By ANGIE THOMPSON.
I was once a victim of workplace bullying. I was bullied pretty badly. I was called names, constantly heard whispers and sniggers behind my back and I ended up crying in the bathroom on more than one occasion. I wasn’t in school though.
This workplace bullying happened a couple of years ago.
Just as an FYI, you should know that this post is sponsored by Medibank 24/7 Health Advice Line. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100% authentic and written in their own words.
I’ve never been bullied in my life. Other than the usual harmless teasing throughout my school years, I was lucky enough to make it to adulthood pretty much unscathed in that regard. And to be honest, I had read about ‘workplace bullying’ and that kind of thing, but the concept had never really crossed my mind until it happened to me. I always thought bullying was the stuff of the playground, not the office.
I was so wrong.
For some reason, the person who was bullying me didn’t like me from the start. On my first day, she called me over to her desk and started asking the usual ‘getting to know you’ questions, but something about it didn’t feel quite right. She was laughing at some of my answers in a way that seemed a little… nasty.
I thought I was reading too much into things, so I let it go.
It wasn’t long before I could hear her openly talking about me. She would come over to my desk to offer me ‘tips’ that were extremely patronising and loud enough for most of the office to hear. She would openly dismiss my ideas as stupid, then say something like “Sorry, no offence dear, but you are new. Maybe you’re just not getting it yet.”
Things escalated quickly. She would yell at me for minor mistakes (whether they happened or not) and would purposefully leave me out of important meetings. She would leave very passive aggressive notes on my desk about workplace ‘rules’ that I was breaking.