What it feels like to be bullied out of a job you love

The worst was at my first employer. I was naive and several times was publicly eviscerated by folks clearly interested in dumping the blame for project failures and schedule slips onto some other person. I weathered those experiences because I was doing very well on other projects and had support from management and peers on those efforts. Otherwise, I'm sure I would have been one of the endless layoffs that seemed to occur every quarter for "low performers" in that stack-ranked hellscape.

My current employer (longest tenure of my professional career) has many of the same problems, particularly at the staff level between organizations. I am ruthless about strictly defining precisely my prereqs for any work assignment and quietly decline or avoid working with several groups at all. It is really unfortunate because the potential for much more impactful and meaningful work is lost.

No amount of emotions or rationalization or any other factor really changes this.

Employees are professionals who provide services while in employ. When your services are no longer wanted, they are no longer paid for and rendered.

You can say someone was a bad person or an asshole or whatever, you might be or they might be and probably will be right or both the employer or employee will both be right, or you will be dealing with a bad employer or employee. It happens. It’s life.

But I think the healthiest way to deal with these things is to remember you are providing a service for a fee. That fee might be a salary, it might be a retainer, it might be a flat rate, or a one time fee.

But you vend and perform services to those who pay for them.

Everything else, every other ceremony and nicety and construct, usually built by employers for employees, though sometimes albeit rarely both ways, is designed to impair this judgement and create a scenario where one party forgets this and their relationship is transformed into something else, usually subservient without a notion of autonomy.

It is why employers use “subordinate”—who are you truly subordinate to? You are not a slave. They are dependent on your labor and you on their patronage. It is mutual.

Or “terminate”—why is such ceremonious negative language used? To make you feel bad that employment has “ended.” Which is what it is an “end,” “termination” is needless.

Or “performance improvement plan,” what improvement needs to be dictated to a professional? A professional knows their limits and places where they can or cannot provide satisfactory service. When a professional fails to deliver, a client or customer simply does not buy. A professional knows they lack because a service or good was not purchased. The ulterior motive here is to punish. That’s why.

My advice—don’t do this. While rarely there might be something interesting to learn from bad employment stories, writing them as someone who is not of notoriety just tarnishes one’s image. The benefit is only, and only rarely, for the reader.

Stop at the end of the day. Pick a time, or a number of hours you'll work... and stop.

Close the laptop for work use, and that's that.

Pick it up tomorrow. Have a boundary.

Yes, I really like my current company. But that small boundary of stopping my day's work every day. Not carrying my work like a cross... Makes it so when things swing to and fro at work, my head is much more level. Even if you are on a roll and in the flow... consider closing the laptop when you lose your current flow.

Then go do something else! Play a video game, knit a sweater, take a walk, fly a kite, hug someone you love...

That's your time. Use it and enjoy it!

If you feel guilty, remember... Rest is critical to performance. The sooner you realize this, the happier you will be at work, and outside of work.

Source: Engineer of 25+ years, who has seen many things... And many stupid things :)

I could also relate a few stories about how I was not treated well and selectively include only the parts that make me look good and my nemesis look bad; but that would just be self-serving. That is not to say that there are not many examples of bad behavior out there that should be exposed and lessons learned; but I am just trying to figure out what the lesson is in this case.

I think flattening excessively pyramidal hierarchies are the only real solution for this problem, but that's not much comfort for those who find themselves derailed due to this dynamic.

Practically, such people tend to be very concerned about their underlings also being their 'supporters' so if you can stomach it, presenting yourself as a fawning admirer and loyal henchperson is one route forward, although likely damaging to your own mental health and productivity. Jumping ship to another berth as soon as possible is the other option (of course, don't tell anyone this is your plan, as that will spark retaliatory efforts).

Punch in, do a good job, punch out, have a life outside of your job. Don't socialize with co-workers, don't spend all of your free time on work projects or talking to other colleagues online. Do anything you can to compartmentalize and separate work from home.

Work is how you pay the bills, it is not who you are.

I tried to communicate that with him but with no avail, months forward with all what that accompany including undermining/downplaying/credit taking/etc. in a close coordination with GuyB-bigTitleB, it escalated once to the point he shouted at me, insulted me in the middle of the office, it's when approached who hired me (the CEO) and told him this guy can no longer be my manager or I'm out. The CEO, being relatively reasonable guy trying all his best to keep the talents in his small business, apologized in his behalf (GuyA-bigTitleA never apologized till now after months of it happening), and promised to make fundamental changes, that was 7 months ago and nothing changed yet, GuyA and GuyB hold the highest rank in our division with access to all resources, communications, team, etc. and work in coordination to either set me up or trying all their best to justify firing me as they cannot do it directly, they even tried to hinder the project progress just to make a point that my skills are not on par (it was successfully delivered among other projects and I’m proud of that with all of what was happening) and I'm still at the bottom of this hierarchy, now they work persistently to “make me replaceable” at all cost.

While I’m usually resilience to stress, It was at some point exhausting in terms of mental health in addition to the stress that come with the work itself (engineering and robotics), and because I love (probably as other mentioned not falling in love is the key) robotics, I'm still kind of waiting for the CEO changes, part of me is saying he is stalling and will never change anything, and other part says otherwise he's just waiting for the "right moment". But I can totally relate to the story as I'm living it right now.

This needs to change. My solution may seem a bit extreme to some people, but I think businesses should be shut down for doing that sort of thing. And the respective owners/bosses/management/employees to the situation put through a stint of incarceration.

My reasoning is that they already don't obey the labor laws, so slapping them with fines and minor reprimands is pointless. Gotta go whole hog on these people so they get the point. Their actions (or lack of thereof) are not going to be tolerated.

Luckily, my current employers seem more reasonable, so that's nice. But it's part time work, and when I say part time, I really mean it. It's almost practically a gig job.

But there are no dumb co-workers, because the bosses are the co-workers.

The larger the organization, the more systematic this problem usually tends to be, this is just my experience of course.

Thankfully I haven't run into very many actual bullies during my career; though I do sometimes wonder if, in fact, I had but I simply was seldom the target (I'm male and white). I only really had one, at a company that's somewhat known for having a higher than average number of bullies. I already had a lot of experience and so was confident and a fairly senior engineer while I was there, so I tried to use that privilege as best I could on behalf of the rest of the team, many of whom were more junior or on visas or otherwise more vulnerable.

I lasted a year before moving on for better pay and less stress (again, a path open to me that's not always open to others). That manager moved on as well, but just to another team at a different location. That didn't do much for my impression of the company.

I don't know what good, if any, I accomplished in my visible and consistent pushing back against this manager. I hope some. If nothing else, I hope it showed my less experienced co-workers who might not know better that the way our manager acted was not ok, and that there are many other companies and ways of working out there.

If you've experienced bias, prejudice, bullying, discrimination, harassment, or physical violations--or some bullshit but you're not sure how to categorize it--reach out. Happy to help you tell your story. It can be cathartic, and it can help others too. https://www.justworktogether.com/lets-talk

extremely common and made me resolve to check out of the rat race because the clear message is that companies are not meritocracies and power speaks a lot more than logic.

The author got mouthy on twitter (by their own admission) about company information. I don't think this person got "bullied" out of their job being innocent. Most companies, even the most "inclusive" will target employees who are talking negatively in public about them.

It sounds like the author should've left the company instead of attempting to use weird passive-aggressive tactics to enact change. The conclusion seems to imply that they were racially profiled but the writing suggests that they were, at least in part, someone who instigated the company's response. I'm not convinced the author is making the point they want to make about actual bullying in a corporation.

I learned to guard against it, fairly early on, and have refused to become a bastard (easy to do).

I had a friend that had a T-shirt that said "Old age and treachery beat youth and enthusiasm, every time."

Since this was done by an exec, I will bet that was the case, here. The fact that he was a young person, and a black person, probably helped with naïveté, and probably helped make him "more disposable," but I have seen exactly this, many times over, and the recipient of the squeezing is not always a marginalized demographic (like me. I am a white male. Not exactly marginalized).

Many people in C-level roles (or aspirants, thereof) are people that seem (in my opinion), to be downright sociopathic. The people around them; especially those at a lower echelon, are considered "disposable assets."

The guy saw him being an energetic go-getter, and used that to extract his knowledge. The death knell was when he asked to be given the guy's "Rollodex," so to speak ("Introduce me at SXSW"). When I read that, I knew exactly what was coming next.

I do believe that there is real bullying, from insecure jerks (I have seen it, and experienced it), but this sounds more like garden-variety usury by a sociopathic upper manager.

Rick Dickerson sounds like many, many high-level assholes that I have met, during my career. Most were actually assets to their companies. They made the company money, and got the results the shareholders wanted, so their personal proclivities were ignored.

I am glad that the author was able to get past it. I have watched many folks absolutely shattered by this.

In my own case, I dealt with something more like bullying, but not exactly the same, when I slammed into the ageism wall, after leaving my company. Many of the folks I dealt with were jaw-droppingly rude. I can easily see people just throwing in the towel, and walking away. In my case, I'm an ornery cuss. It just made me madder, and more energized. Sounds like the author may also be an ornery cuss.

Good on him.

Workers are helpful and brandish collective trends.

Axioms of the western culture.

Meanwhile human resources wants leaders and workers to be: "More human".

Pretty psychotic.

Narcissists act like your best friend until they are done using you, learn how to spot them and how to play the game if you are in their crosshairs and they outrank you.

I refused the Covid shot, and I’m sure this lady would be first demanding HR to fire me.

Somehow, the world changed so that we all feel entitled to our jobs and yes, businesses.

In any human endeavor in 2022, we have to assume that nothing is going to last forever.

The employee is not entitled to their job.

Because we are all human we cannot assume we are going to be treated fairly as much as we would love to be.

The entrepreneur is not entitled to their business - one mistake and it could go away.

We are going to be bullied at some point and the way how we deal with it will change the trajectory of our thoughts and lives.

Yes this sounds terribly dystopian. It sounds bad.

But it is how the world operates and has always operated.

What’s the difference now? The internet has merely amplified these practices so we can see them better.

Some things have improved and changed for the better.

Other things have gotten worse.

Go ahead and read “Foundation”. Isaac Asimov clearly set things out that the way how large groups of humans operate makes it hard to change certain things.

Employment and business creation in a capitalist society is definitely one of those things that is that 10 million ton oil tanker going at 500 knots on the open waters.

We are not going to be able to shift it. But because we know it’s size and trajectory we can safely know when to take out our paddle boat for fishing and actually have a good life.

> In fact, I was so prolific on social media that I got the attention of several industry analysts who asked how my company used social media for brand promotion and marketing. Of course, since I was in engineering, I sent these inquiries over to our PR department.

The SVP was likely feeling the author was impacting company public relations, independent from the point team.

It would be equivalent to someone in marketing force pushing code to production.

Regarding the authors feelings -- again, he's stepping out of his role and not coordinating with the marketing team. Of course leadership would ask him to knock it off or be fired.

> His stern look communicated that he was talking about my career and was clearly not messing around. I felt bullied, threatened, and scared. Because I feared being unfairly scrutinized and I'd just had my job threatened, it was tough for me to feel comfortable saying anything about my work life on Twitter after that.

Shouldn't have been talking about work life on twitter anyway... The way the author discusses "bullying" is literally every interaction in a business. Organizations must be clear and consistent. Leaders need to be as well. Yes, they can fire you; yes, they can tell you what to do. That's life, that's the way human designed structures work.

> There are a few reasons why I think this happened to me. Being a young Black man in the tech field put me in a vulnerable position where different equals disposable. Maybe being privy to Rick's inherent lack of knowledge of the very thing he professed to be an expert on gave me some perceived leverage over him; thus, I was a threat to be eliminated. My lack of seniority and title also put me at a disadvantage. Ultimately, I believe that in true bully fashion, he got his kicks by using his power to affect other people's lives for sport.

Maybe that's true, but in all likelihood the author was stepping out of line. Discussing race in this context seems to detract from that actual events. The author even quit his "dream" job to to work in social media...

> This eventually led me to quit and pursue my passion for social media marketing outside my "dream" company.

Clearly, the author wasn't interested in their engineering job and decided to do something else -- fine, but not what the company hired them for.

Some people view the world through a pinhole. Like an animal, only reacting to stimulus and stroking their ID and seeking to consume and control. These people are called 'sociopaths' and are pretty rare. It is unlikely this person's boss was a sociopath, they actually tend to have a lot of trouble in modern society because they act like assholes and fail to imitate important social cures, making them seem 'off.'

In the past I have had multiple people who I befriended, only later to be stalked and harassed by them because it turns out I was the last person who was tolerating their insane bullshit.

In effect, they were abusers. And often victims of abuse themselves, to be fair. They were merely repeating the patterns they had learned in the past. I am a victim of abuse, I think that is likely why my tolerance for such people is so high.

However, I do not abdicate my responsibility in enabling abusers. My mother would always say to my little sister: "If you give a mouse a cookie..." This is very true. Giving someone attention who is mean and does not deserve it makes you an asset to them: Abusers realize they can redirect their pain into you, and use you as a smoke screen to cover up their own bad behaviour. This is well documented. Check out DARVO[0] if you are curious.

Recently, I made another friend. But this time was different: I have been through this before. I sensed what kind of person this dude was, and even though it was painful to abandon someone, I told them I'm not interested in being their friend anymore. A few months later he went into a mental institution and I now see him going on insane screeds on LinkedIn, still insistent he is the victim and he has done nothing wrong. He is either oblivious or in denial about his own responsibilities in maintaining his life.

I had another bad experience with a boss who was trying to drive me out of a company because he wanted to hire his friend and we were out of head count. He did everything he could to bully me. We were once at one of my co-workers house for dinner and drinks and the trash can lid slammed shut and it made a bang.[1] He yelled at me like he was yelling at a dog. And fired me later in the month.

But, I'm not really haunted by these things. To this day, I pity these people. Why would you do what this person's boss does, Harm a friend out of some misplaced jealousy? Why would you bully me, a 24 year old kid fresh out of college just trying his best? Why would someone rape me as a child?

i was once riding home with my cousin's grandfather ( I was on his way into Chicago ), and he told me he was in Hitler Youth. I asked... what was that like? He paused for a long time, and then responded: "Some men will kill for fun."

These types of people are the same ones you see living on the streets. More of them are headed that way than you realize.

They are missing a piece of themselves. And that missing piece causes them pain and makes it hard to function in society. So they try to inflict the pain on other people ( make them feel socially rejected and inadequate ), or fill that void with drugs, or fuck up badly enough the only way they can move forward is to stab another person in the back.

Are these abusive people happy at this point? I highly doubt it.

Am I? Absolutely. I have a ton of friends, fulfilling hobbies, a great career, I'm good at my job, a wonderful partner, a fuzzy little cat, and I walk through this world with a light heart, full of light, because despite everything I've been through, I still strive to treat others with kindness and respect and have largely been successful at this.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is: Learn to identify these types of people, and do not share your light with them. Abandon fake friends. Abandon abusers. They are not worth it and it isn't your responsibility to fix them.

0: https://www.choosingtherapy.com/darvo/

1: It was a foot controlled one and I mean... get a piece of rubber for $2 off amazon for gods sake...

Seriously, I'll try to read what you've written and give up the fifth time my browser stutters or leaves me on a blank screen after a scroll.

He could have started with this. Such victim mentality.