Note: I wrote this on April 15, 2017. Other than my boss’s boss, no one has ever seen it. It feels pertinent to me today to share it, especially in light of those in power and when you consider how much we are told that bullies go away after high school. They don’t. We are constantly fighting against them. Talking to the bully and asking for help didn’t work for me, so I wrote this letter and gave it to the boss’s boss.
The bully has been in the department since before all the other members of the editorial department. It’s been more than a decade and the bully has gained more unjustified power with each successive editor. Those who try to rein in the bully, eventually leave. Management above doesn’t want to deal with it, so the bully stays while good employees leave.
In the past, the bully has screamed at those in positions above the bully. If things are to be done, they are done the bully’s way. The bully is always right. The bully has done it before you, better than you and knows more than you. Or so the bully says.
The bully does not let you speak. The bully cuts into conversations with information that is often erroneous or wrong. The bully stops you mid-sentence in nearly everything you try to say. The bully denies this ever happens. The bully is always louder than you and keeps talking until you just give up and let the bully blather on.
In the last three years, 15 people have left the department. While two were fired, all but one stated the bully as a reason why they left the department. The one will be leaving soon to pursue another job. He is too polite to say anything bad in public about the bully. He mostly tries to avoid the bully.
When the bully learns of someone using them as a reason, the bully deflects, attempts to turn the situation to the other person just couldn’t take direction or didn’t know what they were doing and were using the bully as an excuse.
Two new people in the department have already clashed with the bully. One is nearing retirement and most likely won’t rock the boat too much. The other is already planning for a future outside the department. Me? I am looking for something outside the career field. This is the only job like it in town and three and a half years with the bully has been enough.
In that time, the bully has shifted several responsibilities onto coworkers. If the bully is ever confronted, the bully has already thought of some plausible excuse why it happened. Yet, every description of the bully’s job shows the tasks the bully should be doing is done by us.
The bully yells if someone does something wrong. Nothing is the bully’s fault. Coworkers have it worse when someone accuses the bully’s spouse of doing something wrong, screwing up their work. It is never the bully’s fault nor the bully’s spouse’s fault. It is always your fault. When you can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt the bully’s spouse was a fault, you are told, “What? You never make mistakes?”
When the bully’s spouse took over for a departing colleague who was burned out and sick of the bully, mistakes began to happen every day. It’s been nearly two years and mistakes happen every day. The public sees these mistakes and laughs at our company.
The boss gets mad. The bully’s spouse apologizes, is genuinely sorry for what has occurred, but nothing changes. Just don’t vent your frustration at your work being screwed up anywhere near the bully because, somehow, it will be turned against you. You will be told it’s your fault.
The boss says to come to the boss’s office when there is a problem, but that doesn’t work. You can vent all you want, but nothing changes. You only appear to be a complainer. The last boss tried to do something about it, but the HR department didn’t care. They weren’t interested in removing a bully from the workplace.
When the last boss was promoted from assistant boss to boss, he came in one morning to find the bully had moved desks and now sat at the assistant boss’s desk. He shook his head. He should have asserted himself and made the bully move their desk back to where it was. While he was here, he kept the bully in check as much as possible, but even he could not take the bully for long. A year later, he left for greener pastures.
The department is filled with an unchoreographed chaos. Everyone has their tasks to do each day, but the new boss has tripled the workload, provided unrealistic goals, and does little to force the bully to adhere to the norms of the workplace. The boss gets angry when you can’t meet the unrealistic expectations. Workloads constantly change. No one knows what is going to happen from day to day.
If the bully is mad at you, expect your work to be buried, never shared on social media, shared at odd times or days later. It’s a common occurrence. No one is surprised when it happens. A complaint, several complaints go nowhere. You look like a troublemaker for trying to stand up to the bully when no one else will.
The bully doesn’t respond to emails, yet is angry when others don’t respond when the bully sends something to them. When others offer to help the bully with assignments, they are met with silence. Those assignments are simply not done and the pubic notices.
When an emergency happens, the bully looks to my desk to take care of it. No one else has to go unless I am physically not in the building. I don’t answer my phone outside of office hours anymore. Too many nights have been ruined because of it. I no longer care.
In the past three months, I have seriously considered leaving the company. The boss says I can’t. They need me. There is no monetary compensation to prove this. Words only get you so far. Money will get me to put up with the bully a little while longer. But a line was drawn a few weeks ago when the bully called me a liar.
I fought back. It was public. The office heard it. I later received a high five and a fist bump from colleagues. They knew I was right and they were glad I stood up for myself. It’s not just my department who despises the bully, it’s the entire office. Complaints are made on a regular basis about the bully, but nothing changes.
The general public calls to complain. Nothing changes. In public, people we interact with on a regular basis complain about the bully. Those complaints are passed on. Nothing changes. We are expected to defend the bully, the job, and all our coworkers in public. But for how long? It is difficult to defend a bully when you want to scream how much you agree with the person complaining about the bully. But you can’t if you want to remain employed.
The bully screams, yells, is overbearing. “I am your supervisor and you will do what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it.” Except the bully is not our supervisor unless the boss is gone. This sentence, or variations of it are heard often.
The bully gets angry when you talk back. “You should never be allowed to speak to me that way. I’m your supervisor. I’m in charge.” Except you’re not. The boss is sitting there listening to all this. The boss doesn’t tell the bully those words are incorrect. The boss doesn’t defend you. The boss just sits there, saying you and the bully are both valued members of the team. It’s a cop out bosses use when they don’t know what else to do. It could be true, but that doesn’t mean you want to remain on a dysfunctional team.
The team doesn’t want to work for the boss and the team hates the bully. The team has done what is asked of them, and more, and gets zero response or assistance from anyone in management. So, team members continue to leave. They search for work elsewhere, even if it is outside the field. One can only take a bully for so long before moving on for their own health and safety. The bully is a detriment to one’s health, stress, and sanity.
The bully should be fired, but that will never happen. The rest of us will continue to leave while the bully struts around the office, putting themselves on a pedestal. The bully believes they are right, feels justified each time someone leaves because, “they couldn’t hack it in this field,” or they “weren’t tough enough.”
The reality is, the bully has not only destroyed morale, the bully has destroyed cohesion, team work, other people’s health, and the respect of the organization to the outside public. Management doesn’t care. Their goals have been met and bonuses cashed. Management doesn’t sit next to the bully day in and day out, listening to rude phone conversations, argumentative conversations when someone asks a simple question, or snarls directed at coworkers.
It doesn’t matter how much information the bully has about the town or the job. It’s time for the bully to go.
But management doesn’t care. Probably never will. Nothing will be done. No one wants to confront the bully. No one wants to fire the bully.
So, people like me, who were taught to stand up to bullies, begin a search for work elsewhere, for the sake of sanity, peace of mind and, hopefully, a job that truly values all its workers and will take the issue of bullies more seriously.
Seven months and two days later, I had a mental breakdown at work. It was partly the boss, the bully, and my undiagnosed PTSD and trauma. I stuck it out, being berated by the bully, the new boss and the new boss’s boss, for another year and seven months. Then, I moved on. The bully remains.