includes useful info about workplace bullying

Date:   7/3/2007 6:50:32 PM ( 17 y ago)

How can someone like me cope with a painful and difficult situation that comes on without warning and then lingers like molasses stuck to a brick wall in the hot summer?

It's not easy. Yet another situation has cropped up at work. I mean it, totally out of the blue. We've got a great multidisciplinary team of health professionals where I work and generally get along well and treat our clients well, and get an amazing quantity of work done every day and night. The work goes on 24/7.

For a few years now, evaluation time has been fairly kind to me. I work hard, get my work done, and always take the initiative to go above and beyond my assigned work.

Our remote site, though, is for the most part beyond the notice of our supervisors, and often beyond the notice of some of our very own team members who work in an office nearby our treatment center.

A lot of the hard work we do is noticed only by fellow team members, and is virtually invisible to the many other professionals who comprise our large human services conglomerate.

Thus it's not easy to get justly and fairly assessed at evaluation time.

But what happened this year just didn't make any sense to me. I'm still trying to process it, but there is no logic in it, so it's probably not worth my processing energy.

Basically, my supervisor and the personnel director had a whole page of little statements detailing various behaviors of mine that were inappropriate in the workplace. 90% of this information was completely unfounded and untrue. When I tried to refute it, they treated me like a liar. I am not a liar.

If clients tell lies about me, I think I should have the right to refute the lies. But apparently at my place of employment, where I have been a loyal, dependable, and hard working employee for many years, everyone else is right, and whatever I say in my defense is considered wrong. They've compiled a page or two full of false evidence against me and apparently I have no rights, and I just have to take it, and work with it as it has been presented to me.

It just doesn't seem right, to work hard all year, not have any idea this is coming, and then be blindsided by it.

All the relaxing and wonderful alternative health modalities in the world wouldn't soothe me right now. I haven't been able to eat anything since this morning before the evaluation session. This isn't a bad thing, especially, since I have weight to lose, but it's been all day and I still do not feel like eating, and can only drink water.

I'm at least grateful I can drink water.

I feel afraid, and sad. I feel like all the processing aloud and trying to talk through it with various friends and support people I have in my life isn't really helping, but sitting silent isn't helping either.

It's just patently wrong and feels terrible to be falsely accused. If I've done something wrong, I'm happy to admit it and learn from it, and do it right the next time. But this situation is untenable.

They asked me if I wanted to be off from work tonight. I'm not going to let them know they've gotten to me. I will not show weakness. I told them I can work tonight.

Honestly, right now, I wish I could never work for those people again. There's no real safe recourse, no unbiased grievance process, it's a matter of accepting that management is always right, and we, the frontline professionals, are wrong. When push comes to shove, that's the way it comes down.

I'd better stop and do my chakra balancing and my other daily energetic treatment, then go home and meditate.

This could be a sign that it's time to continue further along my higher educational path. I would like that.

Anyway, thank you for listening.

As of July 15, 2007 I am adding a link to a useful site from Britain about workplace bullying. It is just as useful in other countries, although you will have to do your own research regarding actual laws, which differ depending on where you live.
There's a wealth of information about workplace bullying of all sorts on this site. I've done a ton of research since this happened, and this is one of the best resources I've located thus far:


http://www.bullyonline.org


Most importantly, one should never ever admit to charges that one is innocent of. An atmosphere where someone is trying to force such an admission is not a healthy work environment!

 

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