United Professionals article on workplace bullying

[elbales]

This is quite depressing. I've just read a blog post by a man who says he was not only bullied at work so badly that he developed PTSD but also retaliated against by his former employer when he told his former coworkers why he had to resign his job.

I was employed for 30 years as a respiratory therapist at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho. St. Alphonsus is a part of the Trinity Health care system headquartered in Novi, Michigan. In Jan. 2004, I became the target of a psychologically abusive co-worker, a workplace “bully” who tried to get me fired or force me to resign, apparently because she did not approve of my religious and political beliefs.

Her behavior consistently jeopardized patient care. By Dec, 2004 I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of the bullying. I reported the bullying and the danger to patient care to management many times without any relevant or responsible response. I also reported the diagnosis of PTSD to management numerous times. Again nothing was done. This was true in spite of the fact that the diagnosis of PTSD was made by a St. Alphonsus professional as occuring on the job at St. Alphonsus!

Management repsonded to my reports by claiming that the PTSD injury was “petty,” or “self-generated.” The employee relations manager threatened to fire me for reporting the PTSD to him and also, with the department manager and a vice-president ordered me to not talk about the abuse and injury to my co-workers.

I don't call it "self generated" when a coworker endangers patients by refusing to communicate important information about cases. I call it criminal negligence. It makes me sad and angry to read about how common workplace bullying is. Why are people so awful to one another?

You can read about his experience in detail at his blog if you're interested.

Comments

[emidala.livejournal.com]

bullying is something that infuriates me to no end. it is so completely useless and it does absolutely nothing for anyone. I read an article a few years ago in which a bunch of bullies had been asked the simple question "does bullying make you feel better?" and the vast majority answered no. somehow, I would have been less irate had the answer been yes. god, it's so pointless and it hurts so many people, and they carry the scars of it with them for the rest of their lives.

[elbales]

Yes. I think people do it for a lot of reasons. Some think it will make them feel better, even though it doesn't, and they don't stop once they've tried it because they don't look at how it doesn't work. Some do it because they don't know any other way to interact with people. Some do it because they like it. But the thing that really gets me is when supervisors or teachers or counselors don't act to stop things.

In P.E. once, during a coed volleyball game, I missed the ball (I hated volleyball so much because the smack of the ball against my hands hurt). A boy standing nearby turned to me and said, "Bitch." The boys' teacher was standing right there, and all he said was something like, "Hey, knock it off." It still pisses me off when I remember it. I was standing there fighting tears, and the teacher didn't even say to the boy, "That is not okay and you are going to apologize NOW, and if I ever hear you do that again I will send your ass straight to the principal's office and DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?" Shit.

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

Workplace bullying is so common that there have been major studies to determine its extent and its effects, and a couple of psychologists even set up the Workplace Bullying Institute (http://bullyinginstitute.org/) as a resource for those who have been affected by it.

I've been affected myself, as have several others on my flist, and I meet many clients who have left jobs (or wanted to leave jobs) because of bullying. Like the experience you cite, most people find that if they complain managers refuse to take it seriously, ignore evidence or even pretend that nothing's been said - I've encountered all of those reactions on my own account and in my former role as a workplace trade union representative pursuing complaints on behalf of members who had been bullied.

If you take away just one statistic from the Workplace Bullying Institute website, let it be this: 37% of American workers - 54 million people - have been bullied at work. If you can remember a second statistic, here you are: when employees try to do something about the bullying, for example bring it to management's attention, in 62% of cases employers do nothing or the problem gets worse.

One of the biggest problems is lack of support from people around the individual being bullied, even when they are also being bullied. This is linked to the unwritten code of silence around bullying: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Nothing will happen until all of us take a zero tolerance attitude on the subject, offer help and support to people around us who we see being bullied, and let our managers and employers know that bullying is demotivational, counter-productive, expensive and will not be tolerated.

[elbales]

Again, yes. People have a lamentable inclination not to get involved when they see bad things happening. If we're going to flourish as a species we're going to have to get past that, but I'm not all that hopeful, frankly. Though it does seem to go in waves; look at the energy of the peace movement in the '60s, for example. The trouble comes when people take things for granted, such as "once I get a job, I'm set for life as long as I keep my head down." News flash, people: corporations, by and large, don't give a damn about you personally. We've got to change those statistics.