Bullying in the workplace

I read a CIPD article today about bullying in the workplace, and it took my back to my Saturday 3am-4am wake up, where I was remembering an experience from 13-15 years go.

I’m sure many of us suffer from these wakeups, where your brain starts cycling through a past/present/future event, sometimes real, sometimes imagined – and often accompanied by irrational thoughts which seem to not matter so much the next morning.

This particular one was focussed on real memories of a situation I had not thought about in years, but suddenly I seemed to recall really vividly.

I’m a big believer in sharing relevant personal experiences to help others, so whilst this is a long post, I hope it helps those who are interested to read it.

I started my first occ psych role, aged 23, where I shared an office with one other lady (referred to as X) – perhaps 5-8 years older than me. We were part of a small team of five, and the four existing team members had all been working together for a while and had a good relationship.

It all started with a clock. X was on leave for my first week, and there was the loudest ticking clock in our office. I have misophonia so I just took the battery out and thought nothing of it. When X returned, I explained about the clock ticking resulting in my inability to focus (and getting irrationally annoyed) and therefore me having taken the battery out. She was not ok about this at all. She explained that she needed the clock to tell the time, and when I queried about having the clock on the computer, she said she needed the wall clock. Understanding, I said I would purchase a sweeping hand clock for us and asked her what types of numbers she would want on it etc. (e.g. roman numerals) and ordered it at my own expense (and at about ￡30 that was a lot for my salary). The clock came, but she didn’t like it, and so she kept the old clock on her desk, where obviously I could still hear it.

This initial situation underpinned 18 months of what I can only look back on now, as bullying. Whilst I knew the behaviour was unacceptable at the time, I never fully realised that that’s was what it was or raised it as such.

I will give some examples of further situations.

·???????? X brought in numerous bunches of daffodils to the office which she’d got as part of her partner’s job. These were given to the rest of the team, and other people we worked with in the corridor. I was purposefully not given any.

·???????? X told me that I wasn’t allowed to park in a certain part of the car park, which I found out a year later was a lie.

·???????? X told me that I wasn’t allowed to eat in a certain workplace location, which I found out about 3 months later was a lie.

·???????? X controlled the radio in our office. I was not allowed to listen to my favourite station because she didn’t like the DJ, so we listened to hers every day. On the odd occasion - like a birthday - I would ask to have mine on. But if I left the office for even a few minutes for a comfort break, by the time I got back it would have been switched over.

·???????? If I needed to write a report, I would ask if we could have the radio off so I could focus. If the corridor was noisy, I would also ask if I could shut the door to concentrate (this was long before the days of Smartphones and Bluetooth headphones etc. which I now use to drown out sounds). If I shut the door, she would say she felt like she was in a prison, until I gave in and opened it.

·???????? Each of us had a large annual planner on the wall, which we’d put the teams’ birthdays on. In front of me, she would put the rest of the teams’ birthdays on and leave mine off.

These are the ones I strongly remember, but over the 18-months or so there were so many. I did raise the issues with different line managers, and they did provide mediation, but really nothing ever changed.

During one of these mediation sessions, I remember her saying to me that this had all started because of my "behaviour" with the clock. I actually couldn’t believe that by talking to her about my workplace needs, and offering to purchase something out of my own money to meet her workplace needs, that my behaviour had really been so reproachable.

After about 18-months I was promoted, and was able to move into a different office, after which my life was a lot better - and not long after that X moved on. But the impact on me from that time was quite significant. It didn’t help I had relocated for work and had no friends in the area, so my poor dad received many a call over that time with me in tears, saying I wanted to come home. So the impact on him wasn’t great either, being worried about me all the time.

I am certain, that X would not have considered herself a bully. She would most likely see me as the perpetuator of the situation. I am also certain, that the other team members did not consider X a bully, and put it down more to us just having a crap relationship. I really hold no blame with them, and they are people I have a lot of love and respect for.

I think the years since then have seen a lot of change in HR practices, and the issues would probably have been handled differently now, with the right organisational support in place. But I think what this example does illustrate, is that bullying doesn’t always stand out as such. It’s not always easy to recognise, for you or for others. Each bullet sounds ridiculous on its own as an example of bullying. But together, it made for a very unpleasant time.

Even though until my early morning wake up this weekend, I hadn’t remembered all the specific details so vividly in a long time, I could always remember the feelings. So make it your aim at work to be kind to others. It takes very little.