Photo courtesy of Lachay Orpen
Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today and I’m talking about a hot topic that is on everyone’s mind. That topic is bullying. Bullying is everywhere these days; however, it has been around forever.
I just finished reading “The Book Thief.” A very emotional story and my review is posted here: http://lisaorchard.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/a-review-of-the-book-thief/
Anyway, as I read the story, I felt the fear of the Germans and the Jews and it made me realize that Hitler was a very powerful bully. This is an extreme example of what can happen when a bully gains power. This is why we must do something about this horrible epidemic.
I know what you’re thinking, this is an extreme example and it has only happened once in our lifetime, but in my opinion once is one too many times. We encounter bullying in all forms. Our kids experience it in our schools. We experience it in the workplace. I’ve written about it many times on my blog and I’ve read many other articles about it.
I have a friend who has just gone through some office bullying. Office bullies are the worst. She was dependent on the bully for training for her position. The bully didn’t like her from day one. She would scream at my friend and treat her disrespectfully in front of customers. My friend went to the boss, but the boss did nothing. You see the boss was dependent on the bully as well. She wasn’t going to upset her either.
The bully was horrible to my friend, she got others in the office to side with her, and they worked against my friend. They sabotaged her and misled her during training. When you’re trained incorrectly, on purpose, you’re bound to make mistakes and incur the wrath of not only the bully but the boss as well.
My friend had no choice but to leave the position. She’s well rid of the job, but it’s unfortunate because she could have excelled at it if the environment had been different. This is why people become bullies, because they get the results they want. It works for them.
It’s unfortunate, but true. So what can we do? We can make sure the bullies don’t win, but we’re going to need the help of corporations. It’s going to require Human Resources to crack down on complaints of bullying and support the victims who report it. I’m sure many events go unreported because the bully is in a position of power. We need to break the code of silence.
We need anti-bullying campaigns not only in our schools, but in our corporations as well. The question is, how do we do that? My guess is that we need to get our representatives involved. We need to make it part of a political campaign.
Wouldn’t you agree?
Thanks for stopping by my blog today. If you’d like to share your experiences with office bullying, please leave a comment. I’d love to read them! And if you have any solutions to the problem, I’d love to read those too!
