I was working at my till when the person arrived with two children. The individual was exhausted and fatigued was etched into the face. They were very tired and told me that they were unable to sleep. They had tried all the remedies such as lavender on the pillow, not drink caffeine and exercises. The real problem was the atmosphere at work. They worked in a big NHS building project in North Staffs. The atmosphere was terribly bullying. People were yelled at for getting the tiniest thing wrong, The CMT were the worst behaved and the men and the women were equally badly behaved.
Bullying at work seems to be endemic. My partner in a catering post at Kerrygold equally had a bad time and it had a very damaging impact on our relationship as she suffered from insomnia and became very angry. She eventually left after a few months of this ordeal.
I gather from one and two sources that the atmosphere at the City Council is equally poisonous. I am told that no dissent is countenanced and the working environment is not a healthy one.
This seems to fall into a national pattern according to the recruitment agency Monster
Britons are among the world’s most bullied workers, with seven in 10 admitting to being bullied by bosses or colleagues.
A survey by recruitment company recently questioning 16,517 workers in 53 countries, discovered a quarter of Britons find the bullying and cruel jibes so upsetting it dramatically affects their performance at work.
Some 10% admitted they had even been physically attacked in the workplace.
The research also found that our European counterparts also suffer badly from workplace bullying, with a staggering 83% claiming to be victims of physical or emotional bullying at work at some point in their career.
This compares to 65% of bullied Americans and 55% of harrassed Asian workers.
The survey also discovered that Spanish workers are most likely to be physically attacked while sensitive Dutch workers are the most likely to shed a tear due to work bullying.
Belgium had the lowest rate of workplace bullying, with 38%
Workplace bullying is one of the most destructive hidden problems in our society and with things as they are economically, it will only get worse. In my job as a full-time union officer, we have even seen people commit self harm and even suicide as a direct result of bullying issues at work.
The reason for this is that with workplace rights being eroded and less alternative jobs out there, individuals will remain in roles where they are being bullied as there is no alternative for them other than leaving to go to a life of destitution and unemployment.
Similarly the cuts in workers rights (and plans to give bosses the “right” to dismiss workers unfairly and for no good reason) will embolden bullies into behaving in an even worse way as they will believe they are untouchable.
All the science shows bad atmospheres at work are bad for business and cause huge problems with productivity. But we have adopted a weird “cult of the manager” in this country whereby we become obsessed with deifying our workplace supervisors. This trend has been exacerbated by the reality TV shows like The Apprentice, Dragons Den, X Factor and others whereby we are forced to never countenance even challenging the “bosses” who all know best.
I have never met a Tory who can come up with a convincing counter-argument as to how cutting workers rights will mean less bullying, but to be honest they generally don’t even believe bullying can take place at all and if people get mentally ill it must be through their own personality defects rather than due to the actions of a workplace bully. Goes to show what they are all really about I guess.
Crumbs, you’re a pleasure, aren’t you?
I must be the exception then to your statement that most Tories eat babies… sorry, don’t believe in bullying, as I was bullied at school and have also been bullied at work.
I have no idea why I was bullied at work, it can’t have been due to the economy as I was working in a Council during the mid 1990s (yes, I used to work in the public sector, before you start on all Conservatives being pinstriped businessmen or landed gentry). It was a Labour-run Council (but I don’t tar all Labour members with the same brush).
I have to agree with Abi. Anyone who thinks that Tories hold a monopoly on bullying clearly knows nothing about the ‘Old Labour’ trade union bullies that threaten and sometimes assault their members to impose their will. Indeed, in many workplaces, the union official routinely uses a culture of fear and intimidation to keep their members in line.
And I don’t hear stories about David Cameron throwing mobile phones around the office, shouting and balling people down or punching the back of car seats.
…Who was that again?
And I have to question this leap that Lawrence makes where he suggests that restricting worker rights automoatically leads to more bullying in the workplace. Presumably, he is inferring that management are always responsible for bullying in the workplace.
Now you can argue about what should be done about workers rights all you like, but it seems to me that the majority of bullying in the workplace comes not from management but often from other employees of equal status to the one being bullied.
It is by no means a one-way street, nor as simple as Lawrence would like us to believe.
My experience in terms of respectful attitude is that, if you take what newspapers people read as a marker it is that Telegraph readers tend to treat me as a checkout operator better than Guardian readers. Telegraph readers tend to be older and visit the supermarkets in the morning tend to stop and chat and enjoy a bit of banter. The worst ones tend to professional women in their 30s who tend not see you and the worst experience was a Observer reading woman who treated me as if I were her lackey. My tactic to those who don’t even given me eyecontact is to speak Norweigen ” Snakker di Norsk?”
The Environmental Minister in Oslo once called John Selwyn Gummer his Tory Minister opposite a “Drettsekk”- a shit bag its a flexible enough language
Men du gir ingen indikasjon på hva respektfull holdning Hvis du får fra leserne av solen eller speil!
generelt fin
Its not restricted to Labour or Tories either Shaun, the lib dems are also guilty!!!……cyber bullying seems to be on the increase with a huge number of people thinking they can bully people on line with keyboard warrior mentality………..thank god i dont get involved in any of that jazz any more…..life is good when you just ignore all the issues!!!!
How nice it is to hear from you again David. Of course you are absolutely spot on with that analysis.
“life is good when you just ignore all the issues”
But I thought you said you weren’t involved with the Lib Dems anymore
I agree with you though that life is very good when you don’t have to get worked up about these sorts of things anymore. My state of health has improved enormously these last 12 months.
…but I wouldn’t say that that means we ignore all the issues entirely. Its just that this is not the time to get worked up over them.
The time will come when its time to get back involved in local politics…
I have the good fortune to not want to get involved in again.
That doesnt mean i dont have an opinion!! however, politics doesnt rule as much as we think it does!! When you step out of the game you then get to see that actually individuals have much more power and control over their lives than politicians think they have.
And i agree with you on the health front, stress can manifest itself in so many ways, remove the stress, remove the ills!!
Drop me a Private Message and i will add you to Facebook where you will enjoy my new role in a light hearted reflection of life Shaun….the days of being adversarial are definitely over for me.
Again, I agree with you almost entirely.
“however, politics doesnt rule as much as we think it does!! When you step out of the game you then get to see that actually individuals have much more power and control over their lives than politicians think they have.”
Agreed, but that is still politics isn’t it. People getting together and whinging about things down the pub is politics. How we relate to one another is politics. When we work, when we play, when we are ill, when we drive, when we walk…Politics IS all important because there is no getting away from it.
I think perhaps you meant party politics which of course is quite different, and I agree with you entirely in that case.
But I’m afraid I have never had a Facebook account and so won’t be able to take you up on that one, I’m afraid.