Recently workplace bullying has become a household term in Greece, thanks to the media in general and television in particular, rolling over us like a tsunami.
It gives a name to what most workers have experienced and didn’t know what to call it.
Workplace bullying is not an abstract concept. It has many facets and everyone experiences it differently. Workplace bullying is a virus that can destroy your soul, body, work, family, and social life. It can be transmitted many ways, by touch, words, looks and attitudes.
Workplace bullying has no victims. There is a target, the person, the employee who is being targeted. Workplace bullying is essentially deceit. Someone wants to hurt you, dominate you, demote you or get you fired from your job.
And you wonder: why me? What am I to blame for?
You begin to doubt and question yourself. You start to create an inner black hole that slowly sucks you in, devouring your soul and voice at the same time.
You get angry, you cry, you become depressed, you keep recycling the same images in your mind. You think of not going to work and you believe that you are really alone.
At the same time, your bully goes on with the daily routine of life as normal. For him or her there is nothing to worry about except his or her ambition and vanity. Besides, for him or her it is just another day at work. You are trying to work out a balance among your job, family and soul, while the bully is selling and suggesting himself as the right choice for a certain position, promotion or bonus, taking advantage of your absence or claiming that you a part of the problem and not the solution.
When workplace bullying occurs everyone knows it.
It’s like saying a flat in an apartment building has caught fire, the fire has spread and the firemen have come, but the other tenants haven’t noticed. How is that possible?
What usually happens is that you have one or more arsonists setting the fire, some tenants abandoning the building so as not to be burned, some who decline to help put out the fire either because they can’t be bothered or because they want your flat to burn to get you out of the apartment building. One or two may help out with their own fire extinguishers.
Moreover, it’s how you react when your own house is on fire that matters. Will you try to put out the fire; will you run to call for help; will you faint, freeze in fear and burn inside your own home, or will you abandon it?
In any case the fire spreads faster than the time it takes for the fire department to come and put it out.
If you’ve been the target of workplace bullying, don’t remain silent. Silence is a false friend who will betray you. It is important, however, to choose who you talk to. Just because we speak the same language doesn’t mean we understand and comprehend the same things.