I’m including Harassment and Bullying as I think that all of us have at some time been or felt Harassed. The understanding I’m using here is that Harassment is about power, control and intimidation; someone trying to dominate or control you in a manner that has no direct connection to whatever business is at hand.

At home and work we all want to work better and it can be easy to harass others in the effort to get more ‘stuff’ done, rather than approaching things intelligently or working more efficiently.

Harassment or putting up with Harassment cannot be an option for creative thinkers. And that’s us right? Harassment is nothing more than that the harasser cannot think of a better way to get ‘stuff’ done.

All of us need to learn how to deal with these issues, happiness cannot be generated in one area of our lives in the hope that it will spread to cover the difficult or unhappy areas.

Learning how to deal with these behaviours helps us to understand ourselves and others dealing with them, we can become empowered as a group, then a nation and then as a race.

I’m serious about this, it isn’t the big things in life that destroy us as people it’s the petty harassment, the bullies who sour our existence, if we allow them to continue, we hurt all of us and especially them, for they will continue to be hurt and not heal.

My view of Harassment is; when you are doing your best, nothing has been done wrong and you are approached as if you have done something wrong; this is harassment.

You may accept one instance as an error in behaviour, this is your choice, however if you let ‘one mistake slide’ you are covertly giving permission for the person to act in the same way again and do ask this question of yourself: did they give me that opportunity?

I’m not suggesting that others don’t have a right to be angry if things go wrong, more that if you make a mistake then that’s what it is: a mistake. If you are doing your best with the skills you have, then nobody has the right to be angry ‘at’ you, even if you are making the same mistakes over and over.

It may be better to let the person know that you don’t respond well to this kind of approach, if that’s difficult for you, do look at the section on assertion techniques.

When things go wrong, as they invariably do; thinking adults begin to recognise that either you can’t or don’t know how to do better.

Or that your mistakes demonstrate that you are acting above your skill levels and that it’s time to either change what you are being asked to do or help you learn better ways of doing things. Sounds simple doesn’t it?

Unfortunately too often its easier to shout than think, easier to complain than implement new strategies.

But and it’s a big but, if you can remember this then you are on your way to either stopping bullying people or being bullied. I’m writing this because all of us too have at some time harassed others, because at that point we didn’t know better or else we’d have done better.

Stereotypically bullies are robust, strong people picking on the weak and powerless. Instead those who bully long term have low self-esteem and high self-discipline, they have learned to withhold information, be dishonest,  mislead, abuse power and confidentiality, create malicious rumours and intimidate.

They feel incompetent and are terrified of being found out and so project or place their own incompetence upon others. They cause suffering rather than facing up to their own.

Bullying behaviours include making personal or professional life unpleasant and unmanageable.

Isolating you, Ignoring opinions, nit picking, verbal cruelty, practical jokes, humiliation in front of others, rumours being spread about you, your life, your work and your value, these are all indicators of bullying and harassment. They leads to fear, stress, self-doubt and anger. It is profoundly damaging and demeaning.

These can happen in the workplace too, any of the above in conjunction with these below would strongly indicate Harassment and Bullying; being ignored or facing hostile reactions when you approach certain individuals, excessive monitoring and being allocated an unmanageable workload.

Fault finding with work, humiliation or ridicule, performance indicators withheld, unreasonable deadlines, ordered to work below competence, sustained nit picking or
de-valuing work, dis-respect  and of course threats.
 

For those bullying these are normal behaviours for with someone perceived as a threat, it may be hard to recognise that you are a threat to them but, they are not dealing with you rationally, which indicates their thinking may not be rational either.

Tackling bullying in your personal life is easy to say but can be difficult to do. The first thing you need to do is to keep a record of incidents, write what was said, where and when it happened and if there were any witnesses.

You need to talk to people, tell them what is going on, this may feel like further humiliation at the time but you are taking away the bullies power; that of intimidation and your silence.

If there is no problem then there is no problem talking about it is there?

A client talked of his workplace where the office manager held authority over all staff by ‘letting slip’ information about their personal issues if they should somehow dare to upset her in any way. These upsets could range from asking for help to saying good morning. Over time staff there had developed a strategy of not discussing personal reasons for sickness, absence or whatever.

As such they were intimidated into silence in case they gave away ammunition for her use. To my client this became a hell where silence and fear reigned supreme, to end this took three months of courage; he initiated a grievance against the office manager for revealing the details of another’s sickness absence.

He was regarded as a troublemaker because until then ‘everything had been fine’ what management had not been aware of was the level if dis-ease amongst staff that had led to high levels of sickness absence, staff turn-over and low productivity.

I’d like to suggest it all ended well, it did, but it took another year before the ‘atmosfear’ changed.

Work place bullying should be easier to deal with in that most workplaces will have a policy on Harassment and Bullying, if not, get one, create it immediately.

Include in it some (all) of the following ideas;

Insist that you be treated with dignity and respect at all times; you are entitled to happiness at work.  (Unhappiness is not in any Job Description) 

Do not accept any difficult behaviour at work as normal and make sure all incidents of hostile behaviour are recorded, by you, your manager and if necessary the Police.

Build into it a grievance or discipline procedure to ensure that all staff take the matter seriously, build into it too, some support mechanism for staff going through such procedures.

If you can assert yourself and confront your Harasser.

All you need to say is ‘I do not accept being treated in this way’ making it clear that their behaviour is unacceptable and you wish it to stop and if there is no improvement that you will make use of grievance procedures.

You can always seek help or advice from a friend, colleague, your union, personnel or in a position of authority who you feel able to talk to and can also accompany you to meetings.

Take with you any record you’ve kept of things said and done. Include any timings, days, dates, time of day, witnesses or written incidents. These will prove useful for you as sometimes when we get upset our memory can prove fallible.

After this talk to your manager, their boss or a senior person, be clear about the actions you want them to take.

If necessary make an appointment & gain legal advice.

©neilbenbow