Adult bullying: Is it happening to you?

Months of pressure
After months of pressure from her boss, Kelly dug out her notes from her meeting with HR and sent a letter to both HR and her superior outlining what had been arranged. Nothing more was said on this topic, but Kelly was ordered to numerous early morning meetings that were irrelevant to her. She ended up staying later, sometimes until midnight, to complete her work and was shut down whenever she offered options. “I felt absolutely humiliated,” she says. “I was being treated like a little child. There were days I cried all the way home.”

One day Kelly lamented her current work situation to a former boss over lunch. He looked at Kelly and told her, “You are being bullied.”

“It was one of those a-ha moments,” says Kelly. “I was able to step out of my workplace environment and look at what was going on as an observer.” Kelly could see the intimidation, fear tactics, shaming and silencing – the bullying.

Bullies, bullies everywhere
Adult bullying takes place at the park, in parent committees and kids’ sporting events; among people in volunteer and peer groups; and even in families. Examples of outright physical bullying among adults include Stewart Ferguson of Pakenham, Ont., near Ottawa, who was sentenced in 2005 to 18 months probation for shoving a referee into a door frame after his son was thrown out of a minor league hockey game. But more often adult bullying is emotional.

The Canada Safety Council defines adult bullying as a “grab for control by an insecure, inadequate person, an exercise of power through the humiliation of the target.” It involves humiliation or abusive words that lower a person’s self-esteem. It can take the form of rude, degrading or offensive remarks; intimidating gestures; or discrediting a person by spreading rumours, ridiculing her or calling into question her convictions and private life. It can also be about belittling a person by making her do tasks below her skill level.

According to the International Labour Organization, physical and emotional violence is one of the most serious issues facing the workplace today because the psychological wounds can run deep. The Commission des normes du travail, which enforces labour standards in Quebec, has conducted surveys that show up to one in 10 workers in that province have been the subject of harmful bullying, intimidation or belittlement by a boss or coworker.

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