Monday, October 28, 2013

Difficult People Stories from Workshops

Over the years of running my most popular workshop on Dealing with Difficult People and Tricky Situations, I have had many people who have realised they are getting bullied by a co-worker.
Here are three bullying stories:

75 Reported Incidents
 
 A lady attended my workshop to learn how to deal with difficult people. While she listened, she suddenly realised that she was being bullied from a colleague. After the workshop she discussed her challenges with her Human Resources officer. She was told to record her experiences over the next two weeks. She recorded 75 episodes. After her next meeting with her HR officer, she was told that the three of them would sit down and discuss them all. The lady then told the HR officer that because she was not sleeping or eating properly. And was constantly worrying about work and losing weight, she decided that she could not endure the cross examining. She said she would rather leave and handed in her notice and left her job.

Unfortunately the bully stayed and was not reprimanded, waiting for her next victim and the lady who left within a month found a better job, with no bullying.



Family Dysfunction affects Managers Autocratic Performance

In his early 40’s a manager in a building factory was told to attend my workshop. The business owner for whom he worked for, shared with me the disruptive behaviours of his employee.
During the workshop the employee shared that he was on medication for his stress and depression. As a child he had been beaten from his drunken father and had grown up in a very dysfunctional family. He had been married 2 or 3 times and his present relationship was not very happy. He was a good looking physically fit man, but was very unhappy with his personal and professional life. He was very clever with his hands, hence his work as a building factory and was promoted to manager. However, the challenge came with his bullying and autocratic style of management. He only knew one way to have relationships and that was to bully people so they did what he wanted.
 
After my workshop he had some understanding about what had happened in his life, but when he left he was undecided whether he would continue learning and start to change his life.
 
 
 
 
 4 Employees in 18 months

A lady who attended my workshop, came to learn how to deal with a difficult female manager at work.  She was in a secretarial position and found after three months in the job, that she was feeling less confident every month. Her husband was concerned for her and suggested she learn how to stand up to her. After my workshop she realised she was being bullied by the manager and after discussing it with others in the lunchroom, she discovered that she was the fourth person in this position in 18 months. The previous three ladies had either been relocated within the university or found other positions. Her HR officer told her to just put up with it, but after attending my workshop and understanding what was happening, the lady who attended decided that she would ask to be relocated within the company or find another position. She knew she was a confident woman before this working in this position and wanted to become a confident lady again, rather one who was getting demoralised at her work from a bully.





Her Testimonial
I thank you for your assistance at the course. It was good for me to be able to identify the problem and the behaviour and not to blame myself (or continue to think that I am incompetent when I have been working in admin for 30 years) for what has been happening within the office. Three of the four staff working under this person have now resigned, all having found other positions and the 4th is job hunting. I think the final straw was when I was told not to have anything to do with several important PA’s because they had formed an unfair and unjust opinion of my boss.

If you want more online information about difficult people and bullying, visit
Difficult People Help