Dealing with workplace bully?

Anyone have any advice? Every situation is different, so here is some background information.

Guy is pretty good at what he does, although frankly I carry more of the burden at this point. There are two of us that do the same job. He has been there longer than me by a few years. Talks down to everyone. Except boss of course, classic naked man on a ladder: all smiles above him and @-hole below. When I say talks down, I mean I've heard him say things like "come back when you know something", or "why would YOU get a bonus, you don't know how to make [our product]". Every woman in our office just cringes when they have to go see him, he talks to them like they are dogs. Except the ones he views as his pets, which he is so icky sweet nice to it makes you want to puke. At least a dozen people have asked me, how do you stand that guy? At least until today.

We are peers, and I have no choice but to work with him. Tension has built up over time and today it was released a bit. He came into a meeting with one of his typical agenda: self-agrandizement and belittlement of everyone else (specifically me). Normally myself and others just ignore his comments, as arguing back with him is useless. My boss wants to avoid conflict at all costs, ironic because that is all one guy causes. Pure poison to the company. Anyway I had just had enough today and I called him on his specific BS, he obviously didn't understand what I was explaining and if he could let me finish before barking insults I might clarify everything. This of course sent him into a rage, telling me to shut up, calling me a liar, etc. Totally off the deep end. No one dares to question him, at least in his own mind. At some points both of our voices were raised I must admit.

I wish I could describe adequately how incredible this situation was, our boss and the plant manager were once again trying to calm him down rather than say hit the road. Later my boss emailed me that he appreciated my professionalism in defusing the situation (although in hindsight my calling him on his BS was what caused it). I told him I would talk to this guy and try to reach an understanding about our working relationship as it needs to be mended given the needs to perform our duties.

I expect the silent treatment at best and a replay of tirade at worst in a couple of days when I try to talk to him. My strategy is to graciously exit the conversation if he acts as I suspect, but will certainly make it clear "when you are ready to work this out let me know, but understand that we absolutely will have to reach and understanding before we can move forward and that will likely not be exactly as you want it to be. This behavior towards me will not be acceptable."

Anybody else go through this?

 

Hey,

you have 3 options because a good friend of mine went through the same kind of thing

1 - Ask him nicely aside into a meeting room and say your thing in a very decent way (because these people were bullied before in their life) what you think and that you don't like it what he says/does. But you have to be careful with this as these people don't care about others at all.

2 - Raise this as a concern to your employer/director. But don't make an official complaint, but just say okay this is going on at the moment. And maybe ask for a different spot on the floor

3 - Ignore it, which will be the hardest thing to deal with as you spend a lot of time together.

So hopefully this will help you a little bit

Lex

 

What type of industry do you work in?

How large a company?

Do you have a full-time HR Manager or Director in the company?

Most HR Managers receive specific training in this type of workplace harrassment. For example, SHRM trains in this.
I'd open a case with your HR Manager and let them follow their procedures.

The guy needs specific counseling and a workplace performance improvement plan. Any missed milestones in that plan should equal termination.

 

Id pull him outside and introduce him to my buddy "Pavement"

But thats just how I roll

 

We were sitting next to each other in this meeting, and at some point later we were both standing on opposite sides of the room, probably subconciously because we knew some distance would be good to prevent a physical altercation. It was pretty intense. I got up when he was yelled at me to shut up, I told him we were done and started to collect my things. He went and grabbed higher ups because he was sure he was right, even though he obviously was way out of bounds.

This is a manufacturing facility and we are in the process of expanding. He has wanted no part of a section of this, instead leaving it to me. I predicted months ago that he would try to swoop in and take it over, as I saw him do this to another guy a couple of years ago on another project. He still brags about how he saved it and how stupid that guy is, even now. So I made it a point to invite him to every meeting, send him every email to the group relevant to this project, and he never replied or showed up a single time. So he knows nothing about it by his own choice, and expected it to go to crap because his magnificence was not involved.

Except it didn't go to crap, and now he knows nothing about it and it is almost done. So what does a guy like this do? He tried to bully his way in and couldn't understand some fundamental aspects of the equipment. He wouldn't listen, and insisted on jumping around rather than just letting me explain it. Then he tried to cover his own ignorance of the project by asking other unrelated questions and trying to pass them off that they were his real intention all along, which was complete garbage. That was when I called him on it. Tactfully the first time, a little more argumentative the second time. So in his fury at one point he started screaming that because he had seniority he got to choose who was on projects and I was off. Get out of here. Go home. I may have laughed, or just looked in amazement at the balls of this guy to try to grab some glory for himself after his last cluster****.

My only response..."we will see about that."

I'm not a "my turf, his turf" person, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let this guy do this crap to me as I have watched him do to others.

Boss backed me up. At this point Mr. Bully said that I could have the whole project, which I did anyway because of his actions months ago. I'm sure in a week or two he will make some snide comment that "It's all your hotshot." My only response will be that it always has been mine and was never his to give.

BTW, business has about 300 employees and a full-time HR manager who has had to deal with him before. But that is really the "nuclear" option with the dynamics of the business, as it would piss my boss off without a doubt. Bully is a couple years away from retiring, I think I can just wait him out. Due to a previous blowup a year ago my boss let him work from home as much as he likes. Those are nice days and the air in the office is noticably lighter when he is gone. After people realized that I don't bite their heads off or talk down to them, they come to see me about problems and avoid him anyway.

 

If you bully a bully they become your friend.

unfortunately they still treat everyone else like crap.

 

Since it's out in the open already I'd immediately go on the offensive and strategically undermine his every move. It would be my mission, with no remorse and without mercy.

 

First off, Congratulations.

Let him **** himself.

The only acknowledgment you should give in reply to those patting you on the back isn't a smirk or a comment, but a wink, because - People talk, sometimes unwittingly - to rats. Do know this - Your standing amongst all your fellow employees just grew, even amongst his suckass/rats, as they're going to hear the unvarnished truth about him from the rest of 'em. Even moreso when he gets the boot.

Let him **** himself.

In the meantime, do NOT let your adrenaline get in the way. Next time he gets dressed down in front of others - should be by the Powers that be, as he's on their radar. In the meantime, be a mistake fixin', hard-workin' mofo. I fix the mistakes of others. Cryin' shame is, those others are paid to fix mistakes. Tomorrow, I'll go back and fix 3 days worth.

Let him **** himself.

If you knew how many tenured *******s I've let **** themselves in the last few years, you'd weep with joy.

 

Find where he keeps his lunch and wipe your ass with his sandwich.

 

So, what does that make the bully of your bully?

 

Yes, Jerry, that is how you roll.

 

There is a line between defending yourself and being a bully back. Despite my desire to see him pushed over the edge and do something really stupid, provoking him intentionally or undermining him is what he does to me and others. It is a dark place where he is and I don't want to go there.

 

Yes you do. It's a challenge to take him out on his own turf and there’s no better satisfaction than that. It appears that you’re the only one who’ll man up to this guy and he knows it.

 

Just sleep w/ his wife/GF

 

I can think of some suggestions if you want to be underhand

1) Let all the air out of his tires

2) Report his license plate for speeding/driving recklessly

3) Put Laxative in his coffee

4) Fill his computer with spyware

5) Spill stuff on him by accident every time you see him

6) Find out where he lives and pour paint thinner on his grass


Just a few I can think of

 

There is NO WAY I would lay back and allow it to continue, not for yourself or anyone else at the company you work for. Since beating his ass with a tire iron is out of fashion according to workplace HR these days, consider the following:

I would outline the major issues the bully creates that has a negative effect on the company and it's employees in a well drafted memo, and turn that over to your boss and the plant manager (ask to be on record with your grievances). I would be crystal clear that you have had enough of the bully's behavior and his detrimental effect on the company as a whole. Consider bringing an alliance of people who feel the same to a meeting with your boss to discuss the issues. Make sure you have proper solutions plotted as to what you can do with the bully so he is out of your way for the rest of his time with the company.

 

Eh - but then one runs out of ammo - and - Supers will get used to the idea of molding Sergeant Dork into behaving, while tundraphile becomes the bad guy. **** that. Let Sergeant Dork keep on creating a hostile work environment - then - pounce for the kill. Buh-bye, Sergeant Dork. Sometimes, it only takes a day. But, if one goes for the jugular right away - oh-ho-ho, does time ever stretch.

 

I had a similar situation years ago.

I was working in a software company, I was hired a couple weeks before another guy. The other was older and while we had the same position, I trained him for the most part because his prior job was nothing to do with IT. Our group leader left, and the director of IT was a real wussy and tired to solve every problem by splitting things down the middle. The other guy used to take on irrelevant projects just to have something to do, but because he was more inexperienced in the technology, he would be missing the forest for the trees.

Just to illustrate the level of frustration involved, here's a few examples: I suggested to the IT director that we standardize on computers rather than buying whatever was on sale at Best Buy (as the group leader used to do). The boss agreed, and I got quotes from Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. The other guy found some local shop who said he would build us computers for something like $50 less. I of course was very against that - but the boss said "let's get 50 from Dell, and 50 from this shop". They were a mess - incompatible parts, no service, all different pieces, etc. The Dell's were great, and because I got the managed PC's, we could manage them centrally and it was easy to swap parts in case of problems. This obviously upset the other guy and stuck in his craw. Another example, we wanted to get a new internet connection. I got a great deal on frame relay and it allowed us to use VPN to connect the various offices around the world for short money. The other guy got a quote for a T1 line for internet and 4 other point-to-point T1 lines to each of the other offices (which were sales offices with 2-3 people - point to point T1's? come on!). The director of IT split it down the middle and got the frame relay connection, and 2 T1 lines to two of the offices - completely idiotic. The last straw was when we decided to start an internet site for our company in-house. I did a lot of research and we wanted to use Microsoft IIS in a dual computer setup with an auto-failover. The other guy lobbied the boss to use Apache on Unix because "all the big companies use that". We didn't use Unix in house, and we needed to interface our software to the computer, and with IIS we could write an ISAPI filter - and we had Microsoft developers in-house, no problem. With Unix, we would need to use CGI/PERL and had none of that in house. The IT director's solution was to have the main server be IIS and the failover be the Unix server (a Sun Netra they bought for $25,000). So we had to write the software twice, in C++ for an ISAPI filter, and again in CGI/PERL, which never worked right.

Those are all true examples - just the stupidiest situation you can imagine. And if I said black, he said white, and whatever I suggested we do, he'd go and do research online then refute what I said with print-outs of websites with people disagreeing with what I had said.

There was a lot of tension, and we tried to solve it by picking projects that were unrelated so we didn't have to deal with each other. But the tension was still there. One day I arrived to work about 10 minutes late and there was a note taped to my door that said "when you decide to get to work, I need to see you about X project". That was the last straw. I grabbed it, crumpled it up, walked into his office, threw it at his face and told him I was giving him an assbeating after work. He was a wuss and wouldn't admit to leaving the note, and I walked out. He came into my office saying he wasn't afraid and would meet me later in the week somewhere (whatever). Then he went to the boss... who sat us both down and tried to work it out.

The other guy and I shook hands and made up and worked a lot of things out. But the real problem was that the boss wouldn't take control and manage, and tried to let everything just work itself out. And with nothing defined, I was doing most of the work, and he was trying to take control of most of the projects, and either making mistakes or getting me involved because he didn't know what to do.

I ended up resigning... because the boss couldn't pluck up the courage to define roles and stop the bickering. The other guy was laid off a year or so later and they hired someone who really knew the job.



Point being, this situation is toxic. To be frank, your boss sounds like a real ***** who is afraid to lay down the law. And HR seems the same. This guy needs to have his role defined, and he needs to have his professionalism kept in check. He needs to be read the riot act. I think you need to push back a bit on HR and also on your boss. It's one thing to send you supportive emails behind the other guys back, but someone higher up than him needs to let him know that he needs to get his ass in gear and bump up the professionalism by a few notches. If your boss or the HR person refuses to do this, then perhaps getting several people together for a group meeting on a day he is not there would be helpful. Guys like this poison the morale of the workplace and kill profitability. It's obviously also weighing on your mind and bothering you, so you really need to get it handled. Life is too short to be miserable at work.

 

This is exactly what i would do

Also perhaps this too

 

+1
I'd do what I could to get him to early retirement...
Sign him up for AARP and drop him a box of Depends and some nitroglycerin caplets, then ask if he needs some cream to treat the liver spots (at the next meeting).

BT

 

iis failing over to apache?

insanity

 

He is old enough to retire any time he chooses. His boasting about his personal finances a few months ago was that he only needed another few thousand to get to his retirement goals. My comment during that lunchtime conversation was that we could take up a collection and raise it for him that day.

Anyway, my take on his increasingly irrational behavior is that he has what amounts to extended short-timer syndrome. We used to call some who had put their notice in as a short-timer, it was difficult to motivate them and since they would soon be gone anyway they didn't care how they acted (very unprofessional characteristic BTW). IMO he already has this mentality and feels he has nothing to lose by pushing the boundaries as far as he can go. The problem with pushing like this is that the only way you know you are over the line is when you actually cross it, and most people also realize they only have a few of these opportunities before they are gone.

Observing him for some time he appears to be quite insecure and covers this with over-the-top arrogance. He always has to have someone to blame, someone was the idiot that messed it up, everyone is stupid but him. Likely his insecurity manifests itself as a fear of retiring and losing control (even if that control is an illusion). Probably a big fear is choosing to retire, and then a year from now regretting his decision and having no one else to blame but himself. So therefore he will push others until they force him to leave, or the alternative is that he gets to do whatever he wants until this happens. Either way he "wins" in his mind. At least if he is forced to retire he will have someone to blame when he is sitting at home, miserable with nobody to belittle but his poor wife.

Today and tomorrow he is working at home and sulking.

 

Mike is right. This conflict needs to be resolved and your boss needs to mediate it. He should set up a meeting for the three of you to sit down and hash this out in a professional manner. Anything less is unacceptable.

 

Yeeeeeeup.

I could go on and on. It really was insanity.

The company had around 200 employees. The owner was bopping some woman, and made her director of IT when the company was 20 people. He got into an argument with her one day about personal stuff, and "fired" her, and made her lickspittle/hanger-on the director of IT. His name was Todd, and he was essentially a professional ass-kisser with zero knowledge or experience in IT, other than being a Cobol programmer about 20 years prior. He'd sit in meetings and say "well, which one do you think Dan would like better?" (Dan was the owner). It was never about money, or profitability, or access to data, or security, or cost. It was only about how much it would ingratiate himself to the owner. We used to piss money away like you wouldn't believe - like that $25,000 Sun Netra that sat, switched off, in a corner for years because we never got it to do what we wanted.

I went from that company to working at Digital Equipment Corp. Night and day - bunch of professionals at DEC. I loved it.

 

I think you nailed it with your comment on his insecurity. A lot of people I've noticed tend to be overly confident when they have serious issues with their self-consciousness.

Kudos to you. And I think the email from your boss says a lot on how he boss feels about you. They probably want to get rid of this guy, but know he only has so much longer before he retires so they let him be.

My dad told me about him almost beating the ever living **** out one of his bosses one time, in front of his bosses boss. My dad had a lot of respect for his bosses boss, as he did for my dad and took my dad on a walk to calm down. Some people just don't know how to treat others properly. And too many of them end up becoming managers/big wigs because of their ego and lack of compassion unfortunately.