Chapter 6. What Happens When a Bully Fails to Eliminate The Target?

Chapter 6. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A BULLY FAILS TO ELIMINATE THEIR TARGET? My Return to Work After a Medical Leave. A true story by ABC-AntiBullyingCrusador

This is now March 2008. It has been almost five months since by return from a leave absence the first week of November and with the exception of just two pass-by nibbles, my bully has stopped bullying me! She also stopped bullying an old friend of mine that she was bullying during my leave, as well as an office assistant she bullied periodically. The three of us were the only ones who knew the true nature of the bully and talked to support each other whenever there was a chance.

Since the pass-by nibbles, I became very anxious as my bully does get exceptionally nasty when she feels the need to get even. I was thinking that she just needed more time to plan her revenge after I wrote an apology note to a coworker who my bully said complained about me. The coworker doesn’t have a clue that our boss is a bully and I am sure quite innocently brought my apology to her attention, just to set things straight. I’m sure my bully felt quite the fool trying to explain why she said my coworker made a complaint against me, when she didn’t. I had this awful foreboding that my bully boss had planed to set things straight with me and the other targets, and not in a good way.

Despite this foreboding my bully boss’s behavior has been the opposite of my expectations. One morning she asked to meet with me, something I said I would never do alone with her again, but did so any ways. I was pleasantly surprised, more like shocked, when I found that her attitude seemed to have made a 360. For the past few years we have had an ongoing disagreement in which I have been asking for her flexibility in regards to my late arrival times in exchange for my flexibility in regards to my late departure times. I often need to work late, because of late calls from our frequent referral sources. After working late, or because of morning bloodwork,pharmacy pickups and other issues, I needed to arrive later than scheduled. Doing so made simple sense to me personally in order to avoid exhaustion and to the agency who would need to pay me overtime if I didn’t take back the late hours I often need to work in the eve. Now, suddenly she said “I think it’s important that we be flexible about your issues (of needing to arrive late)”. Flexible about my issues! I couldn’t believe it. This is very perplexing as she continues to be exceptionally nice to me, which is not what the literature predicts, but why complain – LOL

Since learning about the bullying and mobbing phenomenon, I have been looking at this whole unbelievable situation in the perspective of a learning opportunity. Most people where I live in Connecticut have never even heard of it. My bully, her little mob and the management of the agency I work for, are classic examples of the bullying and mobbing phenomenon as described in the literature on the Internet. The similarities of individual bullying and mobbing cases are amazingly alike. I read the same circumstances, bullying tactics and ultimate outcomes over and over as if bullies know each other and learned how to bully together. Knowing what to expect and how to predict my bully’s next move has been tremendously helpful. Now I have survived past the two years that most bullying campaigns take, to eliminate their target. I have yet to come across anything on the Internet that describes what happens when a bully fails to eliminate their target. Maybe I’m finding out the answer to that question now. One thing to be sure of, once a bully, always a bully, no matter how nice she now seems.

Weeks turned into months as the winter holidays passed, and still nothing happened. Then it was announced that there was a mandatory meeting that everyone in the department had to attend early the next morning. The three of us in the department who know the true nature of the bully felt especially threatened. I knew and explained to the other targets, that bullies have been known to reorganize entire departments, to further their bullying agendas. Just as I predicted, the meeting was just that. Our department was being centralized with our other large branch’s equivalent and we would be moving there, 30 miles away, the first week of March.

One of the other targets, the Office Assistant, was fired immediately after the meeting. It was explained that two Office Assistants would not be needed in the new centralized department. She didn’t even finish out that day. She was given 6 weeks of severance pay and benefits. Once a bully, always a bully. Once chosen as a target, you remain a target until you’re eliminated. One target down, two left to go.

There are frequent references in anti-bullying literature to bullies who create chaotic environments in which to further their bullying agendas and hide their incompetencies. This proved true during this poorly planned centralization. A surprising turn of events was that the bully’s primary little mobster, turned against the bully. She became very vocal about the bully’s poor planning of the reorganization. I played the devil advocate by sticking up for the bully. I said how hard it must be for her just now, as she had been under the temporary supervision of an exceptionally brutal upper manager. The little mobster wouldn’t back down saying that our bully boss should not stay in the job if she couldn’t deal with her manager. She seemed as void of empathy as our bully boss and the especially brutal upper manager now supervising our bully boss. I’m observing a managerial chain comprised of 3 levels of bullies. The worst bully being of highest rank and the lowest being the little mobster now denying our bully boss even an ounce of empathy. I worked late every night, the last week in our old office, arriving exhausted on Friday, which was the first day in the newly centralized office. Even the day chosen, Friday, was absolutely the worst possible day to choose, it always being the busiest day of our work week. I became ill over the weekend after the move with a bad cold and plain old exhaustion. I called-in sick during the first week that my department was centralized.

When I returned, there was a meeting on Tuesday morning during which we were introduced to our bully boss’s new manager. She appears to be between 35 – 40 years old, much younger than our 62 year old bully boss, and the rest of the nurses including myself, who are all between 50 – 57 years old. While the new manager was speaking, our bully boss left the room during which there were references made to an incident “last week” which was not repeated for my benefit, everyone else was there last week and already knew. The new boss praised our bully boss saying what a good job she did while having “no support” during the centralization. I thought it odd that the bully boss was being praised when by all other accounts the move was a disaster and poorly planned. I wondered why the new manager perceived our bully boss as having “no support” so I spoke up by inquiring – “Why doesn’t she have support?”. There was a moment of awkward silence before the new manager exclaimed – “Well, I don’t know, I’m new here!” No one laughed, how strange this seemed to me.

After the meeting, my old friend who is also a target and the bully’s primary “little mobsters” (as I call the bullies supporters), were the last to leave the room as we lingering by the bagels and coffee. I asked, “what happened last week?” The little mobster quickly replied “Oh nothing” obviously lying, as my old friend brushed her aside, cupping her hands to my ear, whispering, “BullyBoss said “”Oh, @%#uck!”" and threw her white (erasable) board out of  her  cubicle.” That’s all she could say just then as the bully’s primary mobster was there and just tried to deny that anything happened. This too seemed very odd. The primary mobster had turned against the bully saying how poorly she planned the reorganization just a week ago. Now, she lied in an attempt to hide the bully’s inappropriate behavior. As the week went on, there was more opportunity for coworkers to tell me how that first week went. It was a nightmare. The phones and faxes were not working and our bully boss was reprimanded by upper management when referrals were lost. When callers could not get through to our department, they called our company’s main number. The operators who answer the main number paged our department, as they too could not get through, but no one in the department could hear the page. Adding to the stress was a comment by an upper manager that the department looked “messy”. Our bully boss was “stomping around back there in her cubicle” when the obscenity was exclaimed and the white board came flying. I asked if anyone approached the bully or spoke to her afterward, but no one had the courage. My old friend said it was the kind of week in which you question whether you should ever return on Monday.

Although my bully boss has stopped individually bullying people, she has successfully eliminated a target through a department reorganization which maybe used in yet other ways to further her bullying agenda. She has been treating me and the other remaining target extremely well, refraining from any appearance of bullying. Holding back emotional displays of anger previously launched in the direction of her targets, have proven to exceed her control, as made evident by the blatant expression of an obscenity, while blindly launching a projectile from her cubicle.

I am in the unique position to observe and further study the phenomenon under the most unusual set of circumstances possible. The bully has a new, younger manager who publicly praised the bully for a good job that really wasn’t a good job at all, blaming “lack of support” for the bully and extending her own support before knowing the reasons the lack of support exists. My bully boss was publicly praised by her new manager after quite literally causing a physical threat to the welfare of her subordinates. The fact that no one approached the bully to inquire about the nature of her distress, after the board throwing, goes to show the level of fear that people who were there shared. The ability of the bully to manipulate a new manager and all her subordinates into silence about this incident, despite a written policy forbidding hostile behavior, amazes me. Stay tuned to learn more about the phenomenon of workplace bullying and mobbing and find out together with me, what happens when the bully fails to eliminate their target within two years. That target is me in uncharted territory. ABC