Office Tormentors Appear Normal, But Pack a Wallop from CareerJournal really needs no analysis. I don’t know if it is worth the read so I will point out the 3 things that entertained me plus one of our customer’s interactions with a flamethrower.
First (emphasis mine):
Mr. Namie is the director of the Workplace Bullying & Trauma Institute, which is pushing various states to enact laws against “abusive conduct,” including “verbal or physical conduct that a reasonable person would find threatening, intimidating, or humiliating.” Thus far, the bills either died in committee or weren’t scheduled for hearings, he says.
The institute’s name sounds like the basis of a Saturday Night Live skit.
Second:
…a staffer at another company presented information that didn’t sit well with his supervisor. He chewed him out afterward in front of all his colleagues. “That idea is so wrong it’s not even stupid,” the boss yelled. “Genius has limits; you’re proof that stupid doesn’t.”
If I had to guess, I would say that this manager had a low, and I mean low, empathetic aptitude.
Third:
Jackie Fox once had a boss at a medical office who, whenever Ms. Fox forgot to do something, would call her a “colander head.” She quit that job, in part because the same humiliator pressured her for her sandwich.
I know, I know, it sounds like an elementary school playground. Amazing what companies will allow to occur within their culture.
We have a customer whose top salesperson basically went feral after he earned a master’s degree from a correspondence college. He wanted raises, authority and all the trappings he thought he now deserved. After insulting coworkers in meetings, ignoring paperwork and accosting the sales manager, he finally dropped the F-bomb on the President of the company. He was summarily terminated.