The British version of bullying is to try and make a person feel ganged-up on, out-numbered, mobbed. When I was made redundant from my Fund Management job, I was called into an office where a number of my colleagues were gathered around a table in a manner designed to intimidate. They were all on one side of the table, sitting up, backs straight, all very formal, like the judges on The X Factor or Dragon’s Den, while I, a lone ranger, was on the other side. Perhaps, I thought, they are hoping for me to audition for a different role – Flashdance style. No matter how polite I was, no matter how humble, no matter how sweet, I still had to put up with being vilified. I’ve endured being physically hit at work, not by a man, but by a woman – ‘Helena Carr, Senior Sales Executive.’
There I am, a good little Kiwi, working God only knows how many hours per week, not bothering anybody, and along she comes, to cuff the back of my head.
Belt.
Don’t touch my head.
Belt.
Don’t (pause) touch (pause) my head.
In the end, despite being brought up to be a pacifist, and never having hit another human in my life, I just turned around and belted her back. Shortly afterwards I was made redundant but it was worth it for the satisfaction of whacking her. A writer will take revenge through fiction. Helena told me that Boxing Helena was based on her. When she was living in California, a writer, let’s call him James, had a crush on her. David Lynch’s daughter, Jennifer Lynch, had a crush on the writer. Jennifer observed the relationship between Helena and James and wrote the script for the film Boxing Helena. Constantly writing about somebody, or making them your muse, can be a form of appropriation, oppression or ‘boxing in’.
Women, far more than men, are made to feel vulnerable and threatened. We are picked on more. We are harassed, put down, patronized, belittled and made to feel small – more often than not by other women, as well as men. Recent research shows that women are 71% more likely to be bullied by another woman, whereas the chances of a woman being bullied by a man are a much lower 46%. Then there’s the good old female favourite – ostracism. Bonding through exclusion. The typical teenage trick. What woman hasn’t experienced being driven out of a gang of girls? One of the main reasons I got into I.T. was that I thought it would be male-dominated and therefore less bitchy – as it turns out, most of the men were just as catty as the women.
I hate my life. I’m looking for a victim, admitted my last boss as she cruised the office for targets. Is it me, or is workplace bullying becoming endemic? Surely I’m not so much of a nerd, so socially retarded, that I actually invite abuse? Or am I? No, it’s not just me. Bullying is on the rise. According to a recent global survey by Monster, 63% of respondents and a massive 83% of Europeans say that they have been the victim of workplace bullying. Why? Personally, I think it’s because they’re all crammed in together like chickens, frustration oozing from every feather and nobody to peck at apart from the chicken in the next coop over, or more likely and more often, the chicken in the coop underneath. A European corporate chicken is a battery hen; a New Zealand chicken is relatively free range. And yet, workplace bullying is on the rise here too. Maybe when times are tough the sociopaths and psychopaths know they can get away with more nasty behaviour, because people won’t risk standing up for themselves in case they lose their jobs.
Bullying can be insidious and sneaky. You can set somebody up to fail by allocating them tasks that they are unable to complete in the given timeframe and then complaining that they didn’t complete their work on time. Patronizing somebody is also a form of bullying, since talking down to a person is designed to make them feel small and powerless. Then there is the trick of standing somebody up – saying you are going to be somewhere or do something and failing to deliver. My career counsellor pulled this trick a couple of times. I was as busy as all hell and he kept setting up appointments with me and then forgetting, or failing, to turn up. Helpful behaviour from a career counsellor.
These days, we have cyber-bullying: one kid threatening, humiliating or intimidating another online. This form of bullying is prevalent amongst teenagers. Suicides can result. And bullying is present in academia – my sister’s PhD supervisor returned her thesis with HATE IT penned across the top in bright-red ink. We’ve all heard of male lecturers who mark the women harder than the men. And no matter how much I tell myself, it’s not you, it’s them, I can’t help but internalize some of society’s misogynistic hatred. By publishing fiction I am, in my uncle’s words, ‘an ego-tripper.’ No matter how truthful I am, I still have to put up with being called a liar. It’s only envy. Is it?
After three years working as a secretary and personal assistant, I decided to find a profession that would enable me to earn the money to buy the time to write. I settled on Computer Science. It seemed like something I could master if I put my mind to it. I had the curiosity. I wanted to know how it all worked. There weren’t too many hurdles and some of the people I studied with were genuinely nice. I was doing fine until my supervisor told me to rewrite my entire Masters thesis three weeks before it was due, on some flimsy pretence such as ‘Class Diagrams can’t be used with PHP’ and then falsely accused me of using foul language. He was Greek. He spelt it fowl. Perhaps he’d overheard me clucking in the corridor. It wasn’t the end of the world. I swapped supervisors and was given a ‘B.’
I joined a posh, blue-chip firm, and was put to work under Ed Simpson, who was clearly one of life’s brighter sparks. He’d turned down an offer at NASA to take this job. Ed and I had at least one thing in common – we both wanted to be fighter pilots when we were young. He seemed driven by inner demons, and would work until midnight and beyond. I have fond memories of leaving work at three a.m., drunk with tiredness. Neither of the men I was with had thought ahead to book a hotel or a taxi. I guess they were so wrapped up in solving their own complicated problems that they forgot to arrange transport or accommodation. There was nothing funny going on between us; we were just three exhausted people looking for somewhere to rest. After all, sometimes, clever people do stupid things. My father, who is a retired electrical engineer, nearly electrocuted me after forgetting to turn off the mains while we were installing a lamp.
I’ve put up with verbal abuse. By various male colleagues I have been called a bitch, a smart arse, a tart and a psycho. If things were genuinely fair in the gender war, why did I have to put up with that bullshit in this day and age? Especially in a company that bleated on about ‘inclusion and diversity in the workplace’. I’ve been followed home from work by fellow Peckhamites. “Hey you! You pretty lady. Why don’t you stop and talk to me?” Um, because you might rape or murder me.
