March 2008

I haven't updated this for a while as there has been little to say, to be honest.  This is a very long game and I'm so grateful to everyone who has written to me and given me their stories - just because they feel better at writing to someone who might understand.  I've heard some awful stories - I honestly don't know how bosses get away with what they do in the workplace.  The difficulty is getting publicity but the higher my profile rises, the more I will be able to talk publicly about it.  Watch this space... I can't promise there will be anything in the near future worth reporting, but if there is, I'll slam it on here fast.

Having been away from my own torturous position for just over a year now, I can honestly say that I'm stronger, calmer and so much more content for having stood my ground as much as I could and not stooping to retaliate with the dirty tricks that were played on me.  The best anyone can hope for who is suffering, at the moment, is to keep your health issues paramount. And yes - fight.

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November 2007

THURSDAY 8TH NOVEMBER 10 AM - I spoke on the radio about the issue of bullying in the office and my own personal experiences of it. 

There were so many callers and texts and emails flooding in during and after the show from people who had themselves, or seen their loved ones, go through similar.

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October 2007

Great news on the PR front as Dr Chris Steele from ITV's Good Morning rang me and is totally on board with what we're trying to do and offered help.  As a GP he seems the fallout in the form of work-related stresses and anxieties and, in this celeb-obsessed age, it's can only help that he's working with us!

Alas I've had to pull out from my constructive dismissal case.  Ironically because there were so many people directly bullied in the ex-workplace, I couldn't prove I was singled out.  It's not a great blow because I was realising more and more than the arena to raise these issues was not in a tribunal court.  My case there would have been more about satisfying a set of technicalities than getting justice - and a tribunal court won't give you justice... the most I could have got was a verdict that yes I was constructively dismissed... it can't offer apologies.  Had I been lamped in the face then court might have been appropriate because of the clarity of the situation.  Trying to prove these greyer areas is another thing altogether.  Like I said - it further clarifies the position that there is no adequate system in place to deal with these problems which are reaching ridiculous proportions.  Let's just hope for some decent advertising in November from lots of people!

NATIONAL ANTI-BULLYING DAY NOVEMBER 7th November!!!

Links - www.bullyonline.org    

www.andreaadamstrust.org    

www.banbullyingatwork.com

Are you on FACEBOOK?  Come and join the 'BULLY OFF!' gang and get something worthwhile moving!! (you need to log in first and then it will take you there) We're gathering up quite a bit of support to help us along! And there are some very interesting contributions from people who are going, and have gone, through the worst times at work.

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September 2007

A huge thanks to the formidable Jayne Nevins, arch solicitor and barrister (and former Welsh woman of the year!) who has a lot of experience in dealing with bullying cases and is very much onboard. 

I am at present in negotiations with an insurance company re: the possibility of raising awareness of how much those little add-on legal things on your domestic/car insurances can save you, should you end up needing legal advice following trouble at work.

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August 2007

 

AND I'VE WRITTEN AN ARTICLE FOR OUR LOCAL BARNSLEY PROPERTY AND LIVING MAG IN MY COLUMN - CHECK IT OUT HERE PAGE 1 AND HERE PAGE 2   THERE ARE 2 SEPARATE PAGES - not quite there with the sewing them together bit - but they are large and readable and may be of interest!

As you may know I’m in the middle of a constructive dismissal claim.  ‘What the heck is that?’ you may ask.  Well imagine being a young Jack the Lad who wants to ditch his girlfriend but hasn’t really the guts to face up to all the fall out – SO, he treats her in the worst possible way so that she has no choice but to finish with him and cut adrift before she is trampled into the ground.  That way SHE does the walking away and Jack-the-Lad is absolved from all hassle and guilt.  That’s how it works.

I was recently being interviewed by the lovely Jayne Dowle of the Yorkshire Post who asked me ‘what advice would you give anyone in this position?’ and I was speechless – a rare occurrence I can tell you.  There was no advice I could give worth any salt – my choices were…

- Walk away, get another job and try to forget that you’ve been driven out of a job you were most likely doing very well just because your face didn’t fit – it might take you a few years, but hey!

- Go and draw all your life savings out of the bank and fight them in court.  You might not win however much evidence you have and even if you do win the court can’t make them apologise or clear your name.  Oh and the money’s rubbish too…

It struck me that there is a need for some really BIG help to tackle what is an epidemic problem in the workplace.  Here’s some bite sized facts about Trouble at’Mill

What if the Company suggest a ‘compromise agreement.’

In other words – they are going to pay you to get lost.  Oh and you can’t talk about it or they will sue you (unless required to do so in a court of law).  I’ve known people who’ve been paid a lot of money to leave and let me tell you in each and every case the money is little compensation for the fact that they’ve done a good job at work and have been forced out unfairly. Compromise agreement  sounds so benign and friendly, doesn’t it?  Imagine then being told that ‘you will take the money and go or we’ll find a way to sack you.’  Bearing in mind that most people who are treated like this are decent hard-workers with an inherent sense of right and wrong – it doesn’t sit well to know you’re being shoved off a cliff with a silk-lined parachute.

‘Mam, that bully’s nicked my rubber!’

The word ‘bully’ has connotations of mild and childish behaviour.  In truth the workplace ‘bully’ is more psychopath than hair-puller.  Think about it, there has to be something pretty warped about an adult who demeans and denigrates another adult just because they can.  As an old friend said to me ‘it’s the nearly intelligent people in life that you have to watch.’   Still it’s of little comfort to know that the person dangling your future, your career and your livelihood over your head on a daily basis is one of life’s inadequates.

The weak and the wicked

The thing with bullies is that you are either with them or against them.  They don’t want abstainers – they want a full throttle army.  Workplace bullies will always draw to their side a few would-be power-mongers who bask in the fact that people are scared of their newly acquired power because they’re mates with the office Hitler.  It's the weak ones you have to watch - the nest-featherers, the bum-lickers, the 'I'm alright Jack' brigade that choose to show their allegiance to bullies in the hope they'll be left alone if they 'join in' the game and sneak off to tell a few tales.  Okay, they might feel a bit crap about it – but it's an easier ride to stick your colours to the bully's mast? Plus iIt's not that much of a poke in the conscience when you don't have much of a conscience.  Anyway – what exactly do you need a backbone for?  You'll be surprised at how strong some friendships really aren't when they're tested. A bullying regime makes it very difficult to trust anyone in your work environment.  To quote the great Tim Field

'You'll be surprised to realise how many work colleagues have brown noses which you hadn't noticed before or which you'd put down to sunburn'

So you’ve got a problem at work – what do you do?

Try HR?  Go through the proper company channels?  Report to your line manager that you’ve got a problem?  That’s just dandy if it’s your line manager or the HR person who is causing the problem.  People have been raised not to make a fuss and it’s usually pretty serious when they do.  In my own case, I felt at the edge of a nervous breakdown but I still hoped the problems would be sorted if I only ‘rode the wave.’  I was determined NOT to rock the boat. Plus you know really that complaining will appear as an indelible mark on your Personnel record. 

In saying that – there are some really principled and decent people in HR (sadly tarred with the same crap brush that their less honourable counterparts have made famous) and they’ve got the problem that you’ve complained but unless you’re just using them as a sounding board they have to do something with the information you’ve given them in order to try and help you.  Therein lies the problem for them.

Of course, there’s always a chance the bully could become a born again Christian overnight or get hit by a freak bolt of lightning  - but alas they rarely do.  And who’s to say that the boss replacing Mr Hitler isn’t going to be Mrs Stalin?

Lamp the boss

Oh yes, deep joy – but only as a mind exercise.  Try it in real life and you’ll not only lose your dignity but you’ll end up on an assault charge and probably have to pay the little s**t costs.

So how come bullies get away with it?

- Bullies always operate from a position of power.  They’ve got friends in high places that they share cocktails with after work.

- They create a climate of distrust and fear, smash up social groups and isolate ‘targets’

- People don’t want to kick up a fuss

- Once you complain you just know you’ve made an even bigger enemy and become an even bigger target

- Bullies drive you to the point that even the most conscientious of workers takes time off sick and the stress affects the quality of their work – this often gives the workplace bully the excuse to sack the person for their incompetence.

- To fight the bully in court requires money, strength and time – and people just don’t have it in the amounts they need it to fight.  Oh and even if you do have the money, the company will have a damn sight more – and like to play great tricks like ‘lets’ eat up lots of your money by getting your solicitor to produce this report – albeit surplus to requirements… even for your brief to say ‘it’s surplus to requirements’ will cost you’ (snigger)

AND IF YOU DO TAKE IT TO COURT…

- ACAS get involved and try and conciliate – but neither side are obliged to listen – and ACAS are only with your case for a few weeks and then they have withdraw.

- It’s expensive!  Yes your household insurances may cover you if you file for constructive dismissal but it’s capped. And you could easily eat up £10,000 + of costs before you get to the stage of filing your case to court which will NOT be covered by insurances

- A court can award you money but – beware- it will rarely cover your costs and any award will be lessened by your earnings in the period between losing your job and present time – so you may win your case but you’ve won the words ‘you were constructively dismissed’ and little else

-A court cannot make the company issue you an apology nor will it wipe your record clean. 

-You carry the stigma of ‘takes people to tribunal’ on your soul – that makes you so attractive to future employers!  One below a smallpox sufferer.

- Oh and however strong your case is – you just might lose on a technical point!  Just throw that into the mix

I hasten to add at this point that all this didn’t put me off as it hasn’t put others off because you get to a stage where you just can’t be scared anymore.  All I have to do is think back to how it was working in that place and how a particular couple made me feel.  For me it just boils down to ‘right and wrong’.  I was head-hunted because of my work ethic, I delivered and did a good job. It’s a very simple belief that when one goes to work it’s exactly to do that –if I may be so bold as quote Shakespeare…

                           One goeth to work in order to work

                           And not be the butt for a power-struck berk.

(Jim Shakespeare of Rotherham that is)

I jest but this is serious stuff that takes people to edges of nervous breakdowns – me included. Yes I commanded a high salary but I worked hard for it and I earned it through a long apprenticeship.  I’ve got no partner, a big mortgage and two small children to support.  You don’t walk away from a job like I had for anything other than health reasons.  Money really isn’t anything when it’s sitting on a weighing scales opposite your health.  Yes, I’m a damn sight less stressed but I now have the stresses of working all hours in order to pay the mortgage and eat and live… thank God for understanding bank managers.  It’s not been easy – and that’s why I’m fighting my corner because it was just – very simply – unfair.

You see, I am very lucky – I have been able to find other work because I make my own and I don’t need to present my work cv to another employer – but what about the people who can’t find it so easily?  Why should anyone have to leave a job because they have been hounded out?

 

At present time bullies feel secure because fighting them is such an effort so there needs to be some way to make them more publicly accountable.

My initial ideas are for  A FUNDED ‘OMBUDSMAN’ BODY EXTERNAL TO THE COURT AND THE WORKPLACE WITH POWERS TO INVESTIGATE BULLYING CASES WITHOUT COSTING THE PLAINTIFF A FORTUNE AND STAINING THEIR WORK RECORD.

WELL ADVERTISED INSURANCE IN CASES WHERE LEGAL ASSISTANCE IS NEEDED WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT LEAD TO TRIBUNAL PROCEEDINGS.

I intend to update this with findings and suggestions as I get them and my own investigations.  Yes there are organisations out there already but you have to search for them.  We need something in place which everyone knows about – a Childline for adults that is as well known (suggestion by my solicitor) and as accessible.  We need more than what we have now and more practical help IN ONE CENTRAL PLACE.  Moaning off to pals or like-minded people takes the top off your boil but it doesn’t stop the problem happening.

So if anyone has any suggestions or you’re an MP or work in advertising or insurance and want your company to flagship this for us or have any useful connections – please get in touch on my ‘contact Milly’ page.  There is a huge need in this country for help – the figures on work lost through job stress directly caused by bullying bosses are astronomical.  Let’s stop it happening.

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