This week, I’ve been witnessing a different kind of bullying than I was used to.
A friend of mine started a job a few months before Christmas. She quickly made friends and was happy with her position, sharing a room with a senior colleague.
Although generally young and healthy, she came down with a bout of pneumonia. As we’re often apt to do, she returned to work too early, a week later than scheduled after the Christmas break.
Her colleague, furious that she had to carry the workload whilst she was ill, has declined to talk to her since. And it’s not simply curt responses – but a pointed and unrelenting stony silence.
I’ve seen a marked change in my friend. Yesterday, as I witnessed her colleague snub her in the street at lunch, I also saw how completely exhausted my friend is. Her recovery from her illness is just a part of it. She confessed she was tired of trying to break the ice and increasingly anxious as to how long ‘Coventry’ would last.
She’s in a precarious position. Some colleagues will capitalise on anything – especially sickness – to begin bullying someone. It’s cowardice at its worst. Most companies, having zero tolerance on ill-health (whatever they tell you) will particularly turn a blind eye to a target being bullied if they’ve recently taken sick leave.
And I’m shocked at how destructive being frozen out and completely ignored is. Not that I didn’t realise it’s a handy tool of the bully, but having seen the recent effect on my friend – I’d put it at the forefront of the worst kind of bullying. It can be every bit as aggressive as insulting banter or being micro-managed by a tyrant and its 10 times harder to prove.
You think you’ve seen it all – and then you’re witness to a another kind of hostility in the workplace.
And even I’m lost for words.
Very best
BBTB
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