There are far too many people I have spoken with during my corporate days that are not able to identify that they are actually being bullied. No harm no foul, isn’t it?
But these people aren’t exactly comfortable with the situation either. In order to take action to curb bullying in your workplace, you must first know that you are being abused.
Here are some, not all of the types of bullying in the workplace. The key is that if you are uncomfortable or find yourself in an uncomfortable situation, speak up.
Discrimination
This is a common type of bullying. You find yourself being the butt of racial or sexist jokes among your coworkers. You’re being teased a lot and not in a nice way. You get missed out on promotions or participation in major projects.
Isolation
You might think that people just don’t like to be with you. It is puzzling if you have many friends outside of your workplace but in your office, you don’t have a single one you can talk to. You don’t get invited to business luncheons or office parties. People whispers when you are around or even walked out of the room, just when you enter. Alienating someone is very real in a workplace and a form of bullying.
Favoritism
Either you’ve been single out as the apple of boss’s eye or one of your teammates is getting favourable extras from the management, both ways are still considered unfair.
Harassment
Many of us thought that harass is only pertaining to any sexual innuendo and the victims are only female. Not true. Harassment can be in form of stalking, deliberate act of private space invasion, not respecting rejection and intrusive probing questions into your personal life.
Even without bodily contact and obvious body language, you can be harassed in your workplace without you even realizing it, only that you felt uncomfortable, not able to put your finger to the weird feeling.
Emotional Blackmail
Yes, this happens mostly during the personal relationship but it can happen in a workplace too. Like taking advantage of using your boss’s love for children to put your child forefront as an excuse for your punctuality all the time. Or pulling the ‘we are a team, right?’ card at your colleagues to clear up the mess you have made in your work.
When Bullying Happens To You, What Can You Do?
First of all, never keep quiet. By keeping silence, you are actually endorsing the bully’s actions and may embolden him or her to do even more, whether towards you or some other victims.
Call it out
Talk to someone. Pursue relentlessly. Go to your superior. Go to your superior’s superiors. Go to HR. Go to Employee Relations. In other words, make some noise.
Meanwhile, stay away from the bully as much as possible. You may consider confronting the bully but always in numbers. Have a couple of colleagues who have your back together with you when you confront the bully.
All Else, Fails
Talk to your union. Approach an abuse help group in your area. Or even your lawyer. If you don’t have a lawyer in mind, you can search ‘best business formation attorney near me‘ online, to find the most trusted attorneys in your area to help. If it’s borderline criminal, go to the police and file a report. Don’t be a victim and let them ruin your life. No matter how severe the case is, bullying is bullying and it should be stopped immediately.
Have you witnessed or been bully before? Please do share your experiences with us so everyone can learn from it.
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