It used to be that bullying in the playground was something you had to deal with silently. If you were one of the unlucky kids who got picked on, you just had to tough it out and hope things would get better. Thankfully these days schools, parents, even many students are taking a stand against bullying and making a real dent in the frequency and intensity with which children are victimized.
Now a new study suggests we might need to do something about bullying that goes on long after we’ve left the playground. CareerBuilder conducted a study that shows bullying in the workplace is on the rise. The study found 35 percent of workers are bullied at work, an 8 percent increase from last year. And not unlike the school days, victims of bullying are highly affected. Out of those who reported being picked on, 17 percent said they quit their jobs whereas 16 percent reported developing health problems.
So what does bullying in the workplace look like? The study outlined some common ways in which workers reported feeling victimized, such as being falsely accused of mistakes, constantly criticized, yelled at by the boss in front of co-workers, belittled about their work during meetings, gossiped about, ignored, having different standards used towards them and picked on for personal attributes. Additionally, the bullying occurred at all levels of the company. Although most of the workers who felt bullied pointed to their bosses or co-workers, others also said they’ve been victimized by customers or someone higher up in the company than their bosses. Some even said their tormenters were persons younger than them.
Thankfully there are ways to deal with the problem without handing in your two weeks notice. CareerBuilder offers tips for taking action. Keeping a record of all bullying incidents, including places, times and details about the interaction is a good way to start. Talk the situation out with the bully, using the examples and why you think the treatment was unfair. Sometimes the bully might not even be aware his actions are making you feel a certain way. Finally, focus on resolution. Whether it is with the bully or a company authority, focus the discussion on how to better the situation and what you think can be done differently.
Are you or have you ever been bullied at work? Talk about it in the comments below and tell us what you did or plan to do about the situation.
To see the whole study, <a title="Career Builder Workplace Bullying Study" href="http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?sd=8/29/2012&sc_cmp1=cb_pr713_&siteid=cbpr&id=pr713&ed=12/31/2012" target="_blank">click here</a>.
<span style="font-size: 9px;"><em> Image: findingdulcinea.com</em></span>
My mom was bullied in her work place for over a year. And it was deliberate. The office was a low branch of our state government that employed 11 people, 4 of which were lawyers. At least 6 of these people treated her like crap for no reason. It was a horrible situation that almost ended up in court. This was back in January. My mom is still afraid to get a new job.
I can’t believe our society has sunk so low.
I strongly believe i was the victim of bullying while working as an advertising sales rep for a well known union newspaper. It was a great job with lots of opportunity to make money and due to the print advertising slump it was a great time to contribute ideas to help increase revenue. My boss had worked as a top sales person for years in our department before moving into management. the newspaper was recently bought by a national media corporation so now she was responsible for managing past co-workers and phone sales reps in a different location.
Half of my day i spent in new employee training and the other half i spent in department learning our systems and products. I didnt ask too many questions and was left to just do the job and learn on my own most of the time. I have a strong desire to succeed and never complained i was excited to be there and confident in my abilities.
As a new rep i was given a list of accounts to work along with developing my own leads for new accounts. The first month I attended new employee orientation, training on company software systems and sales training for company wide products . I was also expected to learn departmental software systems, products and was given a list of accounts and my expectations for future quotas.
Looking back i realize that i was unfairly expected to meet some of the same goals and quotas as all the other experienced reps and wasnt even told about several other accounts listed in my name until the fourth month of being in the job.
The bullying and stressful environment began as soon as i began ramping up and exceeding my contact goals (number of calls made per day).
I was surpassing my team members 80 calls vs their 20 or 30calls. I also successfully made appointments with 2 new accounts and turned around a problem account given to me. I was thrilled but it seemed the better i did the happier and moreexcited i was to tell her themore she began to stress my quotas and point out what i had missed, what i forgot, last minute i would be told what i needed to complete for an appt or something new i needed to learn or work on prior to my review. She began to micro manage me to the point of asking me what time i returned from lunch yet 2 other girls in the department were always late returning yet were given a special invitation to attend a company show with my manager.
It was so stressful i would sometimes make cals to clients on my cell phone outside of the building because i felt so uncomfortable that i may not be following her strict guidelines and forced to close a deal in her manner which was different than the consultative style we were learning in company training. When i mentioned this she made me spend time to complete a consultative appt form last minute at the end of my day yet we never used it in th appt at all. she would never allow me togo on appointments without her yet another new rep was given so much more leeway and new account leads not problem accounts. It turned out that most of the accounts she hadmefocus on were alredy worked a month prior by other reps and there was no new business to be gained yet most of my time was spent on these accounts. Others reps were also allowed tomake sales on my unknown accounts. one time i worked on a proposal all day it was listed as my acct in the company acct management system yet the next day i was told it wasnt my acct in the dept system.
My accounts were calling in with sales and credit given to the phone sales reps instead of passed over to me to proceed with larger sales. I later realized that advertisers would also call in and my manager had free reign to give the account sale to a any rep to work on (easy sale) and there was no system in place to ensure everyone had this opportunity for an easy sale.
I pointed out that there was a way to delete entries and bypass the contact log system this was brought up in a mtg in which our shopleder sat in as third party. It was uncomfortable to be around her by this time . It ws well known i had brought up a grievance about her extending my probation. I relied on her to undrstand details of my job, the system, forecasting, etc yet i no longer felt like i could ask questions unrelated to what she wanted me to focus on especially if it was something i had discovered on my own and relating to meeting my goals with little “work” i.e. Assigned accounts that would call in with a sale. It was such a stressful environment and awful situation i began to call in sick and even missed an important appt i had made with a potential major new account. I was so afrwaid of doing something wrong knowing she would be at my appt with my client i pretty much just gave up. I called in sick 3 days in a row until she told me she was letting me go. I was like a diminuitive little girl vs when i first began as a gung ho agressiv sales person with all theconfidence in the world. I havent had another opportunity since then that paid as well and am still unemployed today. Its difficlt to explain the gap in my employment as to why i would leave such a good job if i was doing well during such a bad economy for jobs.this doesnt look good for future prospects and interviers especially in sales. I did everything i could to try to be on her good side it kills me that such an injustice could be allowed to happen to a good worker due to the disconnect in upper management with loopholes and lack of knowledge in their own systems.
tl;dr lolz
I was most definitely bullied as the first and only NP that has/had ever been hired to work amongst a large internal medicine/geriatric outpatient practice affiliated with a very well-known and respected large teaching hospital with both medical and nursing schools. This particular institution is a healthcare system that has consistently been ranked very highly in several specialties by US News and World Report. I was initially very thrilled and honored to be working there and truly enjoyed every minute I spent directly caring for my patients.
Initially my reception was not too bad. I was hired as part of a grant the department had received to perform a study that included a nurse practitioner. My direct supervisor was decent to me until the day he got a promotion into administration. From then on, he turned into a virtual monster and began micromanaging every last thing I did. I was no longer a colleague to him. It became evident that he had a huge bias against nurse practitioners and nurses in general. Not one word or opinion of mine was ever respected by him again. He actually literally got up and left a staff meeting for the nurses while I was still speaking, simply because he didn’t like what I had to say. Although my salary was paid with the grant money, he continued to heap more and more duties upon me despite the fact that I had been hired to run the study and to see pts in clinic as part of the study. I initially took on some additional responsibility because I truly enjoyed my job there aside from him but had to put my foot down when he insisted that I begin the management of a part of the clinic where the nurses were managing patients on a very high risk medication. I told him I’d try to help as I could but would not sign on as the manager and have my license at risk because he was asking me to do what really should have been another person’s full-time job in addition to the full time job I was hired for plus the other duties I had agreed to in an attempt to keep the peace. I simply refused to risk killing a pt on a high risk medication because he was suddenly concerned about “budgetary issues” and had truly asked me to do 2 other full-time jobs in addition to the study that I was originally hired for. My job became a virtual nightmare after I refused the 3rd job he wanted me to do. He completely ceased speaking to me and also began dumping all his extremely complex and/or unpleasant patients on me whether or not they were eligible for the study. He then started blocking out my schedule so other doctors could not get their pts in to see me anymore. I made an appt. to speak to our Division Chief but prior to having the chance to meet with him, my direct supervisor jabbed the final knife into my back when he took a vacation day and made the one of the ladies who worked in administration deliver me a letter in the middle of my workday that laid me off effective at the end of the day. The reason cited was that their grant money had run out which I knew was impossible since it was guaranteed to last for 2 yrs. He got rid of me 6 mos early and quite possibly padded his beloved “budget” with whatever was left.
It was horribly demeaning and shocking to be laid off in such a manner. I have never been treated so horribly at any job in my life. The poor administrative girl was bawling as I read the letter he made her write because she knew what was being done was incredibly shady. I was literally in shock for the rest of the day but took solace in the fact that he could not fire me although the vindictive little dictator probably wanted to very badly. Lucky for me, both of my superior performance evals were signed by him before his promotion.
I still cannot believe that doctors at such a well respected institution would behave so incredibly unprofessionally as to lay me off without uttering so much as one word about their plans. It was truly humiliating to have to tell people what had happened despite the fact that I did nothing wrong. It became clear to me that the Division Chief had obviously had to approve what the dictator who supervised me had done without even allowing me 10 minutes to discuss my side of things. To make matters even worse, the jerk who was my supervisor lied to all the doctors and staff nurses and told them I quit and he tried very hard to get me to stay but I refused. To this day, I have exactly zero respect for the “doctor” who was unfortunately my supervisor. I also lost all the respect I had for the Division Chief and still have a terrible feeling about an institution where I not only began my career as a new RN but I completed my NP program there as well and thoroughly enjoyed teaching nursing students and having ties to the nursing school. It breaks my heart that I cannot follow through with my plan of having a career at that particular institution due to the incredibly unethical behavior of a doctor who thought it was well within his rights to bully me into doing whatever he said. Too bad the Division Chief basically cemented that into his brain by going along with his horrible treatment of me and the way I was let go. I would never want to work around doctors with such a compromised ethical code again and strongly feel neither should even be caring for pts anymore. They have clearly forgotten the oath they took when they became doctors… It is quite clear all that matters to them now is power and money.