Sure, the bullies at work have problems, but they’re not ours to fix. They’re managements’. They can go to a shrink, but it probably won’t do any good. Not for the real bullies. For them, it’s war on the rest of us rather than just friends not getting along. It’s office politics gone bad and over the top.
A workplace bully is a special case. Bullies are serial abusers, similar in character to perpetrators of domestic violence, except they are not “family.” Treating work as if it were family, some therapists urge bully targets to recognize that human relationships are two-way streets. These therapists tell their clients that they must accept responsibility for at least part of the problem. But things are different if a boss is truly a bully. Then these streets are one-way with all the traffic coming head on toward the targeted employee. None of it is good. When employees are stuck on the centerline, they know the difference between one-way and two-way streets.
To understand the bully, it’s best to factor out altogether the currently targeted employee. It is not in the least about her. That individual is so utterly irrelevant to the abuse syndrome that when she removes herself from the workplace by quitting, taking her supposedly emotional difficulties with her, the bulling continues serially with each newly targeted employee. It’s a bully thing, and not an employee one.
Few therapists can see any of that, because they can’t see any of the previous or subsequent targets. Most managers are able to see the abuse but generally choose not to. They already have plenty of problems of their own. Besides, there is a long-standing managerial tradition of disinterest. “Let the employees settle it.” But employees don’t have either the tools or the authority. |
