#11 Office bullies

Growing up, I had two bullies: first, a boy and later, a girl. I gave equal opportunities; that's how cool I was even when tormented. The boy gave me hell for a year in elementary school. He was the same age as me and attended my class. What started with some bad jokes and teasing about my looks followed up with hair pulling and stairs-pushing and ended when he punched and knocked me down in the middle of a group of parents waiting to pick up their children. To be clear, it did not end because he felt terrible about it-- at least at first-- and not because the teachers at school asked him to do it-- in fact, they asked me what I had done for him to behave that way--he ended because my mother spoke with his father and threatened to kick the boy the next time he laid a finger on me. That day, I learned how powerful a committed (and angry) woman can be.

My she-bully appeared in my life in my first year of high school. She was a year older than me and was in recovery from leukemia. She was much taller than me and did not like to be looked at, corrected, or put on the spot. In the first week, I raised my hand to answer a history question that she couldn't answer, and that day, a target appeared on my face. I ran from her for months, but at that time, I did not tell my mother. The teachers dismissed my complaints -- I was kicked and pushed. She hid my backpack, planted my notebooks around school, hung my sports clothes and coats outside on the trees...-- and I kept on running until she got bored and left me alone. I was lucky. That's what I learned that year: sometimes we get lucky.

After many years of study and peace, I thought the bullying phase was over-- in fact, I forgot about it-- and then, I started to work. Later, I had children and saw their happy moments and struggles growing up, games with friends, and fights with other kids. I wish I had never had to face bullying, but I did, and I shared my experiences with them... but not all. I shared my experiences at school but never told them about work: some of the things I've lived and some of the things I've seen.

Throughout my career, I've shared laboratories, offices, and planes with many people, men and women, from all over the world. Due to the kind of business I've worked in, I've mostly been surrounded by men, as it used to be when I was in university. There was no difference in the gender mix but in how everyone behaved. Whether you were a woman or a man in my university, the uncertainties and fears were almost the same: failing exams. Whether the students were younger or older, failing was the thing no one wanted. At work, I discovered gender was important, age and experience were relevant factors, and personal fears can be worse than dynamite. I never thought bullying was a thing... until I saw it. Until I lived it.

Last year, one of my team members asked me what the worst thing I had gone through or seen at work was. She asked that because I was fuming about an incident with someone in the office, and I commented that I had seen worse. When she asked, I remembered two things I had not thought about for many years: one lived, one seen. You can let me know what you would have done if you were in my shoes on any of those occasions.

The first.

I was young and eager. I had a deadline to deliver a report with data points I had collected for weeks, and I was staring at my computer regardless of the conversations happening around me. One of the engineers, someone I had known for years, was teasing me to enter the conversation, but I had told him a couple of times I was busy, something he did not like. Moments later, I noticed him picking up the scissors on my table and heard it: "Zap." The next thing I saw was that same man dancing in front of me, laughing, holding a piece of my hair in front of me. I did not react for seconds, and most people around him did not move. He laughed hysterically, almost proud of what he had just done, until another engineer, his right-hand man, picked him by the arm and dragged him out of the room. I kept looking at the screen, trying to breathe, trying not to cry, while the guys around me silently disappeared. The "right-hand man" was the only one who talked to me afterward. He asked me to go to the Human Resources department and make a formal claim. "He could be fired," he told me. There I was, missing a lock of hair and thinking I couldn't do that to someone married, a father...

I did not complain. I did not speak. He never apologized.

The second.

I had been working for over a year on a project that seemed to be the mother of all surprises: if things could go wrong, they would go. When I was about to move to another assignment, I worked part-time to support the colleague taking over my work files and the new project leader. As I said, that was a tricky project where everyone wanted to show they could do what no one had done before: transform the continuous problem into a peaceful flow of activities. One day, the project leader called me to a meeting room and complained about the guy running the database. He was deeply concerned about the progress of activities, pressed to have better results to present to higher management, and above all, he was pissed. A lot. He demanded answers, and I told him I no longer ran the show. Angry at me, he called the other guy to the same meeting room and asked him the same questions. I stood in the corner of the room and watched it all happen: how he quickly moved from asking to demanding, how the tone of his voice turned from curious to aggressive, how he positioned himself between the other man and the exit... and how he made an adult man cry. That's when he let him out of the room. I left immediately afterward.

I did not complain. I did not speak. He never apologized.

I am not proud of how I acted in these two cases. I failed myself the first time for caring more about a bully than me, and I failed again the second for not standing up for someone who needed it. Still, I learned something: if you want to change things, you need to speak up.

I tell myself we should aim to do better than children, but then I remember who they learn from...