Scumbags

Daniel Craig once said: "If your kid is bullying my kid, and my kid has tried to tell your kid to stop, and your kid doesn't, my kid has been instructed to punch your kid in the face."

As a parent, you teach your child, "Stand up to the bullies."

As a child, you cry and run to the teacher. You go home and tell your parents. You make it a big deal to the people you respect and trust, the teacher and your parents, who will play the judge and the police to deliver justice and sentences. Or, if your dad is 007, you punch and kick the other kid back.

Over the years, our desire to get help and stand up for ourselves has eroded. It is uncertain if it is because we no longer believe in justice in this world and no one comes to save us, or we have learnt and "matured" over the years to become stoic, or we find out the price for standing your ground is too much.

This is what happens in the workplace.

Offices have become the hotbed for lifelong bullies to do what they could not get away in kindergarten and get rewarded with promotion, power and status. The higher these people go up the corporate ladder, the more they foster the toxic culture to cement their position and sphere of influence. They also bring in an army of mini-me. The mini-me has no moral standard of its own. They follow the scent of money and sniff their next victim out along the blood trail to the top. If you have an ounce of conscience left, your life will be like hell. How many managers will say, "Make me redundant and save the rest of the team'? Rather, they will make a deal with the devil, "I will get rid of my team. In return, keep my position or any position in the company."

We are all selfish – yes, I give you that – we are only human. It is in our nature to protect ourselves. Selling out other people? How do they sleep at night?

At least these people get redundancy packages, some of you say.

You told me, "She told me constantly how bad I was at my job. She called me into her office – only to get told off. There was never any help or guidance. They never asked WHY I couldn't do it. They would say, so and so definitely cannot do it. I, of course, can do it and you? I am not sure – there is a question mark. Slowly but surely, I lost all my confidence. I started to doubt myself, my capability, and my judgment. I was so distraught towards the end, I resigned. They did not need to make me redundant. No redundancy money. No nothing. I went to the doctor with depression and wanted to jump off the office building to make a point. They knew all about it. I told HR. I waved the white flag first. I couldn't tangle with her, the HR, the company any more. I felt the whole world was against me. It is falling on top of me. At that time, work was the whole world to me. It was costing my sanity and almost my life. I suppose she has accomplished what she wanted to do – to get rid of me without costing the company a penny. Bet she had an awesome review that year and a big fat bonus." How demoralising. I suppose these managers have never heard of constructive feedback or positive reinforcement, or how to be decent. Now I think about it, I guess these people have never seen kindness themselves. If they have not experienced it, how do you expect them to be kind to other people? It brings us back to if we are all born with kindness and purity. Or not for some people.

And what happens when we fight back?

Who dares wins. Is it true? At what price?

Time and time again, people speak out. The so-called "friends" at work will advise them, "Don't be so negative. You complain too much. Don't talk to HR, they will run to your manager with what you said. They are not on your side. You don't know how to play the game."

Time and time again, these people will be left out for promotion, their bonuses slashed and isolated. Monkeys see, monkeys do. The mini-me with mini-brain will take this heart and learn to get peanuts, you perform to the circus ringleader. This is how company culture gets developed. Culture is learnt behaviour. When a company needs to print integrity as a value on the lanyard, you should run a mile away from them.

Time and time again, these people leave the company. It is not because they give up and let the circus ringleader win. It is because they have self-respect. If you have to dim your light and shrink yourself to the version the mini-mes can accept to survive, they choose to move on. They deserve more.

We all deserve more.

Mother always says, "scumbags they are. Certain fates are reserved for certain types of people."

Amen.

#adayinthejungle #minimeminibrain #workplacebullies #bullies