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The Penthouse is perfect, complete with a view. There’s even a terrace with a pool for the crew. Great job, dogs! Our work is all through. Tomorrow we’re off. There’s a new job to do.
–Build, Dogs, Build: A Tall Tail, by James Horvath
Mobbing happens when conflicts in a workplace (1) escalate out of control, (2) begin to involve increasing numbers of people, (3) are left without effective intervention by management, (4) result in the targeting of a victim for blame (otherwise known as scapegoating) who is then held responsible for both starting and stopping the conflict and who, ultimately, is eliminated from the organization.
Overcoming Mobbing: A Recovery Guide for Workplace Aggression and Bullying by Maureen Duffy Ph.D., Len Sperry Ph.D.
October is national bullying prevention month!
For mobbing victims, the huge disappointment is that the choice a bystander is most likely to make is the choice to not get involved and do nothing. From the perspective of the mobbing victim that choice represents betrayal. The mobbing victim is likely to think that coworkers will come to his or her aid and defense. That they usually do not is devastating to the victim, who valued his or her relationships with coworkers and who no longer feels able to trust them. From the perspective of the bystanders, trying to keep their distance is about fear and self-preservation. Bystanders do not want to have happen to them what happened to their mobbed coworker. The fear and avoidance of the social exclusion at the heart of workplace mobbing is deeply ingrained if not primal.
Overcoming Mobbing: A Recovery Guide for Workplace Aggression and Bullying by Maureen Duffy Ph.D., Len Sperry Ph.D.
For most people, work is central to their survival—it’s how they make a living for themselves and those they care about and how they pay their way in the world. Work is also about belonging to something larger than oneself, and the relationships that are part of the workplace support that sense of belonging. When work is recognized as central to survival and belonging, it’s a lot less surprising that many victims don’t easily get over workplace mobbing and go on to develop symptoms of PTSD and/or depression.
Overcoming Mobbing: A Recovery Guide for Workplace Aggression and Bullying by Maureen Duffy Ph.D., Len Sperry Ph.D.
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“Work felt beyond me this morning, but I didn’t have the income or the upbringing to indulge only myself.“
–Blacklist (V.I. Warshawski Novels) by Sara Paretsky
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A man is fed, not that he may be fed, but that he may work.
“To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone. The tradesman, the attorney comes out of the din and craft of the street, and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again. In their eternal calm, he finds himself. The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.“
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“Retire? Never. I love knowing the world needs me.”
“The day the doctors told my father he could no longer work was the day he accepted his death sentence.”
“In my anger for his leaving me, I somehow missed the lesson in my father’s passing. My father could not be a retiree. He could not free himself from the identity of being a successful businessman. When he could no longer hold on to that identity, he quit...When he had to give up his formula for prestige, he gave up his will to survive. I desperately tried to help him see what else he could accomplish if he redefined his goals. I didn’t see that his addiction to achievement was killing him.“
–Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction
