When we think of bullies, we think of Elementary School, and the child who stole our lunch money or pushed us down on the playground, but today we are talking about the bully in the workplace. This is my experience with a workplace bully, and my opinion on what should be done. You would not believe how often this happens and the fact that no one says anything about it, there are many reasons people won't talk about it, but the main one is it is embarrassing and humiliating. So many times if you do report it, no one listens, or they just write you off as being emotional, especially in a women's situation.
But, let me tell you the effects of a workplace can not only be emotional, but can physically make you ill. A bully has many definitions, one states that a bully is someone who threatens, harasses, belittles, verbally abuses, overly criticizes, and some times in some cases physically abuses another individual. This practice is a lot more common than one might think, and not very often acknowledged. It is time for all people who have ever had to work with a bully to stand up and say, "I am not going to take it anymore, the bully stops here, and we will no longer tolerate these tactics from anyone!!"
The first time I was bullied at work I would have to say was in 1996, working a well known restaurant, in Sherman, Texas. I really like my job, and made good money, until we changed managers. The new manager they brought in, was from another restaurant up North, and he was a real jerk. At first he acted real nice, but after a while he seem to let his power go to his head, he would yell at us in front of customer, humiliate you in the office, talk down to you, and treated you like dirt, especially the female employee's, his male employee's never did anything wrong, especially his son, who also worked there. He also never handled any situation on his own, he would always have the assistant managers handle it, customer complaints, employee issues, he always had someone else deal with it. I think back now to all the times this man literally made me cry and how sick at the end I was, hell we even had one crew leader who had a heart attack.
If you did something to make this man mad, he would change your schedule or cut your hours, work you on slow days where you wouldn't make any tips, stuff like that. The sad thing about it is when I quit, I called the 1-800- number they had given me to file a complaint, and they just blew me off, and wrote that I was not re-hirable. We even had a manager walk out because of his tactics and still nothing was done today he still runs that restaurant. No one says anything because they all need their jobs so bad, and really what can you do, no one will believe you anyway. I learned from this experience that he knew what he was doing because he had done it before, and right off the bat he knew who would put up with his crap, and who wouldn't. The one who wouldn't were the ones he would bully, and most of us quit.
The second time I was bullied was extremely worst, to the point where I would throw up everyday before I went to work, now this man, is a foreigner and believes he has the right to treat people how ever he wants, customers, employee's, anyone he want to. This establishment, was in Denison, Texas, and everyone in this town knows how Mr. F. treats people, most people have experienced it first hand. Let's talk about he talks to people, his favorite word is Bitch, everyone who make him made is a Bitch, customer or employee. The lady from the church group who refused to pay because he made the wrong food for her party, well she was a Bitch, and she did nothing wrong, and he made her so angry. The lady who received the wrong food at her table, on a busy night, a mistake made by the wait staff, well she was a Bitch, because she wanted the right food, and tried to tell us to tell her to eat what she got, now this lady is the daughter of the owner of one of the biggest business's in this area. Now if our regular cook was gone on vacation, and Mr. F. had to cook, you knew the food was going to be screwed up, but God forbid if there was a mistake, he would throw the plate at you, call you all kinds of names, and the next week I can guarantee you, that you won't be on the schedule.
