Workplace Bullying?

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Hey gang,

Hope everyone's well here -- it's been a little while since I've been on here.

I'm just wondering if I could discuss a personal situation and see if I'm either being just paranoid or if there's something to my feelings.

First off, I am Asperger's -- I have informed my boss (who is simply the best boss I've ever had in my life) and he was receptive to this. I was initially hired on contract for my job late last year and, through solid work and considerable effort, I was promoted to full-time this year. I'm really happy about this, for I get to work with content I like.

This being said, all's not perfect at my work. The office, which is very youthful in nature, has a tendency to be cliquey, even in my own department. I've found some of them to be exceptionally rude, even. It is an extremely fast-paced environment with a lot of people continually focused on their jobs, but there are people who are very tight with each other. Within my sub-group, I'm fairly close with two people and my boss. However, outside of this sub-group, it's anything but close.

At the start of my job, I tried to ingratiate myself with people by being friendly, open to learning things, asking people questions about their job and careers (nothing too probing, of course) and even bringing in baked goods (this is something that has been done in the past, so I wasn't being over-the-top with bringing in cookies). In other words, I've been affable and kind to people. I haven't deliberately done anything to piss certain people off.

During a major project early last year, things got tense in the office because there were considerable pressures on us to deliver key results for the company. A meeting was held where I commented that I believed we were going to deliver on results, with one of the said colleagues saying something particularly aggressive - "what are you basing that on?" - and I didn't like the way she spoke to me. I responded, "As I was about to say" and she slammed her pencil down on her pad, as if I had somehow offended her sensibilities. Perhaps I shouldn't have responded with that remark, but I was shocked at her aggressiveness and felt no other option but to respond the same way (corporate environments are not fun places).

Since that major event, there's been some less-than-cordial ongoings with her team. I've been feeling frozen out from them and their events. I'm not invited to activities of theirs. There's also been some passive-aggressive behaviour from her and her team, with emails sent out that feature veiled comments about my work not being what they want. I have made errors here and there, but it feels like other people can get away with mistakes and no one says boo. Whereas in my circumstances, I feel as if I'm socially isolated from others in the office because of their influence. I know they've talked about me behind my back (without even knowing me, these specific people have never made an effort to know me) and aren't particularly sensitive to people who might be different. They've made that pretty clear.

I have learned from my mistakes and tried to meet their demands, but it don't appreciate the way I'm getting treated by them. More to the point, part of my job involves working with this team in order to provide them data packages. I've worked hard to give them what they want, but they clearly don't accept my packages nearly as often as a colleague in my sub-group (whom is much more well-liked by them). It is very de-motivating to feel like not only is your work being dismissed, but that you're facing a degree of hostility from a group of people. I know that, given time pressures and work demands, people don't always have time to be friendly. I get that.

To make matters even more complicated, one of my colleagues in my sub-group is married to this woman. He's also been dismissive of my remarks sometimes and ordered me around, even though he's not my boss.

My question is this: how do I deal with this situation without driving a wedge in the office? Do I just grin and bear it? Do I talk to my boss and accept the consequences? I want to keep this job. I just want to resolve any potential differences and acknowledge what I can do differently in order to make this less intense.

Also, I do want honest answers: am I letting normal workplace politics get to me in unhealthy ways? If so, I can just let it go.

Are you UK? Aussie? NZ? USA? Can?

If your Uk i would familiarise yourself with your workplaces bullying and harassment policy. Arrange a formal supervsision with your line manager and explain the situation to her in full. Making sure this is all recorded accurately and see what your line manager will suggest.

If you've been there for over a year, you enjoy the job. Don't let a bunch of childish adults in a clique put you off. If you have a good manager and they are made aware of the situation then there are ways of preventing these people harassing and victimising you.

What can happen is you may be accussed of not being a "team player" but i would say thats only going to happen in an unethical employer who would constructively dismiss you at the first opportunity for having a disability.

As I say the good thing is your boss is not one of the bullies. When you have a manager whos a bully...god its awful

It sounds to me like she was stressed and acted inappropriately, feels like she made a fool of herself and can't take the responsibility for it and swallow her pride.

And she continues to act in an immature manner.

I think you are just going to have to talk to your boss about this.

I feel your pain. I understand how you saw this. As a fellow working professional with AS, I have had similar situations happen. I hope my experience in this environment will make this advice useful for you. You've got two choices. You go about doing your job and not calling attention to yourself...

OR

You talk to your boss or HR or do whatever other fool things posters here are going to suggest you do "legally" about this "horrible affront" of inappropriate pencil slamming. You'll make a nice impression that there are issues with you getting along with people, especially if you're going against a whole group!

Either way the outcome is the same. Nothing happens to them. You either end up highlighting that you are a potential personnel problem or you don't.

In the future, I would strongly caution you against simply ignoring someone's question like you did. Especially if it is a businesswoman who has to work extra hard to be taken seriously in a man's business world. Ignoring her at a meeting like that was an insult and the professional thing to do would have been to answer her question regardless of the tone which would have made HER look like the aggressor and you the nice guy. If you did it in front of her team, then it is really no wonder that nobody is inviting you to functions. It's also quite likely that the reason everyone is emailing about your productivity is because you just humiliated their teammate when asked a question in a public forum (and you already know that these teams have close bonds -- you said so yourself). They don't want to tell you that your work doesn't currently fit what they need in person. I'm not saying you were wrong in any moral sense, and hell yes I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND YOUR FEELINGS when you did that.

You really want to fix this? There is a third choice: You buck up, put on your professional "game face" and you go talk to her. APOLOGIZE for not answering her question first and THEN share how it made you feel (using "I" statements). Fix this before it really does result in an active dislike for you. Often these situations are something that spiral downward more in our minds than they are in reality and this doesn't currently sound beyond salvage, especially if they are fellow professionals who will value a working relationship and results higher than some petty revenge kick against you.

You want to go to your boss or her boss or HR and make waves, then be ready for pariah status. This is just how the professional working world works. It sucks sometimes, and I'm there with you in feeling these things. But put on your game face and get back in there! Repeat after me: Professional... professional... professional... Now GO!

Hey gang,

Thanks for the great advice. Much appreciated.

For the past few weeks I was bullied at my work. It wasn't an professional environment at all. They stuck things on my back, a "hazing" and the guy explained he did it to other people too. Others made fun of my dialect. I cannot control how I talk, they said things behind my back.. I felt despair, and couldn't live a normal life outside work so I quit. I learned a few things from it, and now have another place to put on my resume. Leaving your job should be a last resort though, I feel like I let a few bully's get to me but missed out on opportunity's of bonding.

A year ago I was fired after being the target of bullying. I'm having tons of issues with the trauma (PTSD, etc.). Which set me up for my next job where I ended up with a total douchebag of a boss. He nitpicks, second-guesses me, ignores me, withholds key information I need to do my job, plays favorites, and takes advantage of my weaknesses. Right now after serial fuckups, I keep counting the days until I'm called on the carpet then kicked to the curb like my last job. I'm once again having meltdowns on the job and started becoming self-injurious (I retreat to a supply closet, whip myself with power cords, and berate myself for being incompetent).

I stayed in a job for years despite the very subtle and insidious bullying that went on. I stayed because I liked the work, because I kept trying everything I possibly could to improve the situation, and because I believed that eventually the bullies would leave. However, no matter what I did, the bullying situation didn't improve. Sometimes it went deeper underground for a while, which gave me a false sense of security for a while. As each bully left, they were often replaced by another.

Eventually, I came to the realization that bullying starts from the top down. It happens when it is allowed to happen. If management tolerate a workplace culture of bullying and harassment - then that is exactly what they will get. So - I left.

Now I have a job I love even more, I work for an organization which would never tolerate any form of disrespectful behaviour, and I work with a team of colleagues who are professional, decent, ethical and genuinely nice people.

All I have to say is people should not bully people then leave their lunches or drinks in unattended locations.

When I worked in a resteraunt for the first eight years the NTs tormented me like you would not believe. I was putting out resumes like crazy but was stuck there because I needed the cash for medical insurance, On my last year there I started to document all the tormentors I made audio tapes of the harrassment and the union took care of it. Before I quit I was able to see two of my main tormentors fired due to the evidence I collected. They discriminated against me for being learning disabled and for being in special education when I was in high school. I probably could have sued the company for damages but they acted so fast I could not bear to try to do it. A waitress who was working there with me was studying to be a special education teacher she gave me the little audio recorder to tape the idiots. Another waitress who helped me had a kid with downsyndrome she was tired of him coming home crying because of tormentors at school. We all had a good laugh at there expense when they were fired.

Well done Todesking!

For anyone else in this situation, here is a very helpful website:

http://www.kickbully.com/main.html