Bullies in the Workplace

Bullies do still exist in the workplace. My experience

For just over two years I worked on the BBC switchboard at Television Centre, Wood Lane. I started out as a temp for over a year, and eventually Siemens took me on. Considering the job was as a telephonist it paid well. The shifts were 24/7 and covered everything from 8-4s to midnight till 8am shifts. Although the job itself was pretty repetitive and boring, the people were friendly enough and it was a job.

January last year I started a relationship with one of my colleagues; Stuart Collins. We had similar shifts, became friends and grew closer. Stuart began training as a shift leader which was quite intense, so we kept our dating quiet. Four months later, our relationship had hit the office gossip mongers. For a while the other staff seemed to be happy for us and showed their support. Unfortunately this did not last and we were both subjected to bullying for months and months until we eventually walked out just before Christmas last year.

It seemed to begin partly because we got together and partly because Stuart had finished his shift leader training was covering quite a few shifts. He was doing a grand job and was always fair, professional, a quick leaner and worked really hard. For some reason some of the other team leaders began to take advantage of the fact he was good at his job and we were a couple. As a couple often on different shifts a lot of the time, we tried to swap as many as we could so we could go home together. The team leaders started taking advantage and suddenly, at the last minute he was being asked to swap shifts all over the place and some of the time we had already swapped and had made plans. Stuart carried on for a while but cracks began to appear in the ‘so-called’ solidarity of the team leaders.
They resented that fact he was good at his job and took pride in his work. Something the others were clearly lacking in.

There was one evening he was on shift as a supervisor with four other operators. One of the temps wasn’t doing her job properly and the calls were building up. He basically just said politely can you take calls. This girl called Gigi demanded they go to the office, because she wanted a word. Gigi was notorious for being late, being off sick and had even been warned twice for keeping MSN Messenger logged in all day and causing the computers to crash. They had a short meeting where she argued that she was doing her job properly and he argued that she wasn’t. When they came out of the small office she yelled and swore across the room at Stuart. It was even picked up on a phone call. Stuart filled in the incident report and recorded the call. He passed it on to two other supervisors Martha Tickle and Jane O’Brien who on the surface, showed their support and agreed that she should be sacked. Stuart was not happy at the lack of respect Gigi had shown him and was quite within his rights to escalate this incidence.

Stuart had fully hoped that this matter would be dealt with fairly and professionally but about a week later, Gigi was still employed. When he tried to find out why this was, Jane O’Brien and said that two of her other colleagues had stuck up for her (lied in other words) and Gigi had spun them a load of lies and excuses. What amazing power for a temp. I’ve known temps be sacked for a lot less. What a surprise that Gigi and the two friends; Mohammad and Oruna that lied are all Muslims. Not surprisingly, Stuart soon resigned from being shift leader, due to lack of support and backstabbing from some of the other supervisors. It was a shame because he was really good at the job and even enjoyed the challenges it brought with the extra responsibility.

Stuart wasn’t the only one who was subjected to underhand bullying. It was soon to be my turn. It wasn’t your obvious bullying, like name calling etc it was far more devious.
When the bullying failed to hurt Stuart, they tried it on me. It was always difficult to know which one of us they were trying to get at. In the end we decided it was possibly down to jealously. At the time were enjoying ourselves. We were going on two trips to America and had already enjoyed a weekend away in Amsterdam. Rumour has it that, that some of the staff were annoyed with our constant travelling because they were in debt and could not afford to go anywhere. At the time we were living in s small studio flat and we chose to go on the holidays rather than move to a larger flat.

One of the members of staff who was just an administrator, and not even a manager or supervisor tried to accuse me of faking an illness and not doing my job properly. Unbelievable, when I know always worked hard and was a reliable member of the team. Marion Little was notorious for being rude, abrupt stroppy and just plain nasty. Many staff had been on the receiving end of her vile tongue but when she tried to do it to me it didn’t quite work. She tried to accuse me faking an illness and for not doing my job properly, which was all a lie. She then tried to complain about me to the senior manager. I also sent emails of her decent to three managers and had the backing of my team leader, although she was off ill at the time. You could say I was alone. Marion and her close friend Louise Toner basically spent their time ***** about me behind my back and causing trouble. Louise even tried to cause trouble, by screaming at swearing at me for no reason in front of all the staff in the switch room. Embarrassed didn’t even come close to how I was feeling. Naturally, nothing was done about this incident. Louise was not warned for swearing or even spoken to about it. Stuart had some days off at the time so it was even worse me.

Both Stuart and I had individual meetings with the customer service manager Rob Marfleet, in an attempt to stop all this. We both received encouraging words and promises that the bullying and nastiness would stop. All the stress was beginning to affect me and the doctor ended up signing me off work for two weeks. I didn’t want to be off work but it was better than spending it in a place where everyone was joining in with the ***** behind your back. Some people were telling Stuart and I what was going on and then we caught them talking about us. It became such a ridiculous situation. All we had was each other to talk to. My supervisor promised that she would help, but did nothing. Even she was subject to a tirade of abuse after a shift by Jane O’Brien and was left in tears. She too companied but nothing was done about her behavior either.

In all my time at the BBC it was always the same names that were associated with bullying. Apparently it had been going on for years with different people being subject to being bullied. In the end I hated going to work, it was a stressful time and it affected our shifts. We would request shift swaps and they would be changed without our knowledge. Stuart booked off Christmas. I was down for the night shift over Christmas week and was off New Year. We had made plans for New Year and when the Christmas shifts came out I had been the given the 4 to midnight shift my partner had booked off. No one would swap with me. The last straw came on the 19 December last year when Jane O’Brien haled me into the office and accused me of swearing when I hadn’t. She was rude, aggressive and a liar. This was it for me. She expected me to sit and take it only I grabbed my belongs, told Stuart what had happened and said I’d had enough.

We both walked of the BBC in December and never looked back. We tried to sort it out at work but no one was interested. We wrote to senior managers and we even rang HR and told them what had gone on. Nothing ever happened. No one fought our corner. We were tempted to take it further, but decided we were happier away from the BBC and from the morons who remained there.

We found out quite recently that the entire switchboard has moved to Middleborough and the staff were either sacked or received redundancy. It is nice to know that there is some justice in the world.

Bullying, whether at school or at work is not a good thing to have to go through, I’m just glad that I had someone to share the experience with. The most frustrating part was that no one senior seemed to care. They promised much and delivered nothing. Some types of bullying are hard to prove. It often ends up being your word against theirs. The problem with the BBC switchboard was that the main culprits had been there for years and they think they owned the place. They thought they could get away with drinking alcohol on the night shifts, abusing staff and picking on individuals. Bullies are sad, pathetic people who have no live of their own so they try and ruin the lives of others. Don’t let them. They are not worth it.