How can you identify or avoid adult bullies?

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Since gay people are getting a lot of press around being bullied, what are some good strategies for avoiding it?

One of the problems I have, is that I frequently can't tell when I'm being bullied. Adult bullies are much more savvy than kids. Nobody steals my lunch money, but a few time I've figured out that I was being bullied in the workplace.

For example. I had a boss who was just an all around crappy guy. He was a former cop who lost his job due to a minor accident and, I later learned, several disciplinary problems. Most of his employees were fresh-out of college, young, female IT geeks. I was the only male assigned to his team and only because they needed a modeling expert with multi-platform coding experience for a 3-year Credit Risk Management project. I was in my early 30's, not as naive as I was at 20, but not much more mature than a 20 year NT.

This guy liked to pick one employee at a time and make them into a special project. His goal was to "Help them find rock bottom", so they could better their life and build a stronger career. He genuinely though he was helping people by doing this. He did this by having sit-downs with the employee where he'd criticize every thing they do. No yelling, no screaming, just once or twice a week, a couple hours of critically ripping apart every piece of work you put out. I didn't realize what was up, why turnover was so high on the team, most people would last about 18 months. Then he decided it was my turn to be taken to "rock bottom".

Well crap. I had no idea why my work, which had been fine before, was suddenly so terrible. This went on for a few months, a couple times a week, he'd look at my schedule and stop over to grab me from my desk and walk me down to a conference room for a nice, pleasant deconstruction of my efforts. Nothing would be acceptable. Of course, being aspie, this means I began to over-work everything as I tried to keep my job, and my quality decline even further as I over-thought problems. Finally, he told me about his "rock bottom" plan during a meeting and it all clicked for me. All at once I figured out he was screwed up in the head and got kicks from this, it had nothing to do with the employees work. So I dropped my resume out there, left my job of seven years and was working at a new company within three weeks. I probably should have gone through HR and gotten him fired, but this kind of thing just doesn't occur to me.

How can you identify or avoid adult bullies?

Oh boy, have I been there!
I'm self concious of my performance to start with, then I get one of these types who get their kicks making you squirm. I typically worked long term temp assignments due to the fact I cannot handle a formal interview. I have worked in a lot of places and there always seems to be one like this. They are always in a higher position than me and it used to be that I was singled out because I was obviously distressed for the criticism.. I found that if you don't squirm and have the opposite reaction(i.e. Big smile, thank them for pointing out <issue> say "I'm always looking for good advice and tips! Please, don't hesitate to come by and give me any more pointers when you think of any!") while this may seem like ass kissing, it's actually a way of saying you wont squirm and if you REALLY act perky and thrilled to talk to them, you might find them avoiding talking to you altogether.. DO NOT try going over their head as this almost always backfires, their superiors have known them longer than you and almost always take their side against you, and making you a certain target for harassment.

Just my 2 cents from years of experience in workplace politics..

Good Luck!

The best thing you can do is to avoid being a target. I've found that being nonreactive to bullies basically results in their ignoring you pretty quickly.

I'm not sure if you can spot it without any interaction with the bully.

I think I ignore warning signs, usually to my peril, as it turns pear shape eventually.

In your case you were aware of his tendency to bully others, yet were unprepared when it was your turn.

'If you dont want to be trampled by elephants or bitten by tigers, do not go to the places where they live.'

I wouldn't be able to reqonise my chilhood bullies at all espicaly since I'm on the other side of the country now. I never get bullied in real life but I know how to fight.

I agree with this.

I used to hang out in some of the rougher parts of town, the Tai kwon do my parents made me take as a kid helped me avoid a lot of fights as an adult (the holds and blocks give you a choice to immobilize rather than fight) but those bullies were easy to spot (in your face kind)


BTW PunkyKat, I see you have your location as the Kalahari Desert, did you happen to read my post about that in random facts?

I wish that being nonreactive was a good strategy, but in the workplace, that's usually not an option. People like the OP is describing won't let it go that easily. They will continually seek you out and hammer you, insisting that you respond to their criticism. If you do respond, anything you say is condescendingly dismissed or taken as hostility; if you don't respond, you're classified as sullen, uncooperative and insubordinate. And bullies of that type are always on the lookout for anyone they perceive as even slightly different. I wish I knew how to avoid them, but when they're given authority over you, the only thing you can do is escape to another job, 'cause they will fire you, sooner or later on one trumped up pretext or another. They only like sycophants, who will parrot their own pop psychology manifesto back at them.

Im my opinion I believe your view to be a bit pessimistic, I have worked a lot of fields, and a lot of places, jumping to a new job only gives you a new set of bullies to try to figure out how to live with.

You raise a very good issue, that adult bullies are far more difficult to deal with than children who bully, because they are usually not being blatantly harassing, usually don't break and laws, and are often times superiors.

I would have found a new job, documented everything, and I would have gone to HR on the matter.

I think much more difficult to deal with are the sarcastic type, who will be passively hostile towards a person so that whatever is documented on paper looks civil but their tone and actions very clearly indicate otherwise.

They fall into the crack of technically "not doing anything" when they in fact, are. I've always found it curious how NT's curiously dismiss non-verbal communication under these situations as "not counting".

My impression of these individuals was always one of mental instability because in the vast majority of situations I've encountered them, which isn't frequent, my civility afforded to them was sincere, and I see no reason to engage in a one sided rivalry.

My perception of these individuals is that they are immature and emotionally unstable as they cannot heed to reason.

My supervisor is an adult bully. It's hard for me to avoid her on the days that she drives (I pick up garbage), but on the days that she is in charge, I do my best to work a little faster and pick up everything that I see. I manage to get on her good side by doing that.

Identifying and avoiding that can be very difficult, but now you have that experience to remember and pass along (just like you have already done here) if someone else ever begins doing anything similar either to you or to anyone else.

I have experienced that kind of nonverbal harassment MUCH throughout my life, in every social situation.



I agree. People with disorders such as AS are called "abnormal"; but those bully types who seem to be steadily increasing in number, and those who side with them (either out of stupidity or fear of being the next one on the hit list) are not "normal" either. They are simply "the norm," because they are the majority.

I don't really live in the Kalahari Desert, I live in Texas. I just wish I lived in the Kalahari Desert becuase that's where meerkats are originally from. No, I never saw your post but than I NEVER look at random fact posts here or anywhere.

For one, discrimination. I think that is bullying. If you feel you are being treated different than everyone, you are probably being bullied.

If things are going good for you and then all of a sudden you are getting watched by your supervisors and they are starting to find things to write you up about and they are using things against you you have done in the past they were fine with before. I call that bullying. That happened to my co worker and she figured they are doing it to get rid of her. I thought so too. She had been working with them for so long and she was 67 and they started to bully her and she put up with it. Then she decided it was time to retire. And my husband makes more money than she does and she makes less for some reason and my husband had been working for them for two years while she has been working for them for 23 years. And I thought everyone was given raises every July I was told so she should be making more than him. Yeah that was bullying.

I think my office clerk may have bullied me. I mean he make me feel bad and he expected me to have a savant memory. He would get mad at me when I clarify or ask him questions and he would say "What did I just tell you?" or "How long have you been working here? I just told you." So I stopped asking questions and then he would say "If you have any questions just ask" or "If you don't understand, just ask." Double standard huh or hypocrisy or contradiction or whatever it was he did. Either he was ignorant or I got bullied. I don't know. I always called him my ignorant office clerk but never to his face of course. Then I was happy when my boss offered me a day time job. This was at my old job of course.

I have heard many times that people with Asperger's and autism are bad at generalizing from experience, so recognizing abusive behaviours is a tough call, and there is plenty of evidence that people with ASDs get bullied more often than people without. I lost a job that I really love trying to stand up to someone a bit like the boss you describe.

One thing I notice is where there is a mismatch between the manners and the actions. Some people are naturally grouchy, shouty and hard to deal with, but they do it to everybody equally and in practical terms they pull their weight and help out. Then there are people who are all sweetness and light, but never lift a finger to match their words and stab you in the back if there is any personal gain from it.

True sociopaths try to be exactly what you need, for as long as you serve some useful function for them, and are hard to see through.