Workplace Violence: The Bullying Factor
A lot has been written about the workplace bully and so my
approach will deal with the assessment and analytical process of
workplace violence. During my years as a Postal Inspector on a
Workplace Violence Interdiction Team in New York, I quickly
gained an appreciation for the value of determining the "root
causes" or "contributing factors" of incidents of Bullying and
Bully Tactics. In all of the assessments conducted involving
bullying behavior "root causes" and "contributing factors"
enabled the investigative process to determine that in all cases
the victim retaliated escalating the bullying to a physical
altercation or threats of bodily harm. The bully created such an
emotional response in his victim over time sufficiently enough
to create a spontaneous response.
As such, I've come to define that Bullying is harassing,
intimidating, offensive, degrading, demoralizing and humiliating
to the victims: employee, co-workers and supervisors alike. The
behavior was patterned, unfavorable, unwarranted and reasonably
inappropriate for the workplace setting. While the individual
Bully was obviously at fault, management for its failure to curb
the behavior contributed to the hostility by creating a
permissive environment that empowered the Bully. Sensing that he
would not be sanctioned he acted with impunity. The unfortunate
reality is that the Bully exist to fill a void; some thought his
antics were funny; others relished in the abuse and banter; if
it was racially or ethnically charged comments it had appeal to
the bigots. As uncanny is it sounds most victims and witnesses
interviewed after the fact were disgusted at knowing how long
they were subjected to the abuse and how much they tolerated
without intervention until the victim retaliated. It just
happens over time like the diagnosis of cancer.
WHO ENGAGES IN BULLYING TACTICS?
-An employee -Co-workers -Customers and employees -Employees and
Clients -Employees and Vendors -Supervisors or manager
During the many threat assessments conducted, I learned that
Bullying is a form of workplace entertainment by some and an
accepted part of the workplace culture by others. You the victim
must be willing to resist the victimization and confront the
individual to avoid the potential for escalation ultimately
leading to the unfortunate spontaneous and subsequent
consequences for engaging in a fight. It's easy to be
intimidated by this behavior, it is designed to control you.
However, don