Workplace Bullying

My first experience of being bullied at work was at my second job. I was 21, had just joined an ad agency without a formal education in advertising or business. Read a couple of books before joining the company as a trainee, used to troll with a friend all the nonsensical ads I saw, or ads with cliched ideas or copy, and that was all the knowledge, experience and exposure I had.

One of the first few days, I pulled out an old newspaper like everyone else at lunch, laid it out on the table to keep my lunch box on. The next thing I know, a senior art director started shouting at me totally without warning.

Brand Equity, apparently, was some sort of a bible for ad folks, not a random sheet for the trainee to eat lunch on. "Who do you think you are to treat it in any way except with utmost reverence?"

There were two other colleagues in the room who watched in uncomfortable silence. I thought he would stop 'scolding' after the first few words about respecting the newspaper supplement, but he didn't. He went on and on. I was on the spot, stunned at this sudden attack, nobody stopping him, and me unable to say anything back because it seemed I was obviously wrong, though only out of ignorance and not intentionally disrespecting anyone or this newspaper that supposedly needed to be defended by a common reader who occasionally contributed paid advertisements with clients' money to it, praise be. Sort of like all these religious people killing others on behalf of their poor helpless defenseless gods.

After about 5 minutes of shouting I couldn't take it anymore. I was angry, confused, even felt abandoned though nobody present there was yet a friend or family member who should have cared about me personally.

I burst into tears.

Then the person who shouted went on to (wait for it), shame me for crying! "Ayye... I was just making a joke. It's not a big deal. You can eat on this newspaper. It's nothing. There's no need to cry." As if everyone can instinctively know what another person's breaking point is or crying is an act that one switches on strictly on a functional need basis.

So now, not only was I the idiot who didn't know better than to eat on the holy Brand Equity, I was also the imbecile who couldn't understand a joke, and cried instead of taking a bit of jest in my stride or giving it back to the harmless joke-maker.

Thus was the start of my 2+ very long years of exploitation, underpay and bullying at one of the biggest and most prestigious ad agencies in India. Of course there were immeasurable positives too including both the people who witnessed this scene going on to become my best friends I adore to bits, but that doesn't lessen the intensity of the negatives.

I am happy I had such experiences because they played a role in keeping me grounded and empathetic rather than the heartless ambitious template people I see prevailing in corporate settings. It also made me ultra observant about people in general. Who shouts for what reason, who sympathises or speaks up, takes a stance, supports, why they behave the way they do at the workplace...

It's been an enriching journey. I'm grateful for the learning and growth that I gave to myself despite all kinds of unconducive environments I had to function in except for brief periods of intelligent/ sane/ secure bosses and humane workplaces. I'm still angry about so much of the exploitation and unfairness by mediocre insecure people who also happen to be generators of toxic cultures and systems. So much that I'm convinced my next stage is partly about doing something about toxicity at workplaces, having endured so much of it over 2 decades and having friends who've been through much worse like this friend who was admitted in the ICU because of work stress and lack of stress, and being asked to get back to work asap while she was still in the ICU!

Anyway, I started reading the holy Brand Equity that can spark such emotions in experienced and enlightened advertising people but it turned out to be nothing more than another mainstream publication from another big media company sharing mainstream perspectives and celebrating the same things as every other publication. Or maybe it's truly special but I never got around to developing an affinity for it.

Come to think of it now, this incident wasn't a big deal. A boss exerting authority by shouting at the newest and youngest person in the office is pretty cliched. Most of my friends would have shrugged it away and moved on if they were the ones in my shoes. But this sort of thinking is me negating my experience because people keep telling me that I "should be able to shrug and move on". Now, after years of trying to understand me and my experiences and why I am the way I am, I accept that some people are able to move on and see such incidents as inconsequential. Kudos to them!

What social media has given me is connections with and access to people who would have experienced this incident with the same or higher intensity as/than I did. My experiences became valid, I started making sense to myself and I started healing through this medium, the people and the perspectives I got exposed to here. Today I am able to see and appreciate each experience as unique, not feel guilty for feeling or experiencing something my way as opposed to a specific way prescribed by an institution like a school and its set of guidelines for model behaviour.

And as I understand and accept myself more, I understand and accept others too with all their quirks, "deficiencies", sometimes even intolerances and ignorance. I too have bullied people and if this was karma, it was a very gentle way of kicking me in the butt for my thoughtlessness, anger or whatever made me give into the bully persona at some point in my life. Strangely, I have no ill-will, only gratitude and understanding towards this person today because this experience was one of the defining moments of my life, and understanding it gave so much to me.

That doesn't make it ok to bully people. I mean ok my experience taught me something doesn't mean not having that experience wouldn't have taught me something else/better. But bygones are bygones, bullying just cannot be tolerated especially if it's a boss or person in authority bullying a junior team member. A fresher bullied for no reason by a senior figure at work can be scarred for life. It doesn't do anything constructive or of value of its own to anyone at all.

A less recognised form of bullying is people at work teaming up to laugh at a quirk or interest you have. Perhaps a tattoo, or your food preferences. At one of my work engagements, someone would regularly make fun of my coffee because it was called Rage, my liking for weird taste combinations, my refusal to attend meetings throughout the day where people would come unprepared, my resistance to random delegation of work... I stayed quiet and took it for way too long. Looking back, I am sad I let myself down this way instead of being okay with being seen as a difficult person and speaking up for what I believed was right each and every time. This is a lesser form of bullying, and this was a huge part of the culture of that office - poking "harmless" fun at everyone based on the tiny morsel of trivia they knew about the person.

This practice of workplace leg-pulling is not as harmless as it's made out to be. If you've done any trauma work you'd be instantly aware of how it affects you. If not, you'd not be aware but be accumulating the toxic energy of it along with other subtle jabs and manipulations (coz if bullying of any degree is tolerated and encouraged at a workplace, damn sure there are other toxic behaviours also living the high life there) without being able to process it until one day you snap or burn out, and you don't have the least idea why.

So the next time I'm at the receiving end of a harmless joke, bullying, leg-pulling or low grade toxicity at a workplace or a client's office, unless I go into freeze mode unable to do anything, I want to be able to say this is not okay, and the person doing it should consider getting help to stop this behaviour. In the past I've been told that speaking out in public is unprofessional. I disagree. If the bullying is happening in public, the response can also be in public. If I do freeze, I can go home, think about it overnight, request a formal meeting and talk about it with the bully the next day.

Keeping it inside, tolerating it on myself or others, and allowing this to exist in any form is damaging in the long run. If you're at the receiving end of any form of bullying, or what is passed off as harmless leg-pulling, or forced to be a silent witness to the bullying of another person, and don't know what exactly to do, please write to me; I'd like to help figure it out with you.