by Leo Wiles
14 January 2015
I’d really love your advice about dealing with a difficult boss. An EXTREMELY difficult boss. I’ve freelanced for someone for two years, during that time this person has been rude, abusive, treated all staff in ways that would shock any HR person. There is no HR department. Pay is less than minimum wage and this person preys on ‘interns’ and recent graduates to keep the wheels spinning. The company has an extremely high turnover and contributors don’t often last beyond 6 months – but I’ve stayed because I loved the job. Now the scales have tipped too far in the negative, I don’t agree with the practices or treatment and I’ve resigned. I expected my simple, professional email giving four weeks notice (which is more than required because I’m freelancing) would not go down well but I can see it turning nasty quickly. How do you deal with a workplace bully like that sanely and professionally? Is there a way to protect yourself from any professional ‘revenge’ or retribution? Anon
Congratulations on removing yourself from a highly hostile situation. Like most exploitation, it often comes from the hands of a power crazed / psychopathic editor, publisher and/or section ed and is often aimed at those most vulnerable – freelancers, interns, the inexperienced or staffers ruled by the said bully. Many of us, myself included, have hung on to a job we dearly love hoping that things will improve – usually by going through off-line / HR channels or ending up in mediation. But in my experience, walking out is the best thing you can do to save yourself a whole lot of heartache.
As a cadet I had to put up with the leers and sexual innuendos from my married department head at the Fleet Street red top I began working on. Later on, as a young magazine feature writer, I was almost ostracised by the art department after blowing the whistle on a male colleague who only had his wrist slapped for repeatedly being unable to keep his hands to himself. But shockingly, the worst bullying I ever experienced was in Australia – where I was emotionally belittled, intimidated, undermined and verbally abused daily by my female line manager for over two years. When I tried the back channels and reported the behaviour to our male editor in chief, I had my abuse laughed off as a ‘cat-fight’ and clash of personalities.
It was only when colleagues raised the issue with HR (as they were having secondary reactions to her behaviour) that I took my 20-page dossier documenting her attacks over two years to HR at their behest. They then hung me out to dry, closing ranks to protect the company they worked for – which is why I left a job I loved to save my sanity. Thank goodness I did, as this volatile editor went on to punch a young news writer in the face in front of the publisher – and still wasn’t dismissed. Of course, this experience led me to believe that finding a new job with well adjusted grown-ups is the best affirming action you can take!
The silver lining, of course, is that journos love to talk – and Australian media is a relatively small field. Therefore, years later I was told that the aforementioned editor’s behaviour resulted in her being blacklisted by ACP and Pacific Magazines as being unemployable. However, waiting around for this to happen as you stoically rise each day to bear 14 hours of harassment and intimidation is not worth the emotional and potentially physical impact. Hopefully ten years on things have changed and HR departments are able to see past their paycheck to do the right thing. Another course of action would be to join the MEAA and seek proper legal advice.
Have you had to deal with bullying and intimidation? What did you do? We’d love to hear your point of view.
I absolutely agree that voting with your feet and resigning is the best – and only – way to deal with a difficult boss. I’ve seen HR departments close ranks to protect the company but also had the satisfaction of learning years later that a particularly difficult boss was eventually let go after one too many inappropriate outbursts. Eventually they’ll burn one bridge too many!
Agree too it’s best to walk.
I’ve had several bullying bosses – the worst on a magazine I worked for in the UK. She was my chief sub (filling my regular chief sub’s mat leave). I was young and aside from subbing wrote for other sections of the mag in my spare time. She hated that and proceeded to make my life hell for close to a year. My visa ended and I had to leave anyway, but there was no real help while I was in the situation. My lovely regular boss (on mat leave) couldn’t do anything but tell me to hang in there – and the other editors needed this woman, so they kind of turned a blind eye to her bullying. Awful really!
Get out as soon as you can and don’t give in to the temptation to make bringing down an office tyrant a do-or-die crusade; you’ll lose. Too often the higher-ups regard them as an irreplaceable talent whose bully-boy tactics are simply part of their ‘get things done’ reputation. Take heart in knowing people like this are usually the architects of their own downfall in the end. Leave them to it.
Wow. The vote with your feet comments are winning here. I have been involved in three incidents of workplace bullying. The first, I took a fistful of legal documents [google downloaded] into HR with a whole lot of sections highlighted. I was calm and forthright, and used them as a prop to illustrate how the bullying was ‘textbook’ and the company needed to do something ‘or else’. Because I had made a stand.. others also started coming out of the woodwork and also making bullying claims. All it took was one person to be brave enough to motivate a whole workforce. The bully had systematically been bullying one or two staffers intensely at a time. Many had left. Turnover was huge. Everyone knew it was happening.
Law is on your side. I guess it also helped that the HR rep was in the room when I was irrationally yelled at.. like really really really irrationally.. the bully was uber crazy. So the HR girl, sent the bully on anger management training – then the bully went on stress leave – then she resigned.
So my advice. Stay calm. Read up on legislation re bullying. Approach HR, make a complaint [informal – it gets recorded, but the bully won’t know it was you; formal – the bully and you can sit down with a mediator to work things through] and tell HR they need to come up with a strategy to deal. That’s their job.
Great feedback Kimba.
However, reading everyone’s comments made me feel a little down that ten years on from when it last happened to me that we all still feel the need to leave a job / career /position that we love just to to survive in Aus media
If anyone knows a HR who’d like to give us creative types some good old fashioned practical advice on how to handle those bullying types and keep our dream role I’d love to have them wade in…