A new book by Laura Bloom, MSW
Chapter One

A Bad Day at Work

Prelude

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Abraham Lincoln

Once upon a long, long, time ago, I was a social work intern. A professor assigned my class the task of sitting in on a board meeting at the organization that each student was doing his or her internship at. My internship was at a large suburban hospital. Two questions immediately popped into my little intern brain: what is a board meeting and how could I wrangle an invitation to one? My grade was riding on it and if you did not keep your grade up at this particular graduate school you risked being expelled. I spoke with fellow students, but they were also fuzzy on the whole board meeting concept. I asked my supervisor who did not know the answer to my question so then I asked some other people at the hospital, to no avail.

Soon after I was called into the office of a manager. This was not my director, not my supervisor’s manager, and not my boss’ boss. But a top executive who managed everyone who sat below him. A man I had not known existed. He offered me a stern thirty-minute lecture on “knowing my place.” I walked out of his office thinking one thing was for sure: I was not going to get an invitation to that board meeting.

I spoke with my professor, and she offered an agency whose meeting I could attend. Problem solved. I am, though, embarrassed to admit that over thirty years later I still struggle with the whole concept of “knowing my place.”

When authors discuss adult bullying, they veer away from the environmental factors that contribute to the creation of these behaviors. Yes, working with an enraged narcissist or a person with a borderline personality disorder may be difficult. When I think, though, of a time of great social upheaval; say a time in history when the world has been brought down to its knees; for example during a world war, it wasn’t the sociopath, the enraged narcissist or sadist personality type who solely created a crisis, it was also the environment, the social conditions. The people who ultimately were willing to create a pact with their leaders that allowed for destruction to rain upon the world and eventually themselves. Why are seemingly sane people willing to turn over their power and judgment to incompetent even cruel leadership? What social dynamics facilitate this transfer of power and keep it in place? As it turns out a power pyramid is an essential element that allows for the delegation of our personal responsibility to a leader, or those at the top of a hierarchy, fulfilling an essential role for both the leader and society.

I would expect this book might trigger those who have an inclination towards bullying as personal exposure is discussed, which can be a cue for bullies to pile on the vulnerable. Also, creating conflict and chaos allows a bully to control the narrative of a conversation and control is the modus operandi of a bully. So, my response to this type of criticism is to respond with; in order to complain about me, to me, please first show proof of purchase of this book.

Also, a long time ago I had twins, a boy and a girl. I decided to try and dress them in gender neutral clothing, but it was not possible. Every piece of clothing that I could find was either pink or blue and as my daughter got older all the clothing was not only pink but looked like it had been attacked by a bedazzler gun. The only alternative I could find when they were younger were some outfits which were yellow but not even very many of these were available.

Similarly, I thought about using gender neutral personal pronouns in this book but found that work was so connected to gender expectations that in order to accurately describe bullying, which relies on the power differentials that exist between people, including their gender, I would have to include gendered personal pronouns. My hope is for a future world that is fair and kind. That I am writing this book today acknowledges that this reality does not yet exist.

Yet another time, I took my twins to a children’s museum, and they immediately darted to an interactive exhibit with oversized Lego building blocks. The first thing they did with those blocks was create something. They built a wall. I thought they were finished with their lovely project, but no they were only beginning. They wouldn’t leave the exhibit until their task was finished and their newly completed wall had been smashed, brick by brick, and was laying on the ground. The lesson they taught me was that destruction and creation are equally a part of human nature. For every instinct you may have to create an amazing idea be prepared for somebody else to want to knock that idea down.

In addition, if an individual is depressed or sad, what do you say to them? How do you empathically respond? Do you focus on the positives in their life as an encouragement to hang in there, things will get better, or do you acknowledge the black hole they might be lost within? I think most people would respond with “oh no be positive, be uplifting, remind someone of their accomplishments in life.” I think though if you asked a depressed person what would be most helpful for them to hear in the depths of a depression they would answer with “acknowledge where I am, how I’m feeling right now.” Saying anything else is experienced as negating an individual’s feelings. I would even say that our need to be “positive” instead of “negative” rests mostly with our need to reassure ourselves that all’s right with the world. And perhaps in our world it is. But sometimes we need to acknowledge other people’s feelings even if it’s personally uncomfortable. This book talks about power and control; a subject that’s taboo to discuss. I have never heard these concepts discussed in any class I have ever taken but these basic ideas are integral to how people relate to one another and get their needs met through society. As this book discusses these taboo subjects, I would again expect that this may also strike a nerve causing some bullies to lash out. Trolls exist, their life’s purpose seemingly, is to make themselves feel better at another’s expense.

This book, also, is a composite of all the advice I have wanted to give to clients as a psychotherapist, for over thirty years, but thought it might be better, in the end, to guide the patient towards their own unique answer. The delivery in this book is forthright but hopefully the direction people take away will be useful.

Work can be unfair and hurtful and that’s not your fault, it is baked into the systems that most of us work within. Understanding this can help us to better negotiate the vocational sand traps that exist at work and learn how to better understand our way around these work hazards.

Ultimately, what people want is to feel significant in life. Hopefully, this book will help you to push back at an environment whose only aim may be to quash this desire.

“Ours is not to reason why, ours {is}but to do and die.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Charge of the Light Brigade

Chapter 1 Before

Imagine you are in fifth grade. You are sitting at your desk when all of a sudden, the teacher claps her hands and issues a command: “everyone form a line.” All the students are suddenly forced to scramble as they attempt to create a queue. Everyone knows that when this line is completed those at the front will get their pick of whatever resources are being handed out. They will assess these goods and hand the less desirable items to the next person down the line until some or none of the items make it to that last student patiently waiting for their turn at the back of the classroom.

Some teachers are conscious of this dynamic and feel that the competition for placement is a good thing, with the idea that the cream will rise to the top, or in this case work its way to the front of the line. Some observers might be annoyed or concerned wondering why the kids seem to be acting up; as the students jockey for position, perhaps even a fight or two might break out and the teacher will have to get involved and break it up, with one child being sent to the principal’s office.

This too is the unspoken nature of the adult work world. The cornerstones of work are hierarchy, power and control and all behaviors happen within this context as most employee’s jockey for money (tangible goods), accolades and recognition or acceptance (intangible needs.) These commodities are doled out by your employer and others who want to be able to control an employee’s behavior and affect their labor. Money and social inclusion allow them this power over their employees as workers vie for these necessary commodities. Again, those at the top of the hierarchy will get most of the resources, those at the bottom get what has been picked through or nothing. This is a transactional world and your value as a worker, and as a person, especially as you age, may be assessed by your ability to navigate or push your way to the front of the line. Even as we view today’s headlines through this prism, we can see the assumption that those who push their way to the front are the most competent. Subsequently, most people will take their cues from those in power and marginalize, devalue or bully those who are at the bottom of any particular ladder.

What is a bully? A bully, ultimately, is an individual who attempts to gain control and /or power through physical or verbal aggression. The prize that a bully is angling for may be anything that the perpetrator wants: cash, sex, privilege. But the ultimate prize is control over others actions or power. At its heart the work bully is abusing their position of power to exploit, or control others. Of course, the ultimate threat is that the perpetrator has the power to take another person’s life. Bullying is an attempt to control people’s (or a group’s) behavior in a coercive fashion.

Bullies may also attempt to wear down a target’s self-esteem, as an individual who has lost their sense of self-worth may appear to be without a rudder and therefore easier to manipulate. Bullying can be physical or interpersonal. It can be from an individual to an individual or from a group (mobbing) to another individual or group. Most bullies utilize a formal or informal hierarchy to support their status and therefore handicap the target. A bully is a climber. They are trying to ascend the social or vocational work ladder. To do this they attempt to push themselves in front of others through intimidation or by bullying and shoving their competition out of line. Thereby jumping the queue. Once they achieve a position of power, they will use their place in the hierarchy to immobilize a target below them and then scapegoat that target in order to feel better about themselves. This targeting behavior can include physical bullying, such as hitting, pushing, shoving, kicking, punching; or it may consist of relational bullying. Relational bullying may consist of social isolation and ostracization from a group or attempting to demean and lower the target’s self-esteem by, for example, spreading false rumors about the target or a passive/ aggressive sabotaging of an individual’s work efforts. Countries have also created misinformation campaigns in an attempt to manipulate their enemies.

Bullying can become more entrenched when the bully serves an informal goal for the organization. Vocational bullies tend to hide behind their rank in a hierarchy to hamstring their target. They then bully vulnerable subordinates as a means of reducing negative feelings within themselves. Because they are effective scapegoaters these bullies can obtain secondary goals for an organization. The most insidious type of vocational bullying is when there is a secondary goal that the bully serves which dovetails with the organization’s informal goals.

For example, a lot of governmental agencies in the U.S. do not pay into the national retirement system (social security) and an employee may not become invested in the retirement system (pension) for perhaps ten years or so. I have seen employees who worked at organizations under this ten-year mark suddenly flip from ideal employees to problematic ones in a short period of time. Bullying allows a company, that is so inclined, to push expensive employees out of their jobs. There now exists a silent incentive to fire or bully employees who would become more expensive by qualifying for pension plans. And if you don’t have a reasonable cause to fire an employee, bullying can become an acceptable alternative, a way to shove a pricey employee out the back door of the company.

This bullying behavior is usually met with indifference or ineffectual attempts at managing the bully on the part of administration due to management’s desire to meet an informal goal. The lack of effective means to curb bullying behavior is then perceived as permission by the bully, who then escalates their toxic actions.

Unfortunately, the dynamics of abuse at work can mirror the presentation of domestic violence within the home, which is that all the witnesses to a victim’s maltreatment scatter when they see the perpetrator.

I once had a client who was a survivor of domestic violence. One time in a fit of rage, her husband punched a hole in the wall above her head. Later on, when she attempted to patch the hole, he wouldn’t allow her to. That trophy on the wall remained, a visual cue to his wife and family of what lay in their future should he become angry.

The name of the game becomes survival so that the one feisty child who attempts to push back might be singled out. Most of the family members know the abuse is occurring and may even experience a “survivor’s guilt” that they are not currently being singled out but live-in fear that if they speak up, they will become the next victim. And they’re right. Research has shown that individuals who call out a bully are likely to be retaliated against, although groups of individuals who speak out against a bully have a higher likelihood of the perpetrator backing down. This is why social protests happen in groups, so that one person is not isolated and then defined as the problem. Bullying may also start as socio-emotional abuse and then escalate to physical abuse but bullying again is not only physical abuse.

Surprisingly, bullying at work is not illegal in the U.S., but harassment is. What is harassment? Harassment is when someone targets and scapegoats a “protected class” of individuals. Federally protected groups of people are individuals who are discriminated against based upon their: race, skin color, national origin, religion, sex or gender, age, or a disability. This doesn’t mean people can’t harass you if you have one of these seven characteristics, it just means that if you can prove you were discriminated against based on these issues you may have legal recourse.

Society appears to turn a blind eye towards bullying; as bullies do succeed in pushing their way up most work hierarchies, which seemingly condones this strategy with a strange silence that bullies interpret as permission.

The Foundation

When we are children we are learning about ourselves, what those feet and hands can accomplish. How to regulate our emotions. But when we grow up and enter the larger world beyond our families, an even greater dilemma occurs. How can we get other people to help us accomplish something that we need done? Controlling yourself is one difficulty, controlling others is a completely different set of dilemmas.

When you’re an infant perhaps you might cry or scream, and mom would come and feed you. But now you’re older with a different set of needs; you want a coworker’s cooperation to complete your job, you now are running a company, and you need each person’s compliance to do a piece of all the work that needs to be completed to produce the final product or service. How do you get everybody to contribute their work so you can accomplish this group task? Some adults continue to use that tried-and-true technique of screaming and tantruming until someone fetches that bottle and delivers it to them.

You can also pay someone to provide a service. Another way to affect someone else’s behavior is to allow them to participate in the process. To offer other people a sense of control, a say, in the delivery of a product or service. For example, a direct democracy allows the individuals who are being governed a say in how they are being governed. I’ve also seen this idea politicized with local governments; for example, who might create a group of family members of the mentally ill and then solicit feedback from these individuals offering a chance to be heard about what the government may offer to support the mentally ill. Although usually these groups don’t report to anybody who would utilize these ideas. So, there is the illusion of control or power. But controlling other people’s behavior is the big question mark that a lot of people are paid to juggle in attempting to have someone purchase a service or product.

A lot of people want control over other people not just to produce a product or service but because they recognize that it symbolizes power. I have found that individuals who feel internally out of control or disorganized will attempt to balance this by exerting control on their external world, though their results are usually haphazard and chaotic. This type of control may create a lot of blow back or passive resistance on the part of people who are on the receiving end of this effort.

Most patrilineal societies add the concept of a hierarchy to this power mix. Power and control are allocated through a power pyramid, with power and control at the top and as you step down this ladder there is less: less power, less control, less money, until you are at the bottom, a subordinate. Those at the bottom are admonished to know their place and to not step out of line. Some types of bullying may even be triggered when a perceived subordinate unknowingly steps out of their power place, as others attempt to “nudge” them back into their predetermined place in the hierarchy.

I find that power is a spectrum running from the coercive use of power, to a manipulative use of power, to the cooperative use of power. When a husband threatens to strike his wife, he’s using coercive power. When a teenager bullies another teenager or threatens to ostracize them from a friend group, that’s coercive power. When people decide to vote to effect a decision, that’s the cooperative use of power.

As an aside, something that I find interesting is the elephant in the room, which may be taboo to discuss. Money may be taboo to discuss; feedback that differs from the way we see ourselves may be difficult to hear and say, aspects of history that highlight subjugation may be censored and control and power are also uncomfortable subjects to discuss. Although all of these qualities have a presence similar to that of gravity, in that their presence is felt every day.

One of the hallmarks of a hierarchy is that you must behave within the rank accorded by your status in the hierarchy. Step out of line and the amount of social censure you will get to push you back into your status and role might surprise you. This is how you know that you are operating within the confines of a hierarchical structure.

Scapegoating

Bullying at its core is associated with scapegoating. Scapegoating at work allows a boss or an organization to avoid personal responsibility for a fault by externalizing a shortcoming and projecting this fallibility onto another person or group. Some individuals will scapegoat any worker who stands out: the employee who’s smarter or has finely honed social skills, the quiet employee or a talkative worker. The key ingredient is that the perpetrator feels they can bully without any repercussions. The target is vulnerable and usually is not viewed as an individual who is a part of a gang or a group. An individual who may be a loner or does not gravitate towards grazing with the herd, is considered a good target. In this way bullying has some of the same dynamics as a hunter and their prey.

Perhaps some additional clues to the phenomena of scapegoating may be found in the origins of the word: there seems to be two explanations that seem helpful. One of the first references to scapegoats is made in biblical times. The congregants of a temple during this time could touch and “lay their troubles” on to a scapegoat (which was literally two goats.) The first goat would be slaughtered, the second goat would be left to wander in the wild to fend for itself.

The second closely aligned phrase is that of a “whipping boy.” In the 1400’s the prince of England had an official whipping boy, who was the same age as the prince and a friend. When the prince misbehaved his friend would be whipped, instead, as a lesson to the royal youngster to behave. ¹

Similar to the abuser who did not want the hole in the wall patched; the whipping boy serves as a reminder of the use of force as both a coercive model to the target and those surrounding the mark, about how punishment may be used as a mechanism of control, to not only affect the targets behavior but also signal a message for the surrounding, larger audience, as well.

To me the whipping boy situation also sends a message about empathy. Something to the effect that your ability to care for others may eventually be a vulnerability that may be used against you. Better toughen up. Perhaps the ultimate message is to be careful who you befriend, as the ability to care for another may end up hurting both of you. And the saddest fact of all is that even today vocational bullying is tolerated due to a fear of being retaliated against; a fear of being fired or a worry over being sued, the victim in the workplace is the hot potato that is passed along and eventually, dropped.

A manager for example may not have been hired for their leadership skills. Maybe they were promoted for their technical abilities, but a lot of workers have these skills; managers are usually promoted because they can propel themselves; through strategy, force or contacts, to the front of the line.

In practice there are two ways to immediately stop a bully: if a group is witnessing bullying behaviors and intervenes to stop the aggressor this will usually stop the bully in the short run. Also, if a perpetrator is confronted or reined in by someone or something they value (for example, money); this can also stop a bully in their tracks. Fear is a powerful motivator for a bully. If they worry about going toe to toe with a bigger, more powerful opponent, or a boss, this will curb their behavior, as they are very sensitive to exploitable power differentials. A worry of being in a physical fight especially with an opponent who is bigger than them may stop their destructive actions; though again they will begin again if the bully feels they may act without repercussions.

Bullies ultimately are cowards and when confronted by a “superior” or a group they are fearful of they will back down, but a vocational bully that has learned to play the power (hierarchy) game at work may then begin to camouflage themselves under a systemic blanket of rank within the hierarchy and start using the rules of work to their advantage. These bullies are hard to stop.

Bullies are not usually emotionally or physically abusive to their superiors; in fact, they are the opposite and good at stroking the ego of those above them. They intuitively will offer the necessary accolades to a receptive boss. So, addressing their insidious behavior is complicated.

What a hierarchy offers

In the 1960’s Dr. Stanley Milgram, a well-known social psychologist, had a question: why did German citizens follow Adolph Hitler into World War II? He created a classic psychological study that currently would be considered unethical to replicate, unless it was done as part of a reality tv show.

His hypothesis was that the citizens of Germany complied with Hitler due to the authoritarian nature of German parenting. The holocaust, he theorized, would never be repeated in the U.S. as America had a more egalitarian style of parenting. His theory though was not validated by the testing he conducted, as his study found that around 65% of the Americans he tested complied with an authority figure’s directions, even when those orders showed that somebody would be physically hurt as a consequence of following these instructions. Most people will do what they are told to do by an authority figure, even if that task requires hurting someone else. I think Dr. Milgram did not stumble into the effects of parenting styles but walked into the concept of compliance and the abdication of personal responsibility, that a hierarchical power structure allows individuals and society.

One of the things that comes to mind when I think about the fascist political structure during World War II, for example, was the public relations campaigns of the Nazis and the functional use of hierarchy. The Nazis shared information parsimoniously (and in retrospect one can see why) soldiers knew their piece in the puzzle but only top management saw the plans for the completed puzzle. And Hitler created bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy. There even was a “Judenrat committee,” a council of Jews whose job it was to implement the policies the Nazis dictated to the members of the Jewish community; offering a sense of control over what was essentially a predetermined plan of destruction. There also was a sign over a death camp which read “work sets you free;” again colluding with people’s denial and highlighting the illusion that if people listened to the Nazis, the authority figures at the apex of the hierarchy and followed their directions, victims could control their fate. And if you did not listen to your captors you had only yourself to blame for your fate.

Much of this same psychological strategy is used today by the previously mentioned agencies that create political citizens committees that do not have the ear of policy makers; members feel included yet have no say. Feeling in control and vested in rules creates compliance, even when individual volition is only an illusion.

What is Human Ecological Systems theory?

This was developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner. It offers a framework through which social psychologists examine individuals’ relationships within communities and the wider society. In other words, there is an interactional component between human beings and their larger social environments that goes beyond their interpersonal networks. ²So, intrapsychic dynamics, an individual’s internal mental health dynamics, do not only affect their behavior but also individual dynamics interact with environmental forces to feed and foster both functional and dysfunctional behavioral change.

The first lesson I wish Mom had taught me: the rules of a human hierarchy

Our first experience with a hierarchy for most of us is when we are children living with mom and dad. As a parent I spent years trying to teach my children, when they were young, impulsive, and lacked good judgment, to listen to me. It’s essential that children learn the hierarchy of the home and listen to mom or dad so that they can be steered clear of dangers they may be unaware of.

Sometimes, when I would attend mental health workshops, professionals would talk about supporting authority figures as an extension of the necessity of having parental figures in

childhood. And certainly, youngsters require adults who can empathize with their children, but I disagree with the assumption that adults require an authority figure; especially in the same way that a child might. Hopefully adults have been offered the necessary nurturance and guidance in childhood that would allow them to self-parent in adulthood. This is also why we have instincts, for alerting us to dangerous people and surroundings. And most children grow up with these instincts intact. And perhaps people who attempt to control others in a coercive fashion might require some type of tempering authority figure their whole life, but I don’t think this applies to most adults.

Let’s say though that you grew up in a family where one parent was an alcoholic. As a child growing up in this family you might have become aware, for example, that dad might seem “off” at times but if you would seek to validate your intuition with mom, she might not have reinforced your perceptions, maybe she responded to your observations with a “no, no, dad’s ok.” In an effort to deny a difficult reality. This is a situation where children can learn to distrust their intuition and to ignore what their environment is showing them. But if you grew up in a setting that was not invested in whitewashing reality your intuition can help you. Do you have a job that erodes your self-esteem because it seems that no matter what you do and how you try to adapt your actions; the message you consistently receive is “you’re wrong, or not good enough?” That this environment is chipping away at your self-esteem is an indicator that something may be wrong with your surroundings.

A bully at work will act in a premeditated and chronic fashion to undermine the target’s faith in themselves by innuendo, rumor and actions in an effort to erode the target’s ability to get and keep a job. This mentality can be enabled by an employer’s pervasive belief that employees are “subordinates” of their employers, and therefore bound to follow an employer’s directives. A bully is trying to get you fired, a manager is not. A manager wants you to perform, so they will shine in the eyes of their supervisor.

A perpetrator is not motivated to problem solve the situation. They feel threatened by a capability the target has and that they lack and have subsequently decided that both the target’s self-esteem and their job security need to be attacked so that eventually the target may lose their job, and that the instigator can feel secure both vocationally and personally.

Welcome to the military

The next hierarchy that we are introduced to when we begin to work is that of the military hierarchy. This is the organizational spine of all work environments. To understand the culture of the military is to understand the culture of work, even if you are not currently a member of the military.

Some jobs have an initial boot camp period where they may utilize hazing, isolation, verbal or emotional techniques to create a sense of “us” vs. “them” or a shared culture. Afterwards these work settings may go about rebuilding an employee’s identity so that it is more closely aligned with the work culture; creating a sense of a shared identity so that workers begin to feel as if they are closely aligned warriors. Then one may be motivated to fight, if not for a cause at least for your comrades in arms. This model may be used for any group training from fraternity members, medical interns, hedge fund managers, to drama students. Although a quality I appreciate about the military is that they do acknowledge desired behaviors with certificates and other tokens of appreciation. When workers feel that only their mistakes are punished, they tend to react like families overwhelmed with credit card debt. The economic or emotional hole becomes so deep, people begin to lose their motivation to dig themselves out of debt. The goal of positive acknowledgement at work becomes so unattainable, people will stop trying to achieve and reach out for a positive word.

In some work environments “stepping out of line” invites bullying and scapegoating. What is stepping out of line? The origins of the phrase again come from the military, the original work environment which has a rigid and well-defined hierarchy. Imagine groups of newly recruited soldiers at boot camp standing in line. What’s the basic rule they need to learn? Do not step out of formation. But it’s also a deeper metaphor for understanding the hierarchy that the military lives by and not stepping out of the confines of your role and the power bestowed to you by rank.

In the military, everyone is replaceable because of the high mortality of the job. Anyone must be able to step in anywhere and ramp up quickly and though an individual may not survive, the military itself will then live on to “fight another day.” This hierarchy allows people to automatically follow commands and function by rank instead of their unique prowess or capabilities. The military can then ramp up productivity and function consistently, over a long period of time, in spite of any loss of personnel it may sustain.

The culture of the military has been translated into almost every work environment; so much so that any conversation about work tends to be peppered with military jargon and metaphors descriptive of winning at battles and strategies for winning a war.

People who are trained to work within a hierarchy receive implicit or explicit permission to abdicate a sense of personal responsibility, receiving license from their leaders to act in certain ways. Humans are social creatures more than they readily admit. This type of reciprocity needs to be understood if we want to address what sustains “man’s inhumanity to man {kind}.” Never “jump rank” in a bureaucracy. In a rigid hierarchy you respect an individual’s rank, in spite of the individual who may hold it.

While I was scrambling, over thirty years ago, in the story mentioned in the beginning of this book, to listen to my teacher’s instructions and sit in on a board meeting; I was also being lectured on an even more basic lesson. I had unknowingly jumped rank. I was acting as if I was high up in the hierarchy of the hospital when I was a (lowly) social work intern. People high up in the hierarchy may be able to address their needs directly and have them met; subordinates play a shell game with their needs making sure that their employer only knows what an employee wants is for the benefit of the company.

Bullying is not about conflict resolution, it’s a strategy used by those who have the support of a hierarchy to leverage that power into upward status mobility by taking on someone lower down on the power pyramid, who they think they can defeat without the threat of harm to themselves. It’s a fight that can happen on the playground or a battle that can erupt in a boardroom, although of course adults play for bigger stakes.

Another hand me down from the military is the ability to tolerate boredom. On the battlefield, there might be long periods where nothing happens and then in the space of five minutes everything changes. In the military you are expected to tolerate boredom. This thinking carries over into the regular workday, which can consist of workers looking busy, even when in a particular moment they are not, but exhibiting boredom at work is considered bad behavior.

Different organizational structures affect your work almost as much as your job description

A “flat” business model has fewer layers of middle management and encourages teams and departments to collaborate. It supports autonomy and creativity. There is still an owner or CEO who has the final say on major decisions. The primary drawback of this business structure from a social-organizational perspective is that flat organizations may over-rely on the wisdom of the CEO.

A tall hierarchy is the bureaucracy of a large vertical power structure with layers of middle management that most of us find ourselves working in. A “cooperative” is a democracy at work. Each worker who is affected by the decisions of the workplace has a vote as to how the business operates.

Here’s a quick explanation of the differences between flat organizations and tall organizations and their pros and cons: ³Here’s a quick definition of cooperatives or equalitarian enterprises and their strengths and weaknesses. ⁴

All of these business models affect the social hierarchy at work, which in turn controls how people function. Competition is encouraged in most tall organizations, so you have groups of adults pushing and shoving for their place in line, those towards the front of the line are closer to a promotion and working their way up the ladder to middle management and then to the top of the mountain, commander of all they see. The more people who are trying to push and shove their way into a line, the more bullying there will be. It now becomes a strategy of how you will find your place in the line. And one technique can be to knock a cohort out of the line by bullying them and replacing them with yourself.

What is the difference between an employee and a soldier?

The Military code of conduct says:

…By joining the military, workers lose some of their civil rights. For example, the soldier is denied the fundamental rights of speech and association when he enrolls into the military, and military law obliges him to obey orders. Whether in combat against an enemy of the State or in duties to restore law and order at the request of the State government, even if it means certain death, he is required to travel by land, sea or air to any place and carry out all tasks and assignments, as ordered. He cannot refuse or disobey lawful commands for any reason…⁵

The military code of conduct also includes a ban on speech that could be considered disrespectful or “insubordinate” of a superior officer. An aspect of insubordination is speech that is “unbecoming of an officer or that could be viewed as bringing dispute on the service” which is also not allowed.

Another hand me down from the military is a soldier may not be prosecuted for following a command. Civilians do not have these same protections. This leads to another lesson I’ve learned: some organizations, especially non-military governmental agencies, confuse civilian workers with combatants. When you are a soldier in the military again you are not held personally liable for the more onerous aspects of your job, such as hurting or killing other people

as this can be a byproduct of war. As a civilian worker though you are potentially accountable for all your actions at work.

For example, according to military law, if I am a trained soldier in the military and I follow a command to kill somebody, I will not be prosecuted for murder. But, if I am a civilian and I kill someone, even in the line of duty; I am liable to be prosecuted for murder. Being in the military indemnifies you from the repercussions of your actions. Being a civilian does not. So that if I am a policeman, for example, I may be prosecuted if I hurt or even kill someone while on the job. In this instance, I am not passing judgment, just noticing a vulnerability. It’s important to know your susceptibility within a job, as a weakness may be viewed as a vulnerability and those with a vulnerability are easier for either management or society to scapegoat.

This line between civilian and soldier, again, may be blurred in government and at large, tall bureaucracies. You will be given orders at most jobs and expected to follow through with them; it will be up to you to decide if there’s an ethical dilemma within that directive and what, if anything, to do about it. Rigid hierarchies tend to have consequences for “insubordination” or not following a directive from your boss, even if you don’t work for the military.

If your superior instructs you to do something that conflicts with the ethical mandates of your profession; for example, an accountant is instructed to destroy some records, or a doctor is directed to bill a procedure in a way that inflates a cost or does not report an incident to a regulatory body, this could cause an ethical dilemma. If those orders conflict with the ethics of your profession the tall bureaucracy will assume that you will be a good soldier and follow orders, though most professionals have a responsibility not only to their employer but to their profession as well. At times this can place an employee between a proverbial rock and a hard place when your employer wants you to do something that the profession discourages and could even lead to losing a license to practice their profession, and unlike the good soldier you will be held personally liable for your actions.

We live in a democracy but most of us do not work in a democracy

When you step into an industry you are stepping into its history as well as its culture and many work environments are predicated on the culture of the military and the mechanisms of war. They assume you know this and are prepared for battle, even though you may work in a hospital, at a school, or even in a business office.

Here’s a current story that has made the news: a woman was fired from her government job. She had been a data scientist with the State of Florida and noticed that Florida was undercounting the Coronavirus numbers. She produced actual numbers even though her boss ultimately wanted to politicize her department by asking her to report numbers that were artificially lowered. She was

subsequently fired for “insubordination,” a military term. She kept on producing numbers reflecting the level of infection rate for the virus within her region. After being fired, local police burst into her house, pointed guns at her and her family and confiscated all of her personal electronics, including phones, computers and any external drives. She eventually “tweeted” her story and it was picked up by national news outlets, otherwise no one would have been aware of her plight. To my knowledge the issue is still unresolved. ⁶

I would guess that the worker mainly felt that it was her obligation to report true numbers, her boss however seemed to view her actions as directly countermanding an order. This action also illustrates the power delegated to those at the top of any hierarchy. Telling the truth to power is formally discouraged in the military; but again, this can inherently create ethical dilemmas for civilian workers who may be worried that they will be held accountable for the troublesome orders they received and not their boss. And some organizations do seem to be able to have their cake and eat it too, by not having to take responsibility for the damaging orders given to employees.

Here’s another interesting story that I think illustrates this problematic work boundary.

The CIA

In 2009 two psychologists received $81,000,000 dollars from the CIA to develop “enhanced interrogation” techniques. Both of these psychologists had served in the military previously and had retired from the military; and then started a private business. One of these psychologists was licensed as a professional clinical psychologist in the state of Texas and was a member of the American Psychological Association, a professional organization for psychologists.

These enhanced interrogation techniques were later re-named torture, and they were implemented by the U.S on various “detainees.” A detainee died as a result of the torture. One of the psychologists not only created the techniques but implemented them on prisoners as well.

Eventually, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the prisoners against the two psychologists. They could do this because the two defendants were not currently members of the military; they were now retired military who owned a private business that contracted with the military. The government paid for the defendants legal fees and continued to use the contracting company the psychologists founded, after the court case.

What do you think the outcome of the court case was? You may already know. The psychologists were reluctant to go to court, but they did. The court ruled that the psychologists were “indemnified” due to their work with the government but urged the government to settle with the representatives of the detainees. I looked up the definition of indemnify in the Oxford dictionary

and this is what popped up: “sum of money paid as compensation, especially a sum exacted by a victor in war as one condition of peace.” Another definition the dictionary lists for indemnifying is: “security against or exemption from legal liability for one’s actions.” The government paid the psychologists legal fees and settled with the plaintiffs.

A complaint then was made against the psychologist to the state licensing board of Texas. The board allowed the psychologist to keep his license. The American Psychological Association did write a letter to the Texas licensing agency regarding the ethical standards for psychologists. ⁹(Which I am going to assume consists of not torturing clients.) The psychologist was also able to maintain his membership with the American Psychological Association, although eventually, his membership in the A.P.A. did lapse.

Is there a moral to this story? Did the courts conclude that the psychologists were responsible for their actions? The court appears to have determined that the workers were following orders; in that the court “indemnified” the contractors from the consequences of torturing people because it was at the instruction of their employers, a governmental agency. So that if personal or professional ethics are in conflict, what should we do, if we were to follow the example set by the court? The proper lesson seems to be: When an employer gives a directive to an employee, it’s really an order and like any order from a commanding officer, even if you don’t work directly for the military, the expectation is that the employee will follow the order. (I think the above

example also illustrates the blurring of the boundaries that may exist between civilian and non-civilian employees.) It then becomes the responsibility of the employee to be aware of whether you are considered a civilian or not and if your work has “indemnified” you. If you are considered a military employee the organization you work for should “have your back” if something goes wrong and you are held liable. The CIA seems to operate this way but perhaps this is where, in the eyes of her employer, the Florida data scientist made a mistake. She did not understand that when her boss requested that she do something, he was not asking, it was an order. And that she was considered a non-civilian employee, though he in turn did not seem to have her back.

Realize that your organization again may not want to recognize the difference between a civilian employee and a soldier. When they tell you to do something they will assume you are aware that it is an order. Your job, in turn, is to make sure that should that order blow up in your face that you are not held personally accountable and then scapegoated and fired from your job for following management’s orders.

It’s an unspoken expectation of work that “challenging” a superior at the office is unacceptable and will be punished. Unless you are self-employed, whether civilian or non-civilian, expect to give up some of your civil freedoms while at work and under the authority of a vocational hierarchy. The work environment is not a democracy. Most work environments operate like autocracies, oligarchies or plutocracies. Hopefully, though in exchange, you will not be held personally responsible for any of the decisions management may make, and that you end up implementing. Ultimately, guilt or innocence may be viewed through the prism of the system you work for and how powerful it is.

The continued culture of work

Unless you have a mentor, which most low hierarchy jobs do not provide, work environments won’t share information with you. They will just punish or bully you when you act outside the perceived limits of your rank. The instinct of most work environments will be to punish breach of protocol and they will scapegoat any individual or group that stands out. Conversely, power minorities may not support one another and may hold onto the ideals of the power majority even if these priorities may not be in their own best interests.

Women, for example, have been shown to cooperate better with men rather than other women. Women, in fact, are even better at compromising with men, then men are at compromising with one another. ¹³A 2010 study cited by the Workplace Bullying Institute found that female bullies directed their hostilities toward women 80 percent of the time. In contrast, male bullies are equal opportunity bullies. A 2011 study of 1,000 working women conducted by the American Management Association found that 95 percent of these women felt they had been “undermined by another woman at some point in their careers.” So, when it comes to being a target of bullying at work, women win at being the most frequent mark. ⁹

Here is my theory of why women-on-women-bullying occurs: Power minorities tend to adopt a “colonized” mentality, in other words, they adopt the values and power structure of the dominant culture. These people in power can be a numerical majority or a statistical minority. (After all, numerically there are more women in the U.S than men, yet women are still a power minority). Everyone knows who’s at the top of this pyramid and who’s at the bottom. Therefore, even those at the bottom of any power hierarchy do not scapegoat or bully those above them. Also, historically a woman’s survival rested on her ability to choose and be chosen by a male who could support her. So, like most minorities women have historical baggage and are socialized to compete with other women [only] for validation and acknowledgment. This colonized mentality affects every power minority, though in different ways, for different minorities. In reality, with the divorce rate hovering at around 50%, women are more likely to derive equality by collectively advocating for equal pay for equal work, along with other like-minded people, instead of seeking sanctuary under cover from a male.

In deference to women here’s the “Cliff’s Notes” version of what I learned in women’s studies: women, if left to their own devices, do not create tall hierarchies, they organize around flat or equalitarian networks. I think an important addition to this idea would be that of Carl Gustav

Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist who developed the concept of Animus and Anima. Reducing Jungian theory down to its essence, Animus is a male “energy” and Anima is female energy. This energy may be congruent with our physical anatomy or not. But according to Jung, in general, before midlife people have an interpersonal style that is mostly congruent with their physical anatomy. This switches in mid-life, with women having a more male “energy” and men having a more female energy. So, both men and women may be feminists, no matter what their gender, and can advocate both for themselves and for one another. Sexuality, like most things except perhaps, death and taxes, seems to occur on a continuum.

The origins of xenophobia

As human beings we have a predilection towards sameness and continuity. A familiar routine, familiar people, familiar comfort foods from childhood, all of these are preferred. And this lends itself to survival: if you taste a new berry and it doesn’t poison you, why switch to a novel fruit?

The origins of the fear of difference are also in part rooted in developmental psychology. Children go through a developmental stage where they exhibit stranger anxiety. This is different from separation anxiety and developmental psychologists call the byproduct of this developmental stage, a sensitivity or fear of difference, xenophobia.

People intuitively think that when a child cries, they are unhappy. But crying is the primary way children communicate and they communicate much more than happiness or sadness when they are screaming, yelling, or crying. When children cry at this stage of life, they are signaling that the foggy blur of adults that surrounds them has finally cleared, and they can now tell who is familiar from who is unfamiliar. No more, no less. If they cry when you hold them, they are signaling, all things being equal, that you are an unfamiliar rather than a familiar face to them. This fear of the unfamiliar can remain with children throughout their lifetime and can be at the root of xenophobia and prejudice.

So that if you want a child to grow into a tolerant adult they should be exposed to caring children and adults who both look the same as they do and who look different than they do, in terms of both gender, race, and even class. But in America, most children grow up segregated, surrounded by children who probably mirror their demographics, almost completely. On a macro level, America is multicultural, on a micro level, not so much. This is accomplished rather simply

through the mechanism of money. People group together based on assets and as a rule, people with similar assets tend to resemble one another.

Yet here you are, having the audacity to show up at work, day after day, looking completely different. Can you think of one other place in America where groups of completely dissimilar people are thrown together and expected to work productively with each other; yet in their day-to-day personal lives they may never socialize, eat or live with different people. They may never have to see someone different than themselves unless they read a magazine, go to their T.V. or turn on a computer. And even then, algorithms tend to insulate us from these differences; eventually all the faces and opinions just begin to blur into one familiar voice.

Is America a classless society?

When I was growing up and in school this is what I learned: America’s society grew from British culture. In England society lacked upward mobility. In other words, if your father was working-class, you would live and die within the working class. America was different. Here there was upward mobility. You could be born into a working-class family and your child could work their way up into the ranks of the middle or even upper classes. This was the ultimate difference that existed in the United States. The U.S was primarily a meritocracy where anyone, if they worked hard enough, could move up the class hierarchy of society. In the U.S. economic and social class was self-determined and not defined by your environment; although, according to Pew research, this is currently not the case. America’s economic caste system presently is rigid and impermeable, even more so than some western European nations, including Great Britain.In the U.S currently the statistics show that if you are born poor, you will die poor and if you are born rich you will die rich. ¹⁰The American dream currently may be alive and well, but the realities of social class will keep it out of reach for most Americans.

Egalitarianism has occurred but not too much. For example, there are now female superheroes on TV and in movie theaters. Although a lot of these superheroes function like men with boobs. The way female superheroes process the world doesn’t seem to jibe with how the women I know operate in their lives. Women, if left to their own devices, might even create a superhero that doesn’t require a full-body suit of armor. Unfortunately, the world is not quite ready for that.

But I am hopeful that as people’s understanding of power minorities becomes more emotionally enlightened, what makes different groups of people unique will become incorporated into mainstream culture. And feminine energy: valuing sensitivity, intuitiveness, and a range of emotions that go beyond anger, strengths the world could benefit from, will be invited into the culture of work.

What about me?

In 1992 I lived on the Westside of Los Angeles. Suddenly riots erupted around me after policemen were videotaped beating up a black man and the police were subsequently acquitted of a crime in court.

Whole areas of L.A were burned down. I happened to live in a section of L.A that was a portal to mostly white, affluent L.A, which remained untouched. Afterwards, people seemed puzzled: why would Black people burn down their own neighborhoods?

If an injustice had occurred and an explosion of protest erupted as a result; and then the National Guard was called out and Marshall law was enforced, what neighborhoods do you think would be relatively “safe” to burn in protest. Beverly Hills or Compton? The Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago, or the Westside of Chicago? The upper east side of Manhattan, or the South Bronx?

How about the Pacific Heights section of San Francisco (or almost any area of San Francisco) versus Oakland, California? If burning Compton, or the Westside of Chicago, the South Bronx or Oakland would make the government call out the National Guard and declare Marshall law, what major time out would people have earned if they set fire to Pacific Heights, Beverly Hills, or even the upper east side of Manhattan? What repercussions would have followed if people had burned down these exclusive neighborhoods?

Everyone, even those at the bottom of the power pyramid conforms to the rules of the power hierarchy and applies how it distributes codes of conduct and resources accordingly. You may attack down but not up. If done individually, calling out a superior is termed insubordination, when done by a group of people it may be called a mutiny, a coup d’état, or even an all-out declaration of war, even if sedition is not a part of the game plan. The military language of these actions again hints at the origins of these worries.

And some things never seem to change. I just returned from a visit to Portland, Oregon twenty-nine years after the L.A. riots. There are currently daily protests happening all over the world, but Portland seems to be especially tenacious and though the cause is honorable the neighborhood where the protests are occurring is not.

It is an old urban section of Portland that has homeless encampments and boarded-up buildings. The old downtown core that has been left behind. But here’s where the protests are happening, on these abandoned streets that primarily consist of neglected commercial properties and the homeless. I wonder how people would react if the protests were to occur in upscale neighborhoods? Would people be allowed to register even a single whelp of complaint that might be heard at the higher elevations? Or would that be too much, an outright declaration of war, an attack on property values, that would need to be quashed?

This co-opted mentality with the vulnerable (and poor) at the bottom ranks of society and the wealthy (and powerful) located at the top skews everyone’s perspective, even those at the bottom who are at a disadvantage, abide by the rules of a hierarchy.

As an aside the governments united front in defending federal buildings from Black Lives Matter members, as compared to their relatively lax response to a group of mostly white people storming the nation’s capital soon after; in order to subvert an election, probably cemented for a lot of individuals how equity and economic caste may be connected in the U.S.

Pop quiz time: Which homes do you think are burglarized most frequently? The homes of the rich or the homes of the poor? Counterintuitively, it’s poor people who are most likely to be victims of property crimes. ¹¹

The second lesson I wish Mom had taught me

Both industries and jobs at the bottom rungs of a ladder are more vulnerable to abuse. It’s easier to fire somebody lower down the chain of command as people in lower status jobs are considered more expendable. Resources move up the ladder while scapegoating, simultaneously, moves down the power levels of the pyramid. It’s not against the law to bully or emotionally abuse somebody at work but there will be consequences if you are not cooperative with those who exist above you. A job is paid according to the value society ascribes to its knowledge base. It’s not a coincidence that CEO’s, lawyers, and doctors can command a higher wage while teachers, nurses, and social workers (female dominated professions) do not.

The power hierarchy is the spine of most organizational systems. When you are at the top of the power grid your title can insulate and protect you. When you are towards the bottom of any power hierarchy, whether in terms of a low-status industry or position, you don’t have the protective bubble that a title or resources can provide, and you are more vulnerable to scapegoating. You have to be a crafty little fish to survive and be able to swim harder and smarter than any big fish in your pond.

The third lesson I wish Mom had taught me

Make competition work for you.

There are different sectors of the economy: Public and private. Each of these groups has its subdivisions: Private-for-profit, private not-for-profit, cooperatives, sole proprietorship, and public organizations such as government or the military.

Ideally, you want to be employed in an industry that works for multiple sectors of the economy. This creates more jobs and fosters competition in the job market for companies that want your skill set; it makes you a more desirable employee when multiple sectors of the economy feel like they need to compete for people with your knowledge base. The private and public sectors of the economy can also have different work cultures.

As I mentioned the original work hierarchy was formalized by the military, next in level of rigidity comes civilian service, working for the government, which also has a formalized hierarchy though less rigid than the military and then comes the private sector which can be

organized around a traditional top/ down (tall) hierarchy or a horizontal (flat) organizational style and finally cooperatives. Most individuals in the U.S currently work for tall bureaucracies. Most workers in the U.S are least likely to work for a cooperative.

As each ethnic minority in America’s history assimilated and began to push their way into the pipeline leading towards jobs (or any perceived valuable resource) the more scapegoating and bullying may occur. Hierarchies whether formal or informal tend to shield the bully. The more competitive the environment the more jockeying for recognition, status and place will occur, which will create a higher percentage of people who will utilize the existing hierarchy to bully and scapegoat the competition.

Bosses in turn will utilize the cloak of status to displace their issues onto a subordinate or can use that power to extract favors from an employee. The psychology of scarce resources completes this trickling down effect and again there are no consequences in the work environment for not wielding your power ethically.

During industrialization in the U.S. when ethnic minorities were competing for factory jobs Polish jokes were circulated. Who broadcast these jokes about Polish workers not being smart? The various immigrants who were competing with Poles for factory jobs, began this disinformation campaign against their competition.

Hard work and dedication may be one technique people use to move up the ladder but there are no rules exempting bad behavior; the only goal is to move to the front of the line. The dictates of the game are pretty similar to the task as it was in fifth grade, after the teacher would clap her hands. It’s not how you play the game that counts, winners make their way to the front of the line, losers don’t. It feels odd to even write this last sentence as pushing, shoving, and bullying in the wishful world of school and work is not ok; though in the world of reality, jockeying for position and power occurs every day, and what’s most uncomfortable is acknowledging its presence. It’s as if a thorn is lodged in our collective side; but no one can acknowledge that it remains there, bleeding and stuck, invisible, except for the pain it causes.

The closely aligned yet fourth lesson I wish Mom had taught me

Where you work and who you work for can be as important as what you do.

Do people in your desired industry tend to be hired by the private sector or public? Is there turnover in this career or do people stay in the same industry (not the job) from cradle to grave? Talk to some individuals who are in a career you are thinking about joining. Are they satisfied? What are they happy about in their career and what are their dissatisfactions? Look for patterns in what people share with you. Are they dissatisfied with the pay, the lack of work/life balance, the respect and/or autonomy they are accorded at work?

Have you ever heard of the principle of least interest? It’s a classic Sociological theory originating in 1938 with a Sociologist named Willard Waller. He noted that when one partner in a relationship is more emotionally invested in the relationship than the other, the (seemingly) less involved partner has more power in the relationship. They can ostensibly exit the relationship with less pain. This can also be said of any relationship, even your relationship with work. Again, speaking about power directly is taboo in our society though its presence permeates almost all interactions. If you feel that you have an accessible exit ramp from a situation that automatically increases your sense of power in any interaction. Always have your references in hand and your networking skills fine-tuned and have a plan to follow that exit ramp into your next job, should you find that your job or company has become dysfunctional.

Nowadays (who thought that someday I would begin a sentence with that word) people talk about finding a career they feel passionate about. But a career is different from a hobby. A career needs to not only highlight your strengths, but it also needs to pay a living wage. You can be a “hobbyist” but then have a plan b for how you’ll earn a living while you try to get your ideal job in your ideal industry. Keep in mind who hires for what you do or want to do.

A job is not only about your “passion” it’s about the environment you will work in and how marketable your knowledge base is. After all your job may be your calling but you may still have to work among humans. Ask yourself some questions before you enter a profession: Can this job grow with me? If I end up transitioning from being single to part of a household would my salary be able to support a family? How about providing for retirement? Who employs this profession: Governments? Not-for-profits? Corporations? Are the skills translatable to another profession or can you transition from working for the government to a corporation with this skill set? Does this job require licensing? Would my license be transferable (reciprocity) from state-to-state or even country to country? Or do I have to get re-licensed every time I move? How much will it cost to maintain my license? Does my job afford a wage that will allow me to maintain any required license(s)? Does my work environment have the potential for a problem with bullying and scapegoating and if so, what would my exit strategy be? It seems that overall governmental health care organizations can have the most problematic and mismanaged work cultures and the most dissatisfied workforce.

When I was a psychotherapist, I had mostly female clients who would talk about choosing to be a teacher because the hours would mesh well with being a mother and a wife. But if these clients didn’t marry or more likely became divorced, they seemed to find themselves as single parents with the custody of a child trying to make do with a teacher’s salary. All of this was extremely stressful, and I would watch as these young, smart women were slowly ground down by life. You want a career that fits you now and allows you to grow into it over time.

The fifth lesson I wish Mom had taught me

There is more of an esprit de corps in the upper ranks of management than within the lower ranks of business. As there is power in groups of people being organized, managers form alliances

with each other. While this same behavior is discouraged among the lower ranks as witnessed by the pressures exerted on people to keep them from organizing into unions. So that power minorities can feel more fragmented in their ability to organize and advocate on their own behalf, while other groups of people float effortlessly to the heights of society and may socialize at golf clubs, country clubs, private members only clubs and schools and the infamous, previously mentioned, board meetings, that invite networking and forming the alliances that are necessary to advance your own personal or vocational careers.

In the 1960’s Eric Berne, MD, wrote a book entitled the Games People Play. The book developed the theory of Transactional Analysis which was a psychological theory that offered that sometimes people play manipulative games. The book seems prescient now because it describes the underpinnings of cancel culture (The game where someone is completely negated by one character flaw). This dynamic seems to have bled over into a national level with people now playing another game named “let’s you and him fight ”. This is where a party or person in power pits two subgroups against one another to consolidate their power and forward their agenda. It also may redirect a target’s attention away from a transaction or issue that somebody may wish to keep secret, onto an interesting or conflictual, though less important concern. An additional advantage to this game is that it allows the orchestrator to play a shell game with their responsibility in the conflict.

The middle class in America are currently being pulled into extreme political camps, fighting about which political stance is the best while interests that would affect almost everyone, for example, advocating for good paying jobs, seems to have been left by the wayside. One can only wonder who may benefit from these dynamics?

Also power down groups have more of a circular firing squad dynamic. Because people are jostling for power around relative equals, the more competitive amongst the group will take aim and fire at each other or sell information to the competition. It’s harder for them to create a unified front against their superiors.

Poor paying industries not only experience the original “thunk” of a financial dilemma, but they also bob in the wake of its repercussions: a lifetime of the stigma of being part of the working poor. The chronic stress of living in unsafe neighborhoods; managing food and housing insecurity, poor schools, struggling for adequate health care and health insurance, while attempting to provide for a family. Chances are your bad luck will be reframed as a personal shortcoming and everyone will run from you, as if poverty was contagious. All of this as you bounce in the chronic wake of a financial struggle. The future though may become the great equalizer, as I have heard the whisper that if the current economic trends continue, your job title will become less important, as generational wealth will become the primary means of providing an income to individuals and their families. Chances are when you are having difficulty at work people will define it as your individual issue but in reality, you are not alone. A Monster Job Board poll found that 90% of workers said they had experienced bullying at work. Clearly there is more here than an individual phenomenon at work.

I recently became aware of a job title called an “executive coach.” What in general are executive coaches? Individuals who help executives reach their life or work goals? Perhaps. But it’s also used as a euphemism for an outside consultant brought in to help a problematic manager. Again, that boss who has that special skill of being able to alienate all but the most dedicated sycophant.

Most everyone has had the joy of dealing with a boss who could suck the joy out of any job and who has led to the modern mantra “people don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses.” ¹²

By the way, if that boss was not a boss would he or she be staring at a pink slip, instead of an executive coach? Why is management so invested in another manager that they can’t address them directly about an issue and have to bring in an outside consultant? Would they extend this same courtesy to a non-manager? Or to rephrase this question, why is management, seemingly, not as invested in line staff as they are in upper management?

Sixth lesson I wish Mom had taught me

At a moment’s notice, always be ready to network. Networking to business is what small talk is to social interactions. It’s the infrastructure that supports other activities. Get an informative book on networking, adapt it to fit your style and then utilize these techniques. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now many jobs are not listed on job boards; people who have been networking find out about jobs before they are even announced publicly.

In general, I wish Mom had mentioned

Hierarchies are not inevitable, but the more individuals are scrambling to fit into one, the more likely bullying will occur. And because those at the top can bully down with impunity, those at the bottom have to cope with not only lower pay but more dilemmas about how to both defend themselves at work and feel satisfied with the work they are doing. These power down jobs may have a lot of responsibility but lack the formal means to elicit compliance from others. A classic recipe for burn out.

The military takes some jockeying for position out of the work equation because their hierarchy is rigidly defined and assigned but you still must manage the higher ups who feel that they may vent their frustrations on the lower downs with impunity.

Scapegoating is complicated

Most often people mention Narcissistic Personality Disorder as the most difficult character structure to work under. What is a Narcissistic Personality Disorder? The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-V defines Narcissistic Personality Disorders as:

…A pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, lack of empathy and five or more of the following characteristics: a grandiose sense of self-importance, (exaggerates accomplishments), preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, etc., believes he/she is special and should only associate with other high-status people, requires excessive admiration, has a sense of entitlement, is interpersonally exploitative, lacks empathy, is often envious of others, and shows arrogant haughty behaviors…

Narcissist Personality Disorder can be the most difficult type of boss to have as they are prone to bullying as it is a perceived perk of power to be able to treat underlings as you see fit. And bullying is an easy way to make an individual feel better about themselves. It is a quick hack for low self-esteem. As an aside, a quick tip to tell if you have a narcissistic boss is to watch how they interact with others. Do they thrive on compliments and surround themselves with “yes men?” This would be an indication that at the core of this group of door mats lies a narcissist.

An enraged narcissist, who feels that their unique talents have not been recognized, can become very angry, resentful and retaliatory. Narcissists tend to be very ambitious and offer a lot of praise to higher ups because they know that they appreciate praise. They want to hop over anyone in a hierarchy in a desire to climb to the top of the mountain and achieve the money and adulation that they feel they deserve and that comes with being at the top.

The essence of a narcissistic manager parallels the fable of the emperor who had no clothes. Narcissists are acutely aware of their deficits, so they establish a facade, to keep the doubters at bay. The biggest worry of a narcissist is that they are a fraud and that others may see past their shell to the incompetent, fragile person within. If the narcissist feels that you can see this “real self” they will become enraged and retaliatory. This is why they need to be surrounded by “yes” men, who acknowledge this “false self” as their true personality. If you are competent, social or smart this may trigger the manager who worries that they do not have these strengths and if they feel that you are more capable, they may begin to scapegoat you. This is how you maintain the “Peter Principle” in a hierarchy with the competent workers left behind and those, whose primary skill is ambition and the ability to not threaten a superior, moving up the ladder.

The way to subtly manage a narcissistic boss is to reassure them of their abilities and never disagree with them or hint that they have a weakness. They just want to hear that they are right and the best at all they attempt. I feel western societies tend to cater to this type of personality when they handle people’s egos with kid gloves, instead of focusing on a particular fact or truth.

Do you have a boss you like? Compliment them on their strengths. Do you have a boss you hate, complement them even more. Do not mention their weaknesses (even a difference of opinion can trigger a narcissist’s self-doubt thereby unleashing a stream of anger directed at the messenger.) Try heaping praise onto your boss and observe how they react. Is there a spark of humility in their response? Chances are you are not dealing with a narcissist. Do they suck up compliments like a bug to water, this could be a narcissistic character structure at play.

Being a new employee or being in a power down position in a bullying environment, is like being a child in an angry family: don’t get in the way, don’t ask questions, don’t step out of line, and be very nice to your caretakers. The consequences for stepping out of line may be steep and may consist of scapegoating, ostracization and expulsion. These become the work environments where the employees wander the workplace like frightened deer, constantly scanning the field for predators, consulting with their boss before each blade of grass is carefully chosen, and then haltingly chewed and swallowed.

Women and men, beyond passion

Industries tend to be segregated by gender so that women are clustered into certain fields. Jobs that women gravitate towards tend to be lower paid than male dominated fields. In addition, we have all heard at this point this statistic, and it applies even in female dominated jobs, that women are paid 20% less for doing the same work as a man. So that female dominated industries not only pay less, but the women in them also are paid less than their male counterparts. All of these dynamics push women down the ladder of power at work. This then raises two red flags when searching for a job as women tend to bully other women and low status jobs tend to have workers who are vulnerable to bullying. Proceed cautiously when choosing a low status, low paying career, especially if you are a woman.

When an industry is lower paid the knowledge base or labor is devalued leading to these fields being the first to suffer layoffs and cutbacks in staffing and funds during a recession and the last to feel the benefits of expansion during a bull market. All of these factors affect culture and morale in the workplace and should be considered when thinking about what field of study or career you would like to enter or transition into.

Does America have a separation of church and state?

Early on in social services a decision was made for the government to contract out “direct” services to charities, or not-for-profits, as they are currently called. Most of these non-profits were run by religious organizations.

In the U.S., if you are receiving social services from a governmental agency, chances are you are receiving services from a third-party religious organization contracted by the government to provide this service. And, for example, one of the largest contractors for social services to local governments in the U.S is Catholic Social Services.

I think this can be confusing to the public as there is no notice given to clients about who administers a particular program. It is like wandering into the Department of Motor Vehicles building to renew your license only to find out that now it’s both a DMV and a chapel, where one is encouraged to sit in the lobby and pray while they wait until their number is called to take their driver’s license exam. Of course, this arrangement benefits the government as the cost of providing social services is less when your contractor is an organization that is able to subsidize the cost of providing a service. But there can be some hiccups along the way such as when the goals of non-secular organizations may not run parallel to that of the government, such as some charities that will not hire LGBTQ+ staff or adopt out children to LGBTQ+ parents due to religious objections or may not want to counsel pregnant women on abortion options, also due to religious concerns. Inviting religion into a business can cause conflicts of interest, dual relationships and create hurtful feelings and ultimately foster the politicization of schools and clinics as people wonder why a particular religion may be represented but not their own. It may also lead to theological assumptions preempting academic theory and practice in the workplace.

This lack of separation between church and state in social services is not only confusing for the consumer, but it can also be confusing for the employee as well. I once applied for a job as a psychotherapist in a private for-profit counseling center that marketed itself as secular. Although as the interview wore on the psychotherapists all disclosed that they provided Christian counseling services and that all staff meetings began with a prayer. I had another job as a social work intern that was at a not-for-profit administered by a small city suburb that was curated, managed and run by all “born again” Christians. I also was employed at a large secular non-profit that contracted with the city and county of San Francisco that wanted to institute prayer at the staff meetings.

Currently, public schools are under attack from within and without, ranging from shooting incidents on school campuses to groups of an activist minority who would like public money to fund schools, yet also have these schools be considered private, so that religious instruction may be incorporated into the curriculum. The state of Texas has currently ruled that schools may employ, and pay with public dollars, chaplains instead of licensed school social workers and educational psychologists in their counseling departments. There is also some talk of having mandatory postings of the ten commandments and other passages from the bible posted in public schools and historically there has been pressure to have public school teachers offer religious instruction.

I must say, to my eye, it seems like the public school system, which historically has been flailing due to most of its revenue being attached to property taxes, is currently experiencing additional stress. The recent attacks on the public school system; both from shootings that have occured there and agenda items from groups who would like property taxes to stretch further to include paying for public schools that include Christian religious instruction, seems like it is burdening an already drowning public school system, to the point of collapse.

Even mentioning religion, in this book, could be perceived as a reason to bully or badger someone into silence, even though religious activists advocate for religious activities to be included in public life as a part of free speech rights. Perhaps this is a piece of what Thomas Jefferson anticipated when he said that there should be a separation between church and state.

I have also found that there is a type of bully who usually presents themselves as meek and mild interpersonally and would never say a demeaning word to somebody’s face, who flourishes within the invisibility offered by a group or institution. This bully only shows themselves under the cover of anonymity and will attempt to influence a group as long as they are not accountable for their words or actions. They have even been known to pounce on people over the internet, as long as there is a lack of accountability. And really, if you think about it, being a bully and trying to force your opinions on others, while hiding behind the pillars of a large institution is clever. It’s harder to push back against a large system as opposed to a few people who might have a personal agenda.

Historically, the founding fathers identified as religious Deists to minimize the problems that can be associated with having a difference of opinion when institutions are involved. A Deist believes in God but not necessarily the human institutions built around the concept of a god. In the history of democracy this worry that business, government or even religious institutions would begin to take over and rule the United States and eventually erode democracy was expressed as “the tyranny of the masses” who could cancel out any minority voices that might exist in the United States.

As a client, if you want a Christian counselor be clear from the beginning that you want a non-secular service from your therapist. Also, as a client if you walk into an agency that is affiliated with the government and you want a secular service you need to interview both the agency and the counselor to make sure that you are receiving secular services; as again the government contracts out most direct social services to religious organizations. Also be aware that in most states religious mental health counselors are not required to be licensed. Many individuals though who do want a profession that meshes with a religious culture can find their way to mental health/ social service positions.

When church and state are blurred some of the vestiges of a religion may cling onto the profession. In social service/mental health professions there can be a hesitancy towards social change. Of course, this can occur when a profession becomes co-opted, but it is also supported by a tenet that runs through Christianity and therefore runs through social services and other parts of society that have a religious affiliation. It’s the concept of predestination vs. free will.

If our life is predestined, for example, whether we will be rich, or poor is determined by God. The concept of free will is the opposite. This notion allows for an individual to control their destiny and therefore the outcome of their life. Organizations who may be influenced by this 16th century addition to Christianity, believe that workers may help to ease the plight of the poor or disenfranchised but changing their destiny is best left for God as it reflects “god’s will.” In that only god decides who will remain rich or poor, sick or healthy.

Predestination is interwoven through many of the social service policies in the U.S.

This 16th century concept has also bled into the secular world, in the form of “Social Darwinism.” Darwinism and Social Darwinism are different. Charles Darwin, a biologist noted that species randomly change to adapt to their environment to survive. Social Darwinism put more of a self-serving spin onto Darwinism by interpreting random change as signaling that Darwinism consisted of “survival of the fittest;” essentially this meant that only those who mastered capitalism, the rich, were favored by God and meant to thrive. A convenient 20th century “rebranding” of the 16th century predetermination vs. self-determination concept.

Darwin’s results could be interpreted to mean many things but that ultimately, the ability to accommodate helps us to better fit into our ever-changing environment. Adaptability then is the key to survival of a species. But in the end, what’s most interesting is the spin some groups placed on this concept of biological evolution.

The main character in Jane Austen’s fictional novel Emma is also a good example of predetermination. Emma was the daughter of a wealthy family in 18th century England. She would intermittently help others in her community who were poor and sickly by bringing them blankets and food. This illustrated both her place in society and the station of those she ministered to. Her role in her community was to help the disadvantaged, not to change society, so that, for example, one day poverty might not exist. She might lessen their burden, but she did not tamper with fate. Only God could do that.

Historically social service workers were affluent wives who voluntarily ministered to the poor; it was not the role of these women to interfere in “god’s will.” In addition, their husbands might be on the Board of Directors that managed these same charities. Again, many of these men cared about the mission a charity dedicated itself to, but it was also a statement of a man’s social standing to be asked to sit on a board.

In essence, people are asked to sit on the board of a not-for-profit when they know networks of people who can contribute money to the charity. Due to the overlap within the social services industry between religion and government, these institutions may be mired in a predestination model. Systemically, employees are limited to offering services that mimic the small necessities that help to ease the discomfort of the disadvantaged, but policy makers and government seem disinclined to address the roots of psycho-social distress.

Organizations may reluctantly accept displaced children but are hesitant to adopt children out, not wanting to interfere with God’s primacy within the biological or nuclear family (a policy termed “reunification” by U.S social services.) Social service workers may ease the plight of those in distress due to poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, mental illness, or substance abuse but organizations do not implement solutions that would address the fundamental problems in society that contribute to their caseloads. For example, by assessing the social mechanisms that keep disabling policies in place and pressing on the levers of power that could lead to profound changes.

Governmental agencies of course sometimes seem perennially stuck; unable to effect any real change due to many prevailing forces, not only a belief in predestination.

I mention all of this not to criticize the necessary services contractors provide, but to highlight for future workers in certain professions, that some fields may not have a clearly marked delineation between church and state. And I remain hopeful that any divisive dynamics will not continue to seep into mental health so that the integrity of what the profession offers and the services that the clients receive remain intact.

Another small point.

When you go to a work interview try to meet the person you will be working for.

I have been to so many interviews where multiple people were present, even many subsequent interviews where again multiple people were present, though never my potential boss. When hired, a boss with a big enough ego may resent this. In fact, I have witnessed a director silently refusing to work with a subordinate because she didn’t have a say in hiring her. Eventually she fired this worker for not doing her job well.

When in a group interview, I ask who I will be reporting to and I try to get a sense of that person before I work for them because as mentioned above, who you work for can make or break a job. In an interview not only assess the pay and job description, try to gauge the work culture, too.

At some point hopefully they will give you a tour of the office. Look around, what do you see? Are people smiling and talking with each other or is everybody locked in their own cubicle? Do the workers all look the same age, race or gender? Is the workforce diverse or similar? I look for diversity in all of these variables with a relaxed, engaged office vibe. I try to notice if there’s a walking on eggshells feeling and if people are keeping to themselves. Both of these can be warning signs of an unhappy work culture.

Examine the physical building and office. Social services in America always seem to have a shabby, careworn look with that same donated (stinky) sofa sitting in the lobby. Politicians don’t want their constituents to feel like they are spending too much money on social services, which in itself is an interesting mentality. In addition, both liberals and conservatives tend to be suspicious of the government so the attitude tends to be “starve the beast” and maybe if we don’t spend money on public services nobody will notice when they just disappear. Then when politicians talk about tasking the government with let’s say universal healthcare; all that comes to mind are long lines, inefficiency and a profound lack of customer service. And politicians are surprised when they meet resistance to government being assigned an essential service. People now assume that all bureaucracies will provide assistance that is less than stellar, and this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yet another point

Pink collar industries tend to be subsidized by white collar industries.

Here’s an article from the Washington Post that illustrates how women are more likely to leave the job market when there is a crisis, and their partner makes more money. ²⁰But after all it’s only logical. If for example a pandemic occurs, and childcare is not available, or your wage doesn’t cover the cost of childcare; either the woman will have to quit her job to take care of the children, or the cost of childcare will have to come out of her paycheck. In a female dominated profession this might mean her job is operating in the red. Whoever has the lower paycheck will eventually be tasked with providing childcare.

I have heard economists refer to a phenomenon that’s called “economic scapegoating.” This is the idea that when there are economic downturns in the economy, and capitalism always has downturns and upturns, institutions may support bullying and blaming of immigrants and power minorities for the pain that’s caused by these contractions in the economy, as a way to re-direct attention away from the lability and fragility of the economic markets. This can lead to an increase in racism, sexism and antisemitism in a nation, which can then lead to policies that are exclusionary. Imagine then if you work in a “pink collar” female dominated industry, a not-for-profit or governmental agency that’s always having to tighten its belt. The repercussions of this chronic stress are ever present, ready to be unleashed onto the next unwitting employee.

Ok, yet one (or two) more points

There is a non-profit called B Corps that rates organizations on various criteria including employee engagement. Although they rate very few companies currently, including government entities. ¹³

There’s also a Dignity at Work movement that has taken root in western European nations but for whatever reasons has not found a toe hold in the U.S.

Productivity

If you work in any environment, you will eventually be introduced to the concept of productivity and all business enterprises work at increasing productivity, which can be defined as decreasing costs and increasing the money you take in and add to the “bottom line.”( i.e., The money business owners get to put in their pockets.)

But what is the one thing that companies could do if they were truly interested in a low cost, sustainable way to increase productivity? Increase employee engagement. Study after study has shown that “from an extensive review of the academic literature available on the topic, it has been identified that organizational productivity is conditional on the level of their employee’s productivity.” And employee engagement is crucial for employee productivity, as bullying and scapegoating do not increase employee engagement. ¹⁴In fact, these work characteristics create the opposite and produce an environment of employee alienation and distrust.

^\A closely aligned concept to client engagement is that of the idea of safety in an environment. As a rule, most people don’t perform their best without feeling a sense of personal or psychological safety in a situation. Without a sense of personal safety, it’s hard for people to accomplish tasks. Similar to the idea of infrastructure in a country. If a nation doesn’t have highways, waterways, trucks, boats and airplanes it will be hard to transport goods, which affects a countries

productivity. If people don’t feel emotional safety in a particular environment, they may not be able to participate or perform a job function adequately. They will be especially hampered when it comes to taking risks in psychologically unsafe environments. Tied in with the concept of safety is the ability to be “authentic.” This is the ability to show yourself to others, warts and all. Most work environments are of course not designed to be psychologically safe environments.

I cringe when employees are asked at work, perhaps in an informal mediation session, to share feelings with another coworker, especially somebody who is bullying them. This is by definition an unsafe environment, and most people will not disclose and will only speak in superficialities or utilize misdirection and answer one question with another. All of these tactics and more are used to create barriers between us and others that are usually necessary and required by most work environments. Before you can expect that people will be vulnerable or truthful you have to ensure the existence of safety; that people will not be covertly or overtly be punished for expressing their feelings, this is a hard if not impossible quality to find in most work environments and even in some personal relationships. Most work environments are not designed to monitor the work culture nor to ensure that it’s supporting worker engagement.

Sometimes in the interest of egalitarianism a company will invite subordinates to interview a potential manager or boss. I have then seen a boss be hired and then fire those who “voted” against him or her in the hiring process. If you are a subordinate in this situation, be aware that once you attend this interview you are running a political gauntlet and your vote should be guarded as once the hierarchy is re-established management will support those higher up in the food chain and if you did not support a candidate (now boss) you may be forced to exit, stage left. Also, after the manager is hired the power differential is back in place and if you question your superior, you will be punished for questioning someone above you in a hierarchy. This then would be a classic example of an unsafe environment.

And Yet Even More Points

The line between a bad manager and an abusive manager may blur at times but in general abusive managers are trying to sabotage your work performance (and not improve it) and then use this as evidence to chip away at your self-esteem and job stability. Either way the endgame is to destroy self-esteem so that the perpetrator can feel better about him or herself. Also, individuals who lack a sense of self confidence are more malleable and easier to control.

This is where our instincts can help by alerting us to danger.

When you consistently reach for a bar at work and it’s raised higher, without acknowledgement that it was within reach before it disappeared, with the chronic criticism that always seems to follow, if this dynamic becomes a pattern, you may be locked into a much bigger routine, then just work. You may have slipped into a struggle designed to make another feel superior at your expense.

Once others in your office become aware of your scapegoat status they may begin to pile on as management has given them tacit permission to target another person. And most people (again around 65%) follow a manager’s lead. If this is a pattern and your environment is chipping away at your self-esteem it is an indicator that something is wrong with your surroundings, especially if there is a history on the part of the company in the form of lawsuits for harassment or discrimination. Before you accept a position with a company make sure to follow through with your “due diligence” and research the organization to not only find out if they are financially sound and what employees are saying about the company, but also to see if they have been involved in any lawsuits with former employees and what the outcome was.

Ultimately, my definition of abuse, whether at work or in the home, is the same. Perpetrators only strike if they think they will not be held accountable for their actions because of their place in a hierarchy. An abusive organization will not try to problem solve or work to resolve a difficulty; they will only escalate their bad behavior while attempting to erode a scapegoat’s self-esteem.

An abusive manager may isolate an employee or even a whole department. They thwart workers from reaching their job goals and in facilitating the employee’s ability to do their work. Some

managers or departments seem to be constantly at war with their employees. They will instruct coworkers to not include the target in office parties, outings, and activities. They will withhold information necessary for other people, especially targets, to do their job. The manager may frame the victim as the cause. Why do you stand out? You’re not tough enough, vulnerable enough, you laugh too much, too little. They may take credit for an employee’s ideas. A higher-up may be exploiting their status in the hierarchy to extract sexual favors from a subordinate. The essence of what can trigger an insecure boss is when they see an employee has a skill that they do not possess. An employee, for example, may have good social skills and be well liked. If the boss senses that he or she is not well liked this can trigger severe anger, especially on the part of a narcissistic manager towards the skilled employee.

Weak managers attempt to control workers’ performance with a stick rather than a carrot. The classic bad manager is the micromanager. This supervisor has “control issues” and will try to affect every action an underling takes. They tend to be compulsive and have a hard time delegating their workloads. These types of workers also have a hard time completing tasks because they cannot set priorities and tend to get lost in the small details as everything is prioritized equally, so tasks do not get completed. What makes this boss hard to work for is that they want you to do your job exactly the way they would do your job. And that you do not makes them very nervous.

As an aside, some hacks for managing a micromanager are counterintuitive. When someone seems to want to intrude into your every action the instinct can be to keep them at bay but using a different strategy may be helpful. Keep the micro-manager informed of the big goals you are reaching for, ask for their input on issues that are not central to accomplishing your job (and that you are able to follow through on.) Allow them to contribute to the minutiae of how you work, if they feel more in control of what your day looks like, this hopefully will free them up so that you may do your job. Let your supervisor help you with ideas about how to accomplish these small tasks and thank them for the assistance. Keep them occupied with busy work and let them feel involved in your work again to appease that sense of control; nothing increases a sense of volition more than involving an individual by soliciting their opinion.

Another common bad boss is the tantrumer/ screamer. Much like an out-of-control child they yell and scream hoping this will coerce others into doing what they want. They may be the company hitman who is charged with whipping other employees into shape. Did you meet a quota? They scream and yell. Did you not meet a deadline, they scream and yell even louder. Most people begin to automatically tune these folks out. The vocational screamer is trying to affect an employee’s behavior with their yelling. Now if someone could just decode exactly what the screamer wants it would actually solve the problem. This does begin to be like “crying wolf” and eventually these types of bosses are either avoided, ignored or both.

And lastly, I wish mom had mentioned…

Power should always be balanced as a disequilibrium in power positions will eventually be exploited by those reaching for power or control over others

If you wanted to create a scam, what industry or section of society would be the best to target? What group of people could you almost guarantee would need to show up for your scam?

People who want to work. Almost everyone needs a job, and this demand creates a built-in customer base for any con artist. I even have a friend who found herself working for a fake corporation. She found out months after she was hired when she walked into the break room only to be greeted by the FBI. This is article¹⁵about an old scam that has been repurposed on the Internet. Companies pose as legitimate businesses but then they steal and use your personal identification to commit identity theft and make money from their employees. This happens more than you think, and people are usually too embarrassed to share this information with other victims as they worry that they will be blamed for not vetting a potential employer. I don’t know about you, but I am noticing a theme where perpetrators hide under the cloak of blame and shame that a victim might experience, in order to help them commit a crime.

A lot of the work you can do about arming yourself against a bully is preventative. Do your research on a career before you enter it and again be aware that if you choose a low status/ low paying career, on top of all the other duties you will have to perform, expect learning to defend yourself against a bully will be added onto that list.

I guess we should end on a happy note

Here’s an article describing the characteristics of a good boss. I think most people know what is required to be a good person or a good boss, but perhaps the reality of their environment makes these goals unsustainable. ¹⁶

Endnotes:

1. https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/whipping-boy.html, retrieved 5/22/23.)

2. (Ecological systems theory – Wikipedia, Retrieved 1/21/21.)

(https://www.baattorneys.com/los-angeles-county-social-worker-receives-1-583-844-in-retaliation-jury-verdict-win/, retrieved 8/11/20)

3.(https://smallbusiness.chron.com/tall-vs-flat-organizational-structure-283.html, retrieved 3/26/20.)

4.(https://www.fiscaltiger.com/what-is-a-co-op/ retrieved 3/26/20.)

5.(https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/DoD%2520Law%2520of%2520War%2520Manual%2520-%2520?June%25202015%2520Updated%2520Dec%25202016.pdf%3Fver%3D2016-12-13-172036-190&ved=2ahUKEwi27J2V5_HtAhUPvZ4KHS0UCMkQFjANegQIKRAB&usg=AOvVaw0D6O28kI2jMQYVBoqCsN8L, retrieved 12/28/20.) Dpt. of defense

6.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/11/rebekah-jones-fired-florida-covid-19-data-chief-speaks-out-after-raid/3893165001/, retrieved 12/16/20.)

7.(https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/03/when-parents-kill.htm, retrieved 5/21/20.)

8.(https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/11/us/aj-freund-death-dcfs-arrests/index.html,retrieved

9.https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html? retrieved, 9/20/20.)

10.https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/emotions/male-female-bullies2.htm, (Sex Differences in Cooperation: A Meta-Analytic Review of Social Dilemmas, Daniel Balliet, Singapore Management University and VU University Amsterdam, Norman P. Li, Singapore Management University, Shane J. Macfarlan, Oregon State University, Mark Van Vugt, VU

11.(Why disadvantaged neighborhoods are more attractive targets for burgling than wealthy ones. | USAPP, retrieved 9/23/20.)

12https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/people-dont-leave-bad-jobs-bosses-brigette-hyacinth/ retrieved 4/6/20.)

13. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Corporation, retrieved 7/27/20.)

14. An Empirical Study Analyzing Job Productivity in Toxic Workplace Environments. Retrieved December 20, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5982074/)

15.https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/elpaso/news/press-releases/fbi-warns-cyber-criminals-are-using-fake-job-listings-to-target-applicants-personally-identifiable-information, retrieved 5/22/31

16.https://www.businessinsider.com/signs-you-are-a-good-boss-2017-6#youre-a-good-coach-9, retrieved 6/21/21.

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The Bully Pulpit-How to Cope with a Bully at Work