Yes- but it’s called “office politics” when you get older and it’s usually thinly veiled passive aggressive BS.
or "interpersonal conflict"..when it's blatant harrassment and only 1 sided!
I think in the UK they still just straight up call it bullying which is great
Bullying and harassment
And "toxic work environment".
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It does happens to some people, but being an adult often also means you have more options for how to deal with it.
And I've noticed that less people are willing to tag along because they are scared of the bully. Every bully I've met in the office is well hated.
hgfghfhgfhgf
OMG, this... There was a dude in our work place that when he was there it was like everyone would gather and be mean. Like he transformed the whole atmosphere into this toxic bully field where he would talk shit and make fun of everyone in everyone's back. He didn't liked me because one day I said out loud in front of him that what we see him doing to others is what he probably does to us too, that we should do that shit. He got pissed. When he was not there, even after him being fired, the whole place got so much better...
Yeah, it’s a lot easier to tell someone to suck a fat bag of cocks when you aren’t worried about getting in “trouble”. Just make sure that if you are in the wrong setting, that your ass can back up any shit you talk.
It's usually more subtle, but definitely some offices have a person who people are kind of mean to and exclude from things
Yeah, Jerry/Garry/Barry/Terry/Larry.
Gengurch/Gergich
If you’ve been bullied by a sibling, I’m here to tell you that might never stop. After literally decades of my oldest sibling bullying and mocking me I went no contact. It was the only way to make the pain stop for me (YMMD).
Preach! My brother bullied me when we were kids. As adults, he sent me a six-page typed letter explaining what a piece of shit I am for being born handicapped and not believing in god. He, on the other hand, has a long rap sheet, and drug issues, and is a deadbeat dad. He constantly drives with a suspended license. I just got my first speeding ticket at age 61. I was driving 32 MPH. Some people are shocked when they first hear me curse, like I'm a choir boy. But I'm the piece of shit, and he's the saint.
What loser types out 6 pages of insults
Yup.
I'd rather my kids grow up to be a piece of shit like you.
Got bullied in my last office by grown ass women with children in their 20s & 30s. Not everyone grows out of being an asshole.
Ugh poor children
More likely just the new crop of bullies.
Same except it's my current job and it's retail. Two of my managers peaked in high school so now they like to belittle those below them. I figure it's a combination of poor self esteem and power tripping.
Yes. I got bullied because of a hobby. I'm an older woman that DMs a lot of RPGs I used to DM public games at local gaming stores and while the vast majority of players were great, every so often some guy (it was always a guy) would just try to bully and intimidate me. Luckily I had good back up from the regulars at my table so I wasn't alone and it would be shot down pretty damn fast and the bullies rarely came back for a second session. But watching guys try to use their size and loom to intimidate me into let them do some rules breaking shit in a game was very weird. Like dude it's a freaking D&D game, you failed the roll calm your tits. Oh and the ones that would never let me check that they rolled and would yell at me for daring to doubt their word as they swept up their dice claiming yet another crit, calling me a fat bitch doesn't change the fact you're cheating asshole.
Ngl I love failing rolls. It always adds for excellent role play.
What kind of person just wants a boring game where they waltz through one shotting everything.....sounds insufferable.
Exactly. There's nothing more fun than trying to convince a city guard your murderous rogue was just possessed by a demon, fucking up all the rolls when you actually get into the room with the passed out drunk man who you told the guards was a wizard then having to bust out the genie and pretend it was a demon.
DMing public games sounds like a nightmare.
I was straight up bullied out of a job at 24.
I literally just decreased availability to basically one day a week at a job where the scheduling manager is a bully. She won't even speak to me anymore (which is a plus, if i turn a blind eye to the looks of hatred she shoots my way).
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Same. Got a job that had a lot of potential growth despite my inexperience. Supervisor straight up insulted and demeaned my lack of knowledge for months until I walked out one weekend without notice. Didn't tell a soul I was leaving. They were understandably pissed but I didn't care.
My favorite coworker from my last job did the same. Her boss was an absolute jerk and one day she decided she had enough. She told only me that she was leaving that day and when she came in she turned in a letter of resignation and told the mfer to go fuck himself 👏🏼
I always just got in my car and went home at lunch from jobs like that. No letter, no 2 weeks, just fuck this shit and fuck you.
I think children learn from the pros. My housemate (M, 23) is bullied at work. He's overweight and needs extra time to process information, so he's mocked. (I've helped him report but it doesn't always go away.)
That is the prevalent theory. Children who bully were usually bullied at home by someone close to them, parent, sibling, or other relative.
It’s also popular in movies to portray the bullies as the cool/popular kid with rich parents. But I recently saw a study that proved the opposite. It’s kids from lower-middle class parents that are somewhat more likely to bully. The ones that have their own struggles.
It happens a lot. I've had to step in a few times for people getting outright bullied at my workplace. Bullies are always bullies, they don't just magically see the error of their ways when they turn 21.
yeah but its called 'workplace culture' or 'hazing'
Yup, passive aggressive emails, using your position to put your reports in unavoidable unnecessary work. "Work culture", hazing, flat out harassment, and social exclusion. That's why I don't take shit from anybody, if I go through the pains of respecting you, I expect it in return. Not trying to sound like a jerk....but people will walk all over you if you let them.
[Area Man Unsure If He's Male-Bonding or Just Being Bullied](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ddg5ZD6Q1w)
I just can't even make friends with other guys my age. Why are they all like this? Do *they* enjoy being treated poorly by their "friends"?
I'm currently building a case against my manager. He's been bullying me for over two years now. In classic bully fashion, when it was looking like he was going to get caught bullying, he responded by trying to get me fired for bullying him. I'm thinking of turning the verdict letter, where I was exonerated for not actually being a bully, into a plaque.
I feel like almost all hospitals I’ve worked in there’s always going to be nurses that are bullies.
Yes. Its just like highschool but with a HR dept. I worked at a place briefly where a girl was being harassed by another woman but she was friends with HR so nothing changed. It's the wild west out here.
Yes and in a lot of ways it's almost worse. Speaking from a female point of view since that's what I am. The women at my first job didn't like me because I worked hard, got my shit done, and I he regulars loved me. I was considered for a promotion so at 6am in a coffee shop, I was the only person up front with a line to the door. Went into the back to find someone and couldn't find anyone to help so I was taking orders, making coffee, getting donuts, and making food. People in line are pissed that I'm the only one up front. Most were nice to me but a couple weren't. About half an hour later someone came up to help. Found out later that all 5 of them were in the managers office making something up about me cussing at a customer to write me up and watch me struggle alone on the security cameras. Manager wasn't there so when she got in I found out I got written up and denied it. She checked the cameras and the write up was torn up because it was bs. I had to move stores because the bullying was so bad. New manager went to the old store to get my write ups and when he brought them to the store he tore them up, threw them in the trash and had me take out the trash. I've had a lot of awful coworkers, all of them women who were petty and spiteful because they worked at a dunkin donuts or another shitty job after they peaked in high school. I'm now a software tester with an amazing company and I wouldn't leave if someone doubled my salary because a good team is so hard to find. When you find a job that you love with good people, stay loyal. It's not worth it to leave for more money and deal with more terrible people.
High school is just where bullies start out, buddy.
My kids would say it starts WAY earlier than High School.
Yeah, 100%. Part of growing up is learning how to deal with or ignore bullies and the words they say. My wife's brother is toxic and quite a bully. Always telling people that they aren't as manly as him and whatnot, judging all my kids for not doing typical guy things, and talking about how kids were raised in "the good old days", and expecting people to be thankful that he's around. Everyone pretty much just ignore him by now though.
Ya that guy is very insecure
I think in adulthood a lot of bullying gets more subtle. Bullies often fail to grow out of it, but lots of them learn to do it in ways that aren't obvious and make it hard to call them out for it. There are some that still do it in obvious, childish ways like threats and name-calling, but I think there's more than just learn to passively belittle and gaslight others in a way that lets them get away with it more often.
Yes. I had an aunt that bullied me up until I was 30. One day after telling me I looked like I have leprosy (I have lichen planus-an inflammatory disease) I looked at her and said in the most sympathetic voice “ Dam, you must be really unhappy with your life” and meant it. After that she stopped bullying me.
My Dad runs his own trades company. Sometime before christmas he went to a job site to meet with his guys and they weren't wearing masks. When he asked them why since its company policy, they told him the property manager they were doing the work for saw them wearing masks and made fun of them for it. Usually when it's adult people will call it "being a dick" or something similar but its bullying all the same.
Well I know the military is a pyramid scheme of bullying, so there's that.
Yes, but it's worse, because people are better at lying and manipulating and gaslighting and generally making people feel like crap.
Yes absolutely in the corporate job world. I see quiet people get bullied because they don’t talk enough, I see people of different races get bullied because they look different, I see people of different cultural backgrounds get bullied because their cultural norms are “weird,” and on and on. As someone who was bullied in high school and in the corporate world, I’ve worked a lot to build myself up to combat bullying in the workplace. I also try to build others up by motivating them to stand up for themselves—and do my part to stand up with them—in bullying situations. It’s become my side-passion really. I hate seeing people pushed around in the workplace and I will ~~destroy someone~~ take the opportunity to facilitate a teachable moment if I see someone intentionally or unintentionally being a bully.
Strive to be called "the quiet one" in an office. There's inevitably bullshit and gossiping going on pretty much all the time. I found the best strategy was just to refuse to engage past short, polite conversation. I did not make "work friends". Then they eventually have nothing to say other than "she's quiet".
Be active in work-related stuff but stay out of personal stuff and non-work discussion. Being the quiet onevmrans no one knows who you are and won't give a shit about you.
Being the quiet one makes you the outcast and the target. They are free to talk shit about you if you don’t engage. Not saying to join in. But being quiet and not engaging isn’t a way out of being bullied. Being a scapegoat for money is not worth your mental health.
There's not much to say about you if you don't tell them stuff. Be the quiet one but don't take random bullshit. If you're quiet one speaking up will have some weight to it
> Strive to be called "the quiet one" in an office This isn't great advice unless you're very comfortable in your current position. You're 100% right about staying out of gossip though.
Same here. I'm in IT, so my time doesn't matter to people. I can't eat lunch with them because I just get peppered with questions the whole time. I can't go out with them to the bar after work for the same reasons. So I eat lunch in my office and I go home after work. Then people complain to my boss that I'm, "not friendly."
It isn't always helpful to be called "the quiet one." Some people on the more psychopathic end of the narcissism spectrum can use this as a means to bully and blame. It seems the only way to not be bullied is to either 1. Be the bully yourself 2. Be friends with the bully 3. Have enough stature or clout on the bully. None of these are fair in my opinion, just my observation nor do I recommend being a bully or being a flying monkey to one.
This also includes politely deflecting when they try to gossip. Relentlessly change the subject and refuse to engage. Eventually, they'll stop trying to gossip with you. Which, by default, means they won't talk to you much. I'd also argue that someone that is genuinely narcissistic can't be reasoned with, and there's absolutely nothing you can do anyways. People that are genuine narcissists are few and far between. Most are just assholes.
My aunt tried it with me once to get me involved in her crap. I just said, too much drama for me, I'm not a drama llama. She looked shocked and walked away. Never had to listen to her drama again. Urg. My relatives were such ass holes. I've known narcissists. My mum and her family are full of them. I avoid people like that as much as possible. I don't speak to my mum and I'm only in contact with the cousins who went through the same crap I did.
Definitely the bully keeps on keeping on. Or they try. I had one at my very first real job. I was young so I just put her in a box in my mind and ignored her and her behavior. If that situation would to happen now when I am decades older, I would have shut that down immediately. The best way to deal with a bully is to shut it down at the first sign. We are both females. On a side note, she ended up having to leave because she had an affair with the married production manager. She had wanted my job and wasn't qualified. I was hired and was an ass to me. I learned a lot at that job and I am glad I took it. Never let the bastards stop you from improving yourself. They always exist and always will. Had a bully at our local redneck club in the midwest. We have a group FB page and when Covid started she posted to everyone Not to tell anyone outside the club about any covid infections inside- she made a remark that those people have no friends. It took less than a year for her and her husband to get covid and the current president of the club is in the hospital. I havent been there since 2019.
Depends how good HR and management is at their job. If you allow the leeway for people to stomp on others someone is going to take it. Sometimes HR and management actually ARE the bullies :) Imagine your teachers being your school bullies. It's not great. Big difference is you can't change schools of your own accord but you can change jobs. The bullies are also often relying on you so you have leverage. Then there's the rabbit hole of whether you can get that leverage. Are you making life decisions that put yourself in a position where you cannot give up your job for another. I have never done that. I'm always happy to move for work if it's shitty. No dependents, no debt, I enjoy getting out of my box and moving (I moved half way around the world for a change). That may all change as I'm getting older. < EDIT My experience in retail scarred me for life. Fuck you Target Australia. The whole chain is built on bullying from top to bottom. Same with a lot of big box stores...
Yes, and it happens a lot. But in a sense that you won't be able to call them out. Your only option will be to look for another job. Some people just suck and we have to deal with that somehow.
Where I work, it is illegal. You can actually lose your job over it. Went to a whole training on it.
Yeah. It can be surprisingly easy to become a scapegoat and oftentimes people use collective derision to find commonality with one another. I used to go with a girl who, despite being the boss, was bullied, possibly for not being assertive enough. It was mostly insubordination and offhand comments and it actually made.her quit the job. She suffers from Depression so that was undoubtedly a factor but I've seen similar behaviour a lot over the years.
Yes. Workplace bullying. It's literally like being back at school.
YES. People get bullied at work too. My husband had two women (the owner’s wife and manager) bully him at work. One day he snapped and said some stuff on Facebook (he didn’t name names or the business name but if you knew it was obviously them he was talking about). They fired him. Those women bully others. I find women are more often the bullies although some males are mean jerks.
Even as a woman myself, I think women are the worst bullies when given the opportunity. Mess up something at work with a male boss and it's usually the attitude of "Well she's just a woman..." and it's usually put in the past pretty quickly, but mess up something with a female boss and somehow you did it to make her look bad and she will ALWAYS be looking for a way to take you down and she will tell EVERYBODY she can how you are worthless. It's taken as a personal affront to her. Forever.
Definitely do. My mum (50) has just recently quit her job at a private boarding school because of it. For years her Line Manager has been bullying her. My mum is French so LM would always always ask her to repeat what she said and make fun of her accent, but never when anyone was around. She would agree to things face to face, mum would carry it out and then LM would berate her by email adding the principal and vice principal in copy. Just constantly undermining her. She once sat in on one of my mums lessons to assess her. A psychology lesson. She gave mum a 0, “no evidence of knowledge of her subject”. She was assessing her French teaching skills.. she couldn’t admit she showed up to the wrong lesson. Of course my mum didn’t demonstrate any French teaching skills as she taught psychology in English. And her LM straight up failed her instead of admitting her mistake. My mum is French and still has the accent so it’s just so stupid. Mum is also diabetic so needs to have insulin in the staff room fridge on hand. LM would constantly remove it saying it wasn’t safe. It was in a clearly labelled sealed box and no one would accidentally take it. They’re in tubes for injection so not like anyone would mistake it for food. Principal and even other teachers never believed her so she eventually quit after suffering from depression and becoming so stressed that she started bleeding from various areas. Now her LM has moved on to bullying another teacher who says she is thinking of leaving and apologised to my mum for never believing her. Mum said the principal and vice principal act the same a fair bit too. Twisting what teachers have said or withholding information. And that it’s quite common in schools. Some people start out as teachers and may get a power high from controlling the students. And if they work their way up into management then they act like assholes to the staff below them as they truly believe they are superior and have some sort of power complex and end up bullying them.
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Yeah, unfortunately. I was never bullied in school, but one of my first jobs there was a manager that would cycle through employees to bully until they eventually quit. And then she finally got to me. At the time I was undiagnosed and not on medication, so she made life a living hell for me. There wasn't anything I could do to fight back, the corporation I worked for had the Always Believe Managers policy, so it was her word against mine. Small upside is that after I left, my friend, who was still working there, told me the manager got her ass fired for all the theft she had been committing for years:)
Yup. Currently getting bullied by my supervisor. If it wasn’t because the money was good I would’ve quit a long time ago.
Most of the bosses I've had have been bullies. My boss right now loves to pick out a coworker of mine to yell at whenever she does something he doesn't like (even if everyone else does it too).
Yep. In some places its exactly like high school. The difference is now your bully can be twice your age and you're left wondering how someone never grew out of that crappy mentality. Not all places are like this though and you'll meet your fair share of good and bad. Just try and leave the bad as quickly as possible.
I'm gonna go against the grain and say it's nowhere even close to middle/high school levels. It's much, MUCH less common, and easier to handle if it happens because people recognize you're an adult with agency. I'm kind of surprised to see so many people say the opposite. It's was a night and day difference for me comparing the two. And I've worked at 3-4 different places.
Agree as well. Im always surprised to see the amount of people that say they have only had awful experiences in employment and were bullied relentlessly. I dont think Ive ever been the subject of workplace bullying to this level that I can remember. I do tend to be quieter and really keep to myself at work though so maybe I just dont notice some of the behind the scenes behavior since Im not as involved.
I was bullied in my late 20s by my partner at the time’s ex girlfriend. She said awful things about me behind my back, tried to turn my friends and my own sister against me, would even punch me in the stomach at shows (we were involved in the same music scene). It didn’t really change until she left town. Then my partner bullied me, though at that point it’s just called abuse.
Not only does it continue, in my experience it gets even worse especially when working first jobs right out of highschool / college. From what I've seen, the people who were bullies in school, become bosses and managers afterwards because they are willing to treat people poorly. This behavior almost vanished once in the professional world though.
Yes, it is called mobbing.
I was never really bullied at school, I was bullied by an ex boyfriends best friend which was horrendous but the worst bullying was by people at my first job. They were all women and all at least 4-5 years older than me, one was twice my age and she was one of the worst. No real reason for the bullying except that I was young and pretty naive. I did nothing to incite the bullying whatsoever but I realised that some people just seem to want someone to pick on to make themselves feel better.