Having a boss or coworker who’s a bully not only makes your life miserable, but it can also make you sick. Luckily, I’ve found a new book that might help you cope.
In a new study, published in the September issue of Sleep, researchers found that 10% of 7,694 office workers surveyed in southeast France had been victimized by an office bully, and that the more frequent the bullying episodes, the more likely workers were to experience sleep disturbances. Even just watching someone else being bullied was enough to cause sleep problems.
Another study, in this month’s Journal of Professional Nursing, surveyed 303 nurses at Boston College. More than two-thirds of this group—212 in all—reported that they’d experienced on-the-job public humiliation, isolation, exclusion, or excessive criticism. As a result, the bullied nurses reported their stress levels as “moderate to severe.”
Chronic stress can sicken you. It can lower levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine in the brain, for example, leaving you vulnerable to depression. Chronic stress, such as you’d experience when you’re the victim of a workplace bully every day, is also linked to higher rates of chronic illness.
In one study, people who had a chronic work-related stressor (defined as stress lasting one month or longer) were at increased risk of developing colds—and the longer the stress lasted, the more likely a person was to become ill—not to mention that sleep disturbances, such as those reported in the French study, are linked to heart disease and obesity.
What to do when you can’t just walk away
Back before the American economy tanked and jobs became extra-precious, you had two possible choices for coping: You could confront the bully and attempt to “fix” him or her, perhaps by an open and honest discussion of your distress. (Yeah. That always works.) Or you could just quit and find a happier workplace.
But in today’s challenging business climate, it’s even less likely that your attempts at “bully-fixing” will pay off, because uncertain times are likely to make insecure bullies act out even more inappropriately.
And unless you work in a profession that hasn’t been hit by hard times, staying in a bad job beats unemployment. (Not to mention that if you quit a job, it’s unlikely that you’ll collect unemployment benefits).
Here’s one solution—a helpful new book I just came across. Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job is written by Lynn Taylor, a California-based workplace consultant who helps companies humanize their workplaces.
Next page: 3 ways to treat a boss like your toddler
Comments (4)
Yes! It should be recognized: workplace situation influences your health. The stress stays with you all day long, not just at work. The NY Times just had an article on how people loose sleep over bullying: http://ow.ly/rcHa
I’m glad to see Ms Taylor’s book get a shout-out – it is an invaluable tool for dealing with workplace situation, IMHO.
Wow! Just wow! So, most people surveyed felt that their bosses were the problem and that they had been overly criticized or slighted in some way? Most people thought that the problem was their boss and not themselves. And the appropriate reaction to such circumstances is to treat the boss as a toddler?
That’s an awesome solution! That is, if your primary goal is to wind up unemployed.
Here’s a different take from the other perspective…
You can’t be slighted and criticized for doing what is expected, properly. Do your job, and do it right, and no one will criticize you. Do you really think that your boss, whose primary mission is to make money, wants to waste time criticizing you or explaining what you did wrong? A boss wants the job done right! Did you do the job and did you do it correctly or are you the problem?
For some reason, most people think that they are smarter than their boss. But, why do they think this? Were they smart enough to start the business, land the CxO position or graduate after ten years of medical school? Then why do they think that their “extreme skills” in secretarial or medical technician duties makes them superior intellectually or managerially to their boss?
Finally, regardless of whether or not you think your boss is intelligent, the fact that they are your boss suggests a strong likelihood that they are indeed more so than yourself. Such a person will instantly see your pathetic patronizing attempts to treat them as a toddler. They will resent it deeply and will eliminate you from their rank and file in short order.
As I think about it, it occurs to me that some of you might not understand what I am trying to say so, I will spell it out for you:
If you treat your boss like a toddler, you WILL be fired.
While I’m sure there are many cases of employees overreacting to a bosses criticism, to suggest that all perceived bullying can be avoided by just doing your job right is naive at best. It’s an unfortunate fact of life that there are bosses out there that do indeed vent their own frustrations in life out on their subordinates. I’ve been there myself. It didn’t matter how good and thorough a job I did, he always found reasons to berate me. Loudly. In fact, the only people he didn’t bully were those who stood up to him and shouted him down. Ironically, these were more often than not the worst workers in the office. They just didn’t put up with his B.S. and, like most bullies, he backed down when confronted. Unfortunately, not all of us care for that kind of threatening behavior. We just want to do our job to the best of our ability and be treated with a modicum of respect. Personally, no job is worth having to endure that kind of harassment. Life’s too short.
Yeah, don’t come right out and confront anyone who pesters you — passive agression is sure to make your intentions known!
Anyone who reads this article and gets an “aha!” moment are the very people getting punked out at the office.