desire Los Angeles
my boss went beyond mean and unreasonable to monstrous and crazy today...and i was the target. so i got home about an hour ago and have spent most of the time exploring the web for validation of my feelings of victimization.
Bullying
Emotionally abusive bosses are the bullies of the corporate world. They relish in your discomfort and like nothing more than to see you squirm under the pressures of their harsh criticisms. Why do they do it? Noa Davenport, who wrote Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace, says the underlying reason for bullying is “a desire to dominate, subjugate, and eliminate” (15). Gary and Ruth Namie, both PhDs who started the Campaign Against Workplace Bullying (CAWB) say that bullies are liars and cowards whose intent is to control the victim. These bullies – your boss – revel in animosity and actually gain pleasure from hurting you. What it comes down to is the insecurity your boss feels and pushes onto you to make themselves feel better. Bullies are comforted by feeling powerful, over-compensating for whatever control they feel they lack.

a few of the articles define like four different types of abusive boss; my boss fits two of the four categories to a tee.

it's a shame. i need to work, and going to work after three years of grieving devastation was a big step toward what i considered an engagement with "life." Living people work; work is what the living do. having been a poor and single mother for most of my adult life, working has never been something i shied from, certainly not due to inadequacy or laziness on my part. i have held jobs for long periods of time, eighteen years, five years, and i have never stormed off a job or been fired from a job in an explosive manner.

in the seven months i've been at my current position, i have been denigrated, criticized, minimized, chewed out, ordered about rudely, manipulated, and so on, more than i ever was in my entire working life prior.

in fact, that was true within about two months of my taking the position. and to think that one of the reasons i chose not to return to the job i held when bekah was killed was that my boss could be abusive. well, he could also be fair, respectful, and he was always brilliant, which kinda made up for some of the negatives. i mean it was more worthwhile to take some heat from him. still, i knew not long after bekah died that i was not constructed in such a way that i would tolerate the pressure again. besides, the commute was a total bitch, the meanest 13 miles on the face of the earth, and i just did not believe there was a reason good enough for me to subject myself to that stress ten times a week for the rest of what i hoped, and still hope, would be a life full enough for me to be glad i had it.

anyhow. i like the surroundings where i work, i like everyone else i work with, except for the person i work FOR. and life is too short to spend five days a week being told what a fuckup you are.

especially by a fuckup. guess i'll go check out craigslist for a while....

Myths, misperceptions, stereotypes and falsehoods about bullying and harassment

this article is wonderful. i do have to get another job. but after reading this i feel slightly equipped to rise above the bullying in the meantime, know it's not really about me, and be able to stay composed and remain employed until he lets me go, which means i would collect unemployment, or until i have another, undoubtedly better, position.
- posted by barbara @ 2/11/2005 06:02:00 PM