I find the topic of bullying quite interesting. Whereas cyber bullying is prevalent in today's society, bullying in general should be an important topic to address.
I have been the subject of day to day bullying in the work place. At first I didn't think much about it. I was a 45 year old woman who had never had any classes on diversity.
The first time it happened, my boss called me at a location where I was substatuting for a manager in an elementary school kitchen. The phone rang at 8:45 a.m., I answered it & it was my boss. She told me exactly how I was supposed to report to work each day at the school in which I worked at, leave that school at 7:15 a.m., go to the other school & then leave there so that my school day would end at 1:50 p.m. She proceeded to ask if I reported as told each day, I responded that in fact I did. She said that not everyone would see me before I left for the second site for the day, which was sometimes true but most days not true, however, I everyday reported to the line leader, did whatever odd job was needed then left at 7:10 a.m. for the second site, as was told I could do by yet another boss that for the second site was my respective boss. That all cleared up as it was really unimportant to me, I did as was asked & reported each day with the first boss each day from then on.
Hanging up the phone I wondered exactly had just happened & why, since that really could not be answered I just jotted it down in my daily work diary & moved on with my life.
The next school year starts, as in with any job there are people we like & some we just tolerate, there are two people I tolerate & make it a pleasant work day for each person I work with on a daily basis. For that school year I find myself being taken into the "private" office for a "talk" with my boss. Most of the time it was irrevalent things that I could not figure out why she would take time out of her busy day to verbally spank me for, but being the person I am I just went on with my day. Half way through the school year, three ladies, I being on of them, was working in another school kitchen & having to come & go through out the day & work our regular job. When the second sites day was done & one of us would return to the first school we would discuss our days happenings so each of us was on the same wave length. After this sceniro ran on, two of us were taken into the "private" office & was told to not discuss what went on at the other school in front of the other members of our team, however, the third person was not told this. The reason we could not discuss any other site information was odd. At this time I didn't know that the third woman was friends with our boss outside the workplace, thus why she was not taken into the "private" office & was totally free to discuss anything she wanted. One of the ladies I had tolerated through out started asking questions each time one of us three ladies would come back from another site, only one of us could answer. The lady asking the questions would look at myself & the other woman who could not respond & just grin. Toward the end of the school year this lady who does not work other sites quit talking, responding or helping me if the job required it. She would totally ignore me. I just felt that this was for the best anyway & went on with life.
The third school year starts, things are quite normal, everyone is happy to be back at work. Within a matter or a week, I was again being taken into the "private" office for talks that were quite silly & unimportant. Then one day, a lady was talking to me & had what I thought to be just a question as to someone had spread rumor that she during that week had stood around & talked without working for 20 minutes. I responded that people like to talk & exaggerate lots of things & she should just ignore it. I was later that day taken into the "private" office & was asked if I had said this about this other woman. I had not said or even thought this, but it upset me that my name was even in consideration. Days later I ate a piece of food in our work area, within 15 mins. of all of us going to lunch break I was again taken into the "private" office & asked if I had eaten this piece of food, I was so taken aback that I was even being asked let alone that she would recieve this piece of information while everyone was at lunch break. I just said I had not eaten this piece of food on the food prep line & left it at that. When I went back to work, I thought about how, why & in fact I had not told the exact trurth about the situation. So I asked the boss to speak with her. I told her I did eat a piece of food but not on the food prep line but off to the side. I also asked her who was harrassing me, she said no one was harrassing me but just going & telling her when things happened out of her site during work. I then said why would she want anyone to go & tell her every little thing that may happen as she was not a babysitter & the fact she was only being told things about people that these 2 ladies didn't like, not when people they liked did things, so I listed a long list of things that these 2 ladies did & their friends, that didn't set very well with my boss, however, all the spying & reporting on me stopped & it was transfered to people that I like. I told my friends that the harrassment was now going to start on them because in our handbook there are steps to reporting harassment & without me even knowing I had done it I took step one.
Since I called the kettle black the harrassment has somewhat stopped & these two ladies who like to spy are actually being nice to me, which is all I wanted in the first place.
I work for a public school system & my boss does not even know what harrassment or diversity are, how can she stop bullying in the workplace if she doesn't even know the defination?
Bullies love an audience, and there’s no bigger playground than the World Wide Web. Cyber bullies create vulgar MySpace posts to taunt others, or send harassing text messages and threatening e-mails. Dr. Phil tackles this topic head on with his son, Jay, whose new book, Jay McGraw’s Life Strategies for Dealing with Bullies, offers action-oriented plans. Jay recently sat down with a group of teens to get their perspective on cyber bullying -- and they didn’t hold back! Learn what concerns the students the most. Next, 17-year-old Austyn says a close friend turned on her, hacked into her MySpace account and reformatted the page to say that Austyn is a " slut," a “sag” and a “butter face.” Austyn says she now has a bad reputation at school and shows Dr. Phil producers a typical day in her life. What can the teen do to empower herself? Steve DeWarns, a police officer and founder of Internetchildsafety.net, explains when cyber bullying becomes a crime. Then, is your child capable of intimidating other kids? Jay gives the Dos and Don’ts of reacting to a bully. Plus, meet a teen who fears his future may be ruined after a fake MySpace page was created in his name, and a mother who says her 15-year-old son was bullied to death. Join the discussion.
