Have you dealt with CO-WORKER bullying??

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I'm not talking about having a bully boss or a bully higher-up, but bully colleagues.
BTW, would I be a tad cynical to suggest that such people would be more likely than average to be promoted?

In any case...I did have to deal with more than a couple of co-worker bullying episodes, one of which turned physical at the age of 18, I also had co-workers put me down in front of others, be deliberately rude and condescending (mostly middle-aged women in my working life during my 30s), make threats and homophobic remarks to me (I'm not gay, but as per separate threads there is a tendency to accuse Aspies of being gay b/c of their odd mannerisms).

In an experience at age 18, when I was in a fast foot joint for a few months, I was harassed and threatened by a fairly big guy who tried to turn everyone else against me, he checked me into the wall outside the break room, he grabbed me by the shirt one time when I confronted him about his abusive behaviour and asked "what are you gonna do about it, fag?!" - and when I reported it to the manager, she simply told me the old "ok, well, we'll look into it and keep an eye out, but just try to get along and keep a low profile bla bla bla..." - soon after, like less than a month later, he was no longer working there but I never found out why - I mean, even after I reported him the harassment continued, and I didn't report it but maybe it was witnessed. This was early 90s when cameras weren't quite all over the place.

Earlier this decade, I did have one really nasty woman who was deliberately rude and patronizing, e.g. talk slowly, and tell me that such-and-such that she just told me is something I should keep discrete and not tell anyone when it was obvious I shouldn't let's just say that she had a dozen different ways of saying "well this is common sense!! DUH!!" even in front of our manager, who didn't rebuke her back (maybe in private, but I doubt it). Trouble is, when you report intentionally rude and abusive behaviour like this, as horrible as it sounds, you'll usually be the one who's the trouble-maker, because you're the "weirdo" and they're "the normal one". They'll just use it as fodder against you that you have some apparent incapacity to get along with other people and use it as a pretext to get you out the door that much sooner - unless you have a close family member "up there" in the organization, you're pretty much f***ed. Makes it all the worse that it's a double standard, because if the co-worker bully complaints about you, then they're more likely to be taken seriously.

I suppose I could have had it worse, there were a couple of cases I read about in the "Aspergers on the Job" book by Rudy Simone, where one guys with Aspergers had a stapler thrown at him, another one had a colleague grab him by the tie and hold a box-cutter to his throat telling him to "shape up or else" or something of the sort. (Granted, these may have been episodes of explosive rage and frustration, rather than ongoing mistreatment and abuse, BUT STILL.) Another young woman with Aspergers had a chair pulled out from under her as she was sitting down, by another female co-worker, and ever since she's suffered debilitating pain from a ruptured disc which the b**ch never accepted responsibility or apologized for, much less her employer (BTW, if something like this ever happens to you, go straight to the police, don't bother with HR).

Yes, whilst temping in 1986

Deleted because double posted due to to slow internet, aagh!

Yes. There are various examples but just to give two from the first and last jobs I ever had:

In my first job I started out being able to fit in well enough, but things turned sour and my co-workers started picking on me, then began to ostracize me subtly by lying about where the Friday night pub meet-up was, etc. There was mocking, ridiculing, I was the butt of jokes and sarcasm (I realized was in fact sarcasm upon examination -- I have to go over conversations in my mind before I realize what had really happened). I eventually quit -- left for lunch one day and never went back.

In the last position I held before throwing in the towel and setting up self-employment (which I've now stuck to for 20 plus years), one of my co-workers started picking on me and calling me stupid just because I got a couple of things wrong in the learning curve. She was overbearing, condescending and free with her insults, basically bullying me in any interaction where I had to deal with her as she was the more experienced person in the department. I didn't take the matter to the boss -- I just sucked it up because I didn't want to make waves.

When I confided in another co-worker that the other one wasn't being fair to me, it became gossip and got back to a third co-worker whom I thought I'd made good friends with -- who also happened to be great friends with the 1st co-worker who was treating me badly.

Because I was the newcomer and he'd been friends longer with the person who was kicking me around, he took her side and took against me, and soon the whole staff did too. Situation became intolerable when even my boss hearing the story decided I was the troublemaker and basically said "YOU shape up or ship out" -- I walked out and never went back. I still maintain stuff like this all went south on me via unjust routes as I was not the one starting the trouble, but was the one who was being picked on and then all it takes is everyone as a whole to decide that was something they can all justify.

I now work self employed at something where I'm on my own with zero co-workers, as it's the only way to avoid this BS.

Back in 1980, for some unknown reason, a co-worker threatened to "beat me up" after work. That reminded me of my school experiences. I quit the job immediately afterwards--the only job I ever quit.

I've had people ATTEMPT to bully me at my present job--but to no avail. If somebody, say, wanted to imply that I made errors, I could provide the proof that I didn't make the errors.

I have almost bought that book "Asperger's on the Job" so many times. Now I'm ordering it.

95% of all autistic people surveyed have been bullied. It's a very common problem.

I am currently working on a masters thesis called "Autism Disclosure in the Workplace" and workplace bullying is one of the aspects I'm studying. I haven't found any academic studies about peers bullying autistic people, which is stunning considering how often it happens. If anyone would like to take part in my research study when I start gathering data, just PM me and I'll put you on a list to get back to later.

I agree that bullies tend to advance. There's a book called "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work" that I highly recommend. It explains how employers look for the qualities that negative, soulless people possess.

I had one guy trying to gain social status by trying to put me down.

Unlike school your co-workers can't actually hit you without repercussions so I just talked back in a similar fashion. It made me feel a lot better.

I had a team leader targeting me for a while that I wrote about on this thread here:

http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=279161

Currently I sit close to 3 people, 2 of which now ignore any social questions or comments I make. Don't know why they started doing this (or even if this is a form of bullying) but it does frustrate me.

I once had a boss who would call people names like "darling" to put them down. That was a major factor in my leaving the company.