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Companies Wake Up To the Problem of Bullies At Work (wsj.com)
Reader cdreimer writes: According to a report in The Wall Street Journal (possibly paywalled), two-thirds of Americans have reported being bullied in the workplace in the last year (up from half in 1989) and boorish behavior by bosses and coworkers are causing companies in lost productivity. The report reads: One of the first things visitors notice when they enter the Irvine, Calif., offices of Bryan Cave LLP is the granite plaque etched with the law firm's 10-point code of civility. The gray slab, displayed in the law firm's reception area, proclaims that employees always say please and thank you, welcome feedback and acknowledge the contributions of others. Such rules may seem more at home in a kindergarten than a law firm, but Stuart Price, a longtime partner, says they serve as a daily reminder to keep things civil at work. Incivility -- and its more extreme cousin, bullying -- is becoming a bigger problem in workplaces. Nearly two-thirds of Americans reported that they were bullied at work last year, up from roughly half of workers in 1998, according to research conducted by Christine Porath, a management professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. These people reported they were "treated rudely at least once a month" by bosses or co-workers in the past year -- which Prof. Porath defined as being bullied.Bullying costs companies in ways large and small, cutting into productivity and turning off customers, management experts say. Workplace behavior is under the microscope after recent allegations of sexual harassment in Hollywood, technology and media. Some companies have found, as a result of investigations into harassment claims, that bullying and boorish behavior are more common than suspected.
...Spain, where they have clearly defined legal definitions of what constitutes work place bullying. They also have industrial tribunals with the power to fine companies and award substantial compensation to victims (tens of thousands of euros) for letting work place bullying going unaddressed. For an employee to pursue a tribunal for bullying against their employer is also free, recognising the fact that things have to get really bad before the vast majority of employees will consider legal action.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
In theory I agree 100% and Iâ(TM)d say the same thing. In practice itâ(TM)s different.
Bullying, at least the schoolyard kind, has also spiked because of social media. When I was in high school, I was bullied mercilessly. A group of kids would follow me around taunting me and blocking my entrance to class. Individually, they would leave me alone, but in groups they got brave. This might not seem like much, but repeat this after every class. Every day. For three and a half years. I was getting paranoid to the point that I thought anyone who laughed was laughing at me. I never contemplated suicide or lashing out with mass violence, but had things tipped one way or another I can, in hindsight, see how it could have led there. (A friend of mine finally talked to them and they claimed they didn't realize what they were doing was hurting me because they were "just having fun.") The one solace I had during this time was that I would be left alone once I stepped off the bus and entered my house. The bullies couldn't reach me there. I was safe.
Fast forward to today. My son is entering high school. If he were to encounter a similar bullying group, the bullies could "follow him home" via social media. They could taunt him online or, if he's not on social media (which he isn't yet), they could set up fake pages purporting to be him and posting messages intended to embarrass him. Bullies today can wipe away any safe space that a bullying victim has and make their torment 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. This means the bullying victim can reach the "lash out violently" or "kill themselves" point much quicker - especially if the taunting includes the bullies "having fun" by telling their victim to kill themselves.
Then there's the higher prevalence of reporting bullying. When I was in high school, my options to respond to my bullying were "shut up and take it" or "punch the bullies." They outnumbered me so I figured that fighting them would only wind up, at worst, with me beaten up and taunted for it or, at best, sent to the principals office (and taunted for that). So I kept quiet and took the abuse. Today, bullying is recognized much more as an issue and more outreach is done to let victims know they have a third option of telling an adult who can handle the situation.
I'll agree that the idea of "microaggressions" is garbage, but that isn't the only source for the spike in the rate of bullying.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
And yet your first paragraph is a perfectly decent description of them. Don't you even see that?
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?