Protecting Your Work Place
When we talk about protecting your work place I’m not suggesting that everyone is going around stealing your pens, or staplers, that is not what this article is meant to bring into focus, but are the lack of privacy and that of what social medical has brought into our work places.
Being teased growing up is a natural right of growing up but there is a vast difference between a tease and bullying. Bullying is when the behavior becomes aggressive by the use of coercion or force. It can include verbal harassment, physical assault or coercion of any kind and may be directed at someone based on race, religion, gender, abilities. It’s an imbalance of power that may be social or physical where abuse emotionally, verbally, and or physically occurs to someone, and that someone is considered a “target” most times.
Sexual harassment, cyber bullying, and text stalking to name a few, all have different meanings these days and it’s hard to track and even harder to report. This is where I come in- I like my job and want to move up; I’ve taken on my grunt work projects and received some great recognition and yes I was picked to work on this new project; As extremely excited as I was I knew others had disappointment, it went with the job- you win some you lose some, one particular “friend” in the office who thought for sure she had this assignment in the bag was only to be asked to be an assistant which means doing some of the grunt work for us, and this is about when my nightmare at the office started.
My girlfriend likes the fact that she can let her “hair down”, be wild and crazy without the spying eyes of a camera hidden somewhere that might capture her letting lose. “Everyone needs some crazy time, some time to blow off steam from the office”, she tells me just as she orders her third Dixie Car Bomb. This I agree with, if we didn’t have a chance to let ourselves relax we would be so wound up-we’d crack, and you know you’ve seen these people, they are the ones with the guns who come back and shoot everyone because they have had enough.
Friends would rip down the pictures as soon as they saw them but the name calling didn’t stop and soon the taunting escalated to kids physically poking at his fat as they walked by. Tim’s friends remember him telling them just before he left school that day in late January, “this is it- I’m done”. 24 hours later his mom found him in the garage- suicide is an all too common escape for victims.
Due to the site being available to every employee it made for a well covered tracks and then a few weeks later the personal attacks started where I was being called the office slut and posted were pictures of me with guys by the coffee machine- I mean really so juvenile, but it bothered me so I went to my supervisor to complain, we looked some of my complaints and she just laughed- “All in fun, your taking this to seriously”; she made the comment to lighten up or everyone will take it as truth; so for the next several months I tried to ignore it. Then one day, this guy who I didn’t know very well met with senior management unbeknownst to me and I was called in into their offices. They didn’t know this was happening and actually have a policy against “cyber bullying” which is what they considered this to be and right then and there got to the bottom of who was doing this. I was in shock that someone unfamiliar with me would watch my back; it also rocked my world when later the police used a search warrant to link the Facebook page to my supervisor.
The best thing you can do if you notice someone hanging around and or harassing you or someone you know is to tell as many people as quickly as possible, get the word out that someone is being a bully , or harassing, if peer pressure doesn’t bring this person down to stop then you should talk to a police officer. When you talk to the police they will want documentation, word of mouth just isn’t enough these days, so for every text, email, or verbal threat write it down, save it, record it if you can. Every detail could come into play if your situation worsens and you need to bring this person who’s harassing you to justice.
Too many people today are considering suicide as the easy way out because they think they are the only ones being harassed, and they feel isolated, confused, and hurt. We need to bust this topic out in the open and let people know it is not ok to be harassed or bullied, and should you be a victim you need to tell people because you are not alone and there are people out there who love you and want you to live. If you know someone or are a victim yourself you need to stand up and be heard- make a difference, it could save someone’s life.
Everyone at the office may agree times are getting tougher; So what is a person supposed to do? At Social Service Coordinators they are the leading health advocates in the nation why not check them out and get a list of free services for you and your family.