Discussion Forum

Listening every week to some victims of work harassments today, primarily it is not so much about the work, but more and more supervisors, managers and top senior officers today can abuse their power over their junior ranking staff whether they be in healthcare, administration or in sales.  Of course the easiest way out by the higher management level is to conclude any reported hostility as " gross misunderstanding" rather than blame it on a supervisory staff concerned in an systemic shortcomings.  I wrote to a senior manager recently who under the guise of being articulate and accommodating can be caustic and without empathy for his own junior officers. "Work is all the same," he said. "Putting a troubled staff into another department won't solve the problem. The staff should know his/her ranking and all my supervisors are people with good management experience."  I really pity all his junior staff in his organization.  His department manager was just as mean as a regime dictator and mistreat her junior staff with "take it or leave it" attitude which many would love "to keel her" in their minds.  A poor leader does not bother that an establishment will fail, only that it will always be sub-optimized.  In other words, why bother, they are afterall junior employees who need to support themselves.  Many average workers like clerks, cashiers, technicians, support staff wind up working under such bad bosses are left feeling trapped as they could not simply just quit their jobs and not think about how to pay their utility bills and other financial commitments month after month.  

Though the government employers set a paradigm of working cohesively through the years - its just simply talk shows and no action in reality. There will be supervisors or managers even if they are well intentioned, who can abuse their power from time to time. They can be mean-spirited and nasty (in silent demeanor) to be bullies who will mistreat his/her own junior staff because they are in no position to argue back.  Those who bullies or intimate chooses their victims' personalities carefully - especially junior staff who are weak, insecure or feel that they don't have the calibre to fight back like a neighborhood cat (whatever their reasons).  Isn't it true sometimes things can be so hard in your job particularly when your supervisor is someone who can normally cede authority as a great pretender?

How can you tell if you're working for a bully rather than a boss who is tough and demanding yet respectful? Sometimes it can be hard to tell when you are stuck in the middle of your mid-career, particularly when the bully is someone to whom you would normally want to tango with even in the midst of talking things over with his/head overseer.  As I have used the term here, a bully in a supervisory level are in a position to retaliate and protect themselves (my clients say "jagar theirown backsides").  His/her higher boss will conclude it all as a "big misunderstanding"or "small matter" while it is dead impossible to change the power by those who hurt, demean or take advantage of junior staff who are powerless even though they can be unionized.  It is evidently proven that for bullying a junior staff to occur both parties have to perceive the disparity of power play and the paucity of alternatives