Ammonite, the relevance of the anecdote about my daughter was twofold: first, she "didn't realise she had a problem until she was told". Once she was told, however, she certainly did develop a problem; her school results plummeted as a result of her mother making her miss school to go to the bogus counselling sessions.

Second, once a serious investigation was proposed, the problem was suddenly no longer important enough to bother with. In other words, the problem didn't really exist at all, just like the 99.9% of complaints about bullying.

Lexi, a workplace exists to perform a function first and foremost. People are not at work to be friends, although it's nice when it happens. If a person is not happy at work they have the right to leave with no questions asked. They do not have the right, it seems to me, to impose their own wish for a particular style of interaction or to demand that their colleagues act in a particular way.

A workplace is not a place for children.

Suze, I went to a boarding school from age 11. I was small for my age and much smaller than the older boys in my grade. My introduction to the place, on the very first day I was there, was to be beaten up by a boy because I put my bag on a bed he considered he had reserved for himself. I didn't complain to a master, because I was terrifed of the repercussions from my peers. Instead, I sucked it up, told myself that this person was dangerous and irrational and resolved to have as little as possible to do with him, which I managed more or less successfully.

Whatever bullying you think you've seen, I can assure you I've experienced a great deal worse. It's precisely because of that experience that I have little tolerance for a broadening of definitions to allow irksomely sensitive little flowers to make trouble for everyone simply becasue they have a "right".

Dear Antiseptic,

A workplace is a place of work. I'm not suggesting anything else. However, every worker has the right to expect a safe environment - and
no one has the right to intentionally and repeatedly use words or actions against someone to continually cause distress. To spread rumours or lies, call names, or intentionally and repeatedly hurt someone. We come to work to work - not to have to put up with some heavy-handed creep who gets their jollies by intentionally and repeatedly trying to make a fellow worker feel helpless. That's just not acceptable behaviour - no matter who it comes from - and your attempts to whitewash it and excuse it doesn't make it acceptable.

Antiseptic

>> Whatever bullying you think you've seen, I can assure you I've experienced a great deal worse. <<

You have no idea what experiences people have had. Seems to me you're claiming to be the "only victim in the village".

I agree with Lexi, bullying is not a one off event it is sustained and continued harassment of a person, often using tactics like belittling or dismissing another person's problems as trivial. Calling people "irksomely sensitive little flowers", for example.

I also find your claim that 99.9% of bullying complaints to be imaginary difficult to believe - could you please provide some evidence, else it appears that you have only allowed for 0.01% as being for yourself and no-one else.

Everyone has a right to a safe working environment, bullies create a toxic workplace.

Is the reason you started this topic an attempt to justify your own behaviour? That is how it is reading. I would prefer to be wrong on this summation of your thread.

Lexi, the fact that less than 0.1% of claims were even seriously investigated shows that people's "feeling of helplessness" is not a good basis to make decisions. Ammonite brought up the case of Brodie Panlock, who was the inspiration for the victimologists in the formulation of this law. She chose to stay for months in a menial job that she could have easily found a replacement for. You'll note the phrase: "she CHOSE to stay". Her suicide was unnecessary and wasteful and tragic not because she was bullied, but because she chose to keep taking it. The results of the Worksafe experiment indicates that there are both very few workplaces as toxic as that one, possibly none and that there are few people who choose to stay if they do encounter one. The fact is that if a workplace is a truly unpleasant environment it will not be able to attract and retain staff and productivity will be poor.

It's interesting that the only people on this thread who've complained about such a toxic workplace culture are public servants, who work in an environment in which lack of productivity is not a fatal condition. In private enterprise it's largely a self-correcting problem - poorly-run business fails.

It also shows that if people are given inflated expectations they will act on those expectations. Who'd have thunk?

Ammonite:"I also find your claim that 99.9% of bullying complaints to be imaginary difficult to believe - could you please provide some evidence, "

From the original post:"Of the 6000 bullying complaints made to WorkSafe, only 10 per cent were referred to the bullying response unit. Of those referrals, one in 10 resulted in an inspector visiting a workplace to conduct further inquiries."

That means that only 1% were actually deemed worthy of being investigated. The Worksafe people didn't mention any convictions at all, which they presumably would proudly do, so it seems safe to assume that the 1 in 10 ratio holds, or possibly there were simply no cases at all that were actually bullying.

As the original post said:""I think what we are seeing is that the term bullying is being used quite loosely in the community now in many instances to describe something that has 'gone against me' or 'that I haven't liked' or something that 'I haven't wanted to do',''says Mr Forsyth.""

I know you're not real good at maths, but I shouldn't think you'd find that too hard to grasp. Perhaps you could ask someone when you're down at Centrelink putting in your form next time...

Antiseptic, Monday, 25 July 2011 11:46:04 AM commented: Cossomby, see above. the fact that your co-workers took the other party's side would tend to indicate you simply weren't popular among that group, while your "bully" was. Ask yourself why that might be so.

Antiseptic, management tried the exact same line as your comment above: that it must be my fault - or just a personality clash. The jobs we were doing were very stressful but if I have a fault it's being too balanced (typical Libra!).

It just wasn't that simple. My co-workers didn't take the bully's side, most avoided the issue, one possibility being they were afraid they'd cop it too. Some supported me privately, but wouldn't publicly. One actually tried to take some action. Other people left the organisation suddenly, and when I asked the Human resources staff if they had had similar problems they were quite defensive and harangued me: 'Who told you that!' (a bit of a giveaway?)

Ultimately it came down the management style of the place (strong favouritism) and the lack of any fair and reasonable process for handling complaints and indeed 'personality clashes'. So, my tendency is to take claims of bullying seriously, since I know how much is stacked against you when you try and handle / fix it.

A sideline: I've been marginally involved (interviewed in an investigation) in two cases involving other people, one before, one after my experience. For obvious reasons, I can't go into details (at least until my posthumous autobiography!) but in neither case did the people involved get justice personally (both careers suffered), although the perpetrators were later dispatched of by the organisations. Both were much worse situations than mine. I've thought that either would make a great novel, except that no-one would believe it