Unpleasant Behavior at work

[Sunday21]

@seashmore! Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help! I hope that I can find 40 people like you to interview. Is there any situation in which you would not help? Eg if the person being bullied (victim), deserved the abuse? Eg, the victim was lazy, did not obey rules, was nasty to others....? Thanks so much!

[seashmore]

On 6/15/2017 at 8:20 PM, Sunday21 said:

@seashmore! Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help! I hope that I can find 40 people like you to interview. Is there any situation in which you would not help? Eg if the person being bullied (victim), deserved the abuse? Eg, the victim was lazy, did not obey rules, was nasty to others....? Thanks so much!

There have been situations where I did not stand up to bullying in the workplace because I was fearful of retaliation. The bully was a manager essentially making fun of a shift supervisior for not knowing something like how many ounces are in a pound. In the moment, I rationalized my inaction with "they're talking about kitchen area stuff, and I only deal with front register stuff" and also the underlying belief that "if I tell the manager to stop picking on her, he will pick on me instead, and she will feel embarrassed/possibly get made fun of later for not being able to fight her own battles."

I have, however, got the male chauvinist in our office to stop telling customers "I treat them (front desk ladies) with all the respect due their age and gender." He was "joking" with an acquaintance of his that he had to "put up" with us 40 hours a week, so I turned his words back around and said to the woman he was talking to, "We treat him with all the respect due his age and gender." 

 

I bet if you hit up pages geared towards employees in the food/retail service industry, you'd find 40 people willing to talk.

[Sunday21]

@seashmore. Thanks so much for the tip! This is a great idea! 

I have a couple of instances in which I did not stand up to someone who bullied a colleague. I was a student sharing an office. In phd programs, you have a professor who is your advisor. The advisor often treats their student like a slave. I would listen to the advisor yelling at their student. Now I know what to do in this situation. I should have taped the advisor yelling and played it to graduate studies. At the time, I had no idea. 

[Sunday21]

@seashmore. Thanks for the ideas. I could not find a website for retail workers but I might try putting up notices at legion halls, union organizations, and supermarkets. I could ask anyone who lives in an apartment to put a notice up in their laundry room! Thanks!

[seashmore]

Not Always Right has a facebook page. It's where retail employees go to bemoan the less than stellar customers. You could maybe contact their admin and see if they would let you post a survey with some basic questions, including one where they have the option of allowing you to contact them.