What's the Best Way to Handle a Bully at Work?
ABC News posted an article yesterday titled “Working Wounded: Office Bullies”.
Dear Wounded: I work with a guy who has a very short fuse. Short of getting a new job, is there anything that I can do to minimize the odds he'll blow up in my face?
Answer: During college I spent a summer working in the geriatric unit of a state psychiatric hospital. One day a patient came up to me yelling and agitated. Before I knew what was happening, he punched me right in the jaw. I was nicknamed punching bag for the rest of the summer by the staff.
I was only punched once that summer, because from then on I was much more aware of trouble's warning signs. I also learned tricks for spotting and extricating myself from dangerous situations. I've listed below a series of potentially dangerous situations and strategies on how to respond. For more, check out "Angry Men" by Lynne McClure (Impact, 2004).
ABC News flunked this course. What’s the best way to deal with a bully? Get them fired! There is NO NEED to LEARN TRICKS on dealing with it, no need to figure out the best way to deal with it. There is NO NEED to figure out how to end it. Report the bully to the Human Resources group, and let them deal with it. Your place of business MUST deal with it these days. It’s nonsense to believe it can be ignored. If your place of business doesn’t want to deal with it, I’m sure some attorney would love to hear about it. Just call a few that deal with employee relations and tell them you work in a hostile work environment and see how long it takes for the problem to go away. Life is too short to put up with that kind of treatment in the workplace. We should be working on improving our skills to do our job, not improving our skills on dealing with a bully. This isn't grade school. Someone punches me in the jaw at work, they’d better be prepared to not work there anymore (among other things). I certainly wouldn't be the one to be looking for a job. And if it were the owner of the company, well, lets just say that I'd try my hardest to take them OUT of business with nasty litigation. Being nicknamed “punching bag” is NOT the way to deal with something like this. It’s a brave new world out there. Bullying should not be tolerated AT ALL in the work place. Funny though, ABC wants to hear your strategy for dealing with a bully. How hard is that?