Workplace Bullying Part 1

[RescueKitty]

I've been on the receiving end of being bullied by some of my co-workers, one in particular for a while now. I'm not the only person being bullied by her, nearly everyone has been bullied by her. 

It started when I returned back to work in 2021 after recovering from a back injury, she was a new hire and constantly on my back about every little thing. Eventually I told her that I know exactly how to do my job, if the manager has an issue with my work she can bring it to my attention herself and that she should focus on her work instead of mine as I was feeling harassed.

Since then she started reporting ME for bullying HER. For example, I was on the phone with a customer and at the same time she was speaking to me and started to raise her voice to tell me inaccurate information about what she thought I was discussing with the customer. With the call on hold I told her I was busy with a customer, I've got it thanks, but if she wanted to speak with me, she shouldn't be yelling misinformation at me while I'm with a customer. She immediately went into our managers office, I go back to my phone call, customer heard the yelling asked if everything was okay. When the call was completed I can hear her crying to the manager and when she comes out of the office and passes me she gives me the stink eye before leaving. My manager comes out a few seconds later and she told me that she saw everything that happened through the mirrored window between her office and the reception office where I work and that the co-worker had reported me for my tone and disrespect for "ignoring her" while I was on the phone. 

Similar instances kept happening to the point where I isolated myself from her at work because she would turn any interaction we had into me bullying her. Making me anxious about any interaction I had with her, costing my job. Other staff members came forward to support my version of events a lot. But everything still takes its toll. I remember reporting her for non-compliance with our employee code of conduct for promoting her private business to customer that would come to our workplace after I had multiple phone calls and people walking in to reception asking for her to discuss her business. The senior manager at the time said I was being PETTY and to only report serious matters. Now, I feel like I can't report her for her bullying towards me. Even though my direct manager sees whats happening, the Senior manager (who now works in the HR department) favors my bully. 

[therising]

Hi RescueKitty

I think one of the hardest things to achieve in life would be 'How to become emotionally detached from someone who triggers us so easily'. How to stop the 'I can feel or sense what you're doing to me' factor. It can be even tougher when we're a naturally sensitive person who can easily sense a lot. So, it's kind of like 'How to stop sensing or how to start sensing differently'.

While I'm a gal who's far from being a master at emotional detachment, what I have found is it can involve channeling a different part of myself. The pure observer or pure analyst in us can serve us in so many ways, including the ways of emotional detachment. For example, if I push myself to simply observe what a person does, beyond briefly feeling a particular emotion which they induce, not only does it serve in the way of emotional detachment but that person begins to become more predictable through observation. They become like an open book, easy to read. 

I've found stating to a person what I feel and observe can help. For example, first I'll try and get a sense of what it is I'm actually feeling (what emotion it is). If I sense it as degradation, I'll might state it. 'I can sense/feel you being degrading'. This is about calling someone out on their behaviour. I'll detach from that feeling or switch it off, as I don't need to feel it anymore in order to identify what's going on. Btw, if I stay attached to that feeling, it just gets even more worked up in me. Then it can be about stating something based on observation, 'You typically seem to do this when...' (when you like to belittle me/put your self on a pedestal, when you have a closed mind, when you feel threatened, out of control or under stress and so on). Developing the confidence to state what we feel and observe can take a lot of practice before it becomes second nature. As I say, I'm far from being a master at this sort of thing and some people in my life pose greater challenges than others. I have an older sibling whose behaviour I can feel through my nervous system at times and not in a good way.

Particular people have particular patterns of behaviour. If you can predict the patterns of behaviour, based on observation, the patterns can become easier to manage. Could even require, in some cases, writing down everything we observe in someone and finding the patterns in what we've recorded (aka 'journaling'). Also acts as written evidence if there's a need to present such evidence down the track. If a long list of behaviours is seen as 'Picking on this person', the response to that could be 'I'm only picking out the things that everyone around that person struggles with'. Can also pay to wonder about what it is we're observing. In the case of a controlling person, are we observing narcissistic behaviour, the behaviour that can come with being on the autism or OCD spectrums (with a person's need to keep things under their control so as to manage their anxiety) or is it something else?