Bullying in the Work Place

Crashing a vase to the floor is highly therapeutic, especially when it is understood that the store selling said vase is insured.

Getting a job—any job—is a dream for those who struggle to get hired in the first place. After hours, days, and months of searching, finally said job is obtained. Sure, the job is only part-time and a retail position, but to me said job is precious, despite the low pay and minimal hours.

For a while, the job is enjoyable—even fun—but after October hits, the fun ends.

I understand that people get stressed, I get stressed, too, but this does not excuse using that stress as a justifiable reason to bully others, even if they are in a lower position than you.

I have been bullied and abused before, I hated it, and refuse to go back to those times.

Times where I was ridiculed for not wearing what was popular or chic or trendy. Times where, in a rather large hallway, I was pushed to the side, on purpose, and almost fell. Times where I was, literally, pushed onto the hard cement of the playground. Times where when I tried to defend myself, I was considered the bad guy.

So… no, I do not feel the necessity to revisit being treated, literally, like dirt. Like I don’t matter. Like everything I do, no matter what or how hard I try, is wrong.

I understand that November and December are the two months out of the year where parents, siblings, daughters, sons, and grandparents all want to simultaneously pull their hair out just to have the festively decorated, and to achieve the ultimate goal of giving the perfect gift without said gift being promptly returned on December 26.

I understand that decorations, wrapping paper, gifts, boxes, ribbons, and bows all add up on top of bill payments and the occasional loans.

I am fully aware of this, but to use these reasons as justifiable excuses to treat others like crap and then refuse to understand why people take it “so personally” shows a complete lack of humanity and human decency.

Let me say this VERY clearly: THERE IS NO GOOD EXCUSE.

There is no good excuse for:

• Being impatient with someone because they cannot read your mind or do not know or understand what you know.
• Getting angry at someone for asking a simple question, or any question for that matter.
• Not communicating about what or how you are feeling and then choosing to get upset when no one understands what YOU chose NOT to communicate in the first place.
• Expecting someone to perform a task the exact way you would perform it.

I could care less what someone is going through when they decide to use their “problems” as way to allow for behavior that can only be classified as bullying.

Do not even get me started on the enabler of said bully, who only listens to what the bully has to say, while everything the victim says, or even tries to say, about what has been going on is a lie.

Anger is an emotion that does need to be expressed sometimes; this is understandable. However, at the same time, that anger needs to be expressed in healthy and reasonable ways.

Let me be clear, just because you hold a position of authority does, in NO WAY, give you the right to:

• Mistreat your employees.
• Not listen to your employees.
• Bully your employees.
• Disrespect your employees.
• Expect your employees to be the equivalent of a robot.
• Be unreasonably toward your employees.

I am by no means perfect, but at least I make an effort to learn from past mistakes and try not to take out my personal frustrations on other people, because that is wrong.