Hounded From a Job

Have you ever seen someone hounded from her job? Once, in my practice as a psychotherapist, I worked with a patient who had left her job after it became so toxic that it was making her sick. She told me about the frequent occasions when she had been “taken to the woodshed” by her supervisor. My patient, who was in her 50’s, had left a good position at another company to “move up” into the job she was then at; she had been known as, and knew herself to be, a competent and well-liked worker in every other position she had ever held. She had never needed to see a psychotherapist or counselor before. Now, at this new job, no matter what she did to try to please her supervisor, the “woodshedding” continued. She became depressed and anxious, and began to doubt her sanity; her husband, deeply concerned, did some online research and identified the situation as one of workplace scapegoating. It’s really not very uncommon, especially (for some reason) in workplaces dominated by women. [This phenomenon bears some resemblance to playground bullying: one kid gets tagged as being an “outsider,” and all the other kids abuse or shun the child. Adults who see this happening can do little to intervene.]

Anyway, my patient did her best to stick it out despite the pressure, because her family was heavily dependent on her income and her health insurance benefits. Eventually, however, she felt she needed psychotherapy. During the time she was in therapy, despite her serious demoralization, she managed to get back into the job market, and eventually found another position (not easy to do, if you are in your 50’s and you can’t get a good recommendation from your current supervisor!).

Here is an excerpt from the website that promotes the book Scapegoats at Work:

“Have you ever felt unfairly treated, singled out, accused, or blamed at work? This book addresses an all-too common yet rarely discussed workplace phenomenon—scapegoating. Each year, thousands of workers seek professional help for job stress, and many more attempt to cope through alcohol, drugs, angry outbursts or emotional and social withdrawal. Employee turnover, absenteeism, substance abuse and stress claims cost the economy billions of dollars each year, and yet many workplaces have developed a culture which actively promotes all of these ills. This is the culture of scapegoating: a process of identifying individuals then blaming, and punishing them for problems that rightly belong to the larger organization.

Scapegoats At Work is a book about recognizing and combating this process by understanding how the individual and the system act together to bring a myth to life. It is a survival manual for people caught in a scapegoating workplace. It is also a book for workers and managers who wish to develop cooperative ways of dealing with individual differences and to create a working environment that is not only more humane, but also more efficient.”

Scapegoating is not the only form of workplace bullying; sometimes it is a simpler, but no less toxic, situation involving a supervisor or co-worker on a power trip. Often, it is a case of deliberate retaliation against a “whistleblower,” a worker who has spoken up about an issue that somehow touched a nerve. Usually there is little help to be found for the target of the bullying, because nobody else wants to get involved, for fear of becoming a target, also.

This is a serious problem in many workplaces, but information about, and resources to address the problem are growing. I have posted a few website links in the left-hand column of this blog, under del.icio.us.