Bullying Behaviors
Following is a list of bullying behaviors according to BullyOffline:
People who are bullied find that they are:
- constantly criticized and subjected to destructive criticism . . . - explanations and proof of achievement are ridiculed, overruled, dismissed or ignored
- forever subject to nit-picking and trivial fault-finding (the triviality is the giveaway)
- undermined, especially in front of others; false concerns are raised, or doubts are expressed over a person's performance or standard of work - however, the doubts lack substantive and quantifiable evidence, for they are only the bully's unreliable opinion and are for control, not performance enhancement
- overruled, ignored, sidelined, marginalized, ostracized
- isolated and excluded from what's happening (this makes people more vulnerable and easier to control and subjugate)
- singled out and treated differently (for example everyone else can have long lunch breaks but if this person is one minute late it's a disciplinary offense)
- belittled, degraded, demeaned, ridiculed, patronized, subject to disparaging remarks
- regularly the target of offensive language, personal remarks, or inappropriate bad language
- the target of unwanted sexual behavior
- threatened, shouted at, and humiliated, especially in front of others
- taunted and teased where the intention is to embarrass and humiliate
- set unrealistic goals and deadlines which are unachievable or which are changed without notice or reason or whenever they get near achieving them
- denied information or knowledge necessary for undertaking work and achieving objectives
- starved of resources, sometimes while others receive more than they need
- denied support by their manager and thus find themselves working in a management vacuum
- either overloaded with work (this keeps people busy [with no time to tackle bullying] and makes it harder to achieve targets) or have all their work taken away (which is sometimes replaced with inappropriate menial jobs, e.g. photocopying, filing, making coffee)
- have their responsibility increased but their authority removed
- have their work plagiarized, stolen and copied - the bully then presents their target's work (e.g. to senior management) as their own
- are given the silent treatment: the bully refuses to communicate and avoids eye contact (always an indicator of an abusive relationship); often instructions are received only via email, memos, or a succession of yellow stickies or post-it notes
- subject to excessive monitoring, supervision, micro-management, recording, snooping etc
- the subject of written complaints by other members of staff (most of whom have been coerced into fabricating allegations - the complaints are trivial, often bizarre ["He looked at me in a funny way"] and often bear striking similarity to each other, suggesting a common origin)
- forced to work long hours, often without remuneration and under threat of dismissal
- find requests for leave have unacceptable and unnecessary conditions attached, sometimes overturning previous approval. especially if the person has taken action to address bullying in the meantime
- denied annual leave, sickness leave, or - especially - compassionate leave
- when on leave, are harassed by calls at home or on vacation, often at unsocial hours
- receive unpleasant or threatening calls or are harassed with intimidating memos, notes or emails with no verbal communication, immediately prior to weekends and holidays (e.g., 4pm Friday or Christmas Eve - often these are hand-delivered)
- do not have a clear job description, or have one that is exceedingly long or vague; the bully often deliberately makes the person's role unclear
- are invited to "informal" meetings which turn out to be disciplinary hearings
- are denied representation at meetings, often under threat of further disciplinary action; sometimes the bully abuses their position of power to exclude any representative who is competent to deal with bullying
- encouraged to feel guilty, and to believe they're always the one at fault
- subjected to unwarranted and unjustified verbal or written warnings
- facing unjustified disciplinary action on trivial or specious or false charges
- facing dismissal on fabricated charges or flimsy excuses, often using a trivial incident from months or years previously
- coerced into reluctant resignation, enforced redundancy, early or ill-health retirement
- denied the right to earn a livelihood including being prevented from getting another job, usually with a bad or misleading reference