Message #62987

[Cathy S]

I am posting this because if just one person experiencing bullying now reads it and gains some hope or some strength to take action it is worthwhile sharing the pain I felt.

Sorry this is a long post; I have abbreviated as much detail as possible.  I know some of you will read this and think “well I wouldn’t have put up with that ….”  I am considered by most people who know me, to be a strong and determined person, but the effect of the harassment reduced me to a quivering wreck – that is the real impact of bullying, it totally changes the person being bullied.

In my last company it was accepted that Managers would bully the support team and there was little we could do because it was part of the culture of the firm, although we did talk about it between ourselves and create a support network.  

The worst example though was when the company, following a restructure, promoted someone to Regional Managing Director; and in order to move a different assistant to be PA created a ‘redundancy’ situation.  We knew that it was fixed and that there was nothing that we could do about it.  On the day we were to be interviewed for our own jobs, my colleague couldn’t take any more and opted for the redundancy; I was not surprised to be told I hadn’t got my own job; they offered me a different role at a 25% cut in salary, effective immediately.  I couldn’t really afford that but it was better in the short term than no job (single parent, bills to pay etc).  The next 6 months were miserable - the Regional MD would send his Assistant (by this time one of them had bailed and left one person doing two jobs) to find out from the 4 Directors I supported what hadn’t been done on a daily basis.

I was summoned to a meeting and with no warning was told by the Assistant “I have to give you a verbal warning for dereliction of duty”.  I was completely stunned but predominantly I felt sorry for her because she clearly hadn’t got the slightest clue what our Disciplinary code was.

I had gone from being a confident, competent supervisor and PA to being almost at rock bottom.  I felt physically sick at the thought of going to work; I would struggle to walk the half mile to the office and would burst into tears at the drop of a hat for no reason at all.  Up until the ‘Disciplinary’ Meeting I had not told anyone within the company about what was happening, however, after that meeting I did speak to a colleague.  The next day one of my Directors asked me to ‘grit my teeth and keep going for a couple more weeks’ and I found out the Assistant had been told to leave me alone.  

Three weeks later the Regional MD was fired.  I don’t know how much was directly related to what happened to me and how much to other stuff going on with him.  I do know that I had enough evidence to have made an harassment case against him which would have resulted in immediate dismissal and I was at such a low point I had nothing else to lose by taking that action.  His Assistant lasted a further couple of weeks and then went long term sick with the pressure of her role.

After he was sacked the company did try to make amends – I was offered a specialist role which I made my own and where I felt reasonably valued, but I couldn’t ever feel totally settled there and so when I had a chance to move I took it.  I can think back on it now without any emotion, but it took a long time to let go of the hurt and the anger.

By the way if you are wondering what possible dereliction of duty I was guilty of … A Director asked me mid morning to arrange a meeting with several internal staff and staff from a client company, it wasn’t urgent and of course it had to fit the client’s availability as a priority – by 12 noon I hadn’t arranged it!  {I subsequently found out that he hadn’t accused me of anything – the questions were very carefully worded so that the Directors were unwittingly making a complaint and none of the 4 directors had any idea that the questioning was part of a regime targeting me alone.  In fact the Director in question became my Line Manager in the new role and we developed an extremely good working relationship.}