About me

I'm a 42 year old woman.  I live in a large city in the UK.  I have three sons who I raised pretty much on my own as my (then) husband ran his own business and was at work a great deal.  I am now divorced.  I saw each of my children through their teenage adolescence on my own (not recommended for the weak hearted!).  I  had my own motorbike and hung out with bikers for nearly 25 years. 

I’m laid back, have a good sense of humour and a quick wit.  I’m fairly confident, competent, intelligent and have no self esteem problems because I’m okay with myself, I like who I am.  I’m not nasty, I don’t gossip, I’m straightforward and honest.  That’s the way I’ve been brought up, I don’t know how to be any different.

I get on with people.  People tend to like me because I'm funny and easy going.  I don't take offence easily.  I accept people for what they are, at face value.  I have never had a problem with anyone, ever. 

I consider myself a bit private with a tendency to be a little bit shy and sometimes quiet, but I'm a happy person and I like my life.

I work as a secretary for a large company in the city centre.  I enjoy my job, the work is interesting and my bosses are nice.  The people I work with are nice people.

Or so I thought.

This page documents my first ever encounter of bullying.  It was a truly horrific experience and I wish to document it for others to read and perhaps, maybe, learn from it. 

The bullying came out of nowhere and knocked me down flat.  It was unexpected, underhand, insidious, intimidating and completely uncalled for.  I was, literally, stunned by the sheer nastiness of it.  It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had. I couldn’t believe this had happened to me, I didn’t deserve it in any way.

This is my story.

My Office

My office is large and open plan in an office block.  I’ve been here for four years and always enjoyed the work, my bosses and my colleagues.

In my four years here departments and personnel have been moved three times.  When I first started I sat with a group of five other secretaries, and they didn’t have a single mean bone amongst them.  We went out for lunches and just got on, helped each other, had a laugh as we worked.  It was an extremely pleasant working environment and I missed their company when everyone moved.

After the second move I ended up sitting on my own.  Mine is a small department with just me and my three bosses, so we were separate from everyone else.  I didn’t mind it that much as I’d made many friends in the company and someone was always coming over for a chat.  I made them laugh.  I only felt my isolation when the printer packed up or the computer software had a spasm and there was no-one to say, “Bloody thing!” to. 

After a year, the company moved us round again.  This was six months ago.  I was delighted to find that I would be sitting with a group of secretaries I knew, I’d have company again. 

As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

My only concern about being part of a group again was one secretary, who was extremely effusive and loud and came across as being quite aggressive.  I didn’t think I’d get on with her at all, but she turned out to be the nicest one of them all.

It was the others I should have worried about.

The Others

Our group of seven secretaries consisted of:

·        myself, “Alison” (42)

·        the hyperactive but heart of gold secretary who I shall call “Mary” (50ish)

·        “Joan”, who had a very dry sense of humour and was always overloaded with work (40ish)

·        “Carol”, very down to earth despite having The Worst Boss in the World (50ish)

·        “Pat”, an Asian lady who had briefly been a police officer and had recently married (I went to her wedding reception) (40)

·        “Sue”, a chatty young girl (23)

·        “Lynne”, a pleasant enough woman but a bit stuffy – definitely saw herself as superior to the rest of us (50ish)

The bold names were my bullies.  All real names have been changed.

The Beginning

I’d been working, very happily, with this group for about three months.  I thought we all got on.  I joined in the general banter and was enjoying my job.  In hindsight, I think I was a bit complacent, but you can’t go round expecting the worst all the time, can you.

Our desks were all grouped together.  I sat in the middle of the group, facing them.  My desk was directly underneath one of the heating vents.  There are several lines of vents on each floor, with several ‘blowers’ in each line.  I sat at my desk for weeks after the move, hot and sweaty, trying to acclimatise.  The heat just seemed to intensify.  If you walked across the office to my desk, you walked through a discernible column of hot air.  I was bloody boiling.  My skin prickled from the heat, I had constant headaches and was ready to fall asleep at 3 o’clock in the afternoon from heat exhaustion.  A pint of chilled water on my desk would be tepid after 15 minutes, that’s how hot it was.  It was like working in a greenhouse in mid-summer.

Eventually, in January, I couldn’t take it any longer and had the one ‘blower’ turned off directly above me.  The rest of the heating vent worked, I just had the one blower turned off.  I didn’t mention this to anyone as it was just me sitting underneath it and I didn’t think it would affect anyone else.  Once it was off, I felt much better, the headaches went and my pint of water remained cold.

Two weeks after that, it started.

Monday - Day 1

I went in on Monday morning having walked through the city centre in glorious sunshine feeling pretty good, despite it being Monday morning.  I got to my desk early, and then everyone else arrived, except Mary and Carol, who were off sick that week (so it was just the five of us).

It started straight away.  I didn’t pay it any attention at first, everyone's entitled to 'off' days.  One of the secretaries, Lynne (the superior one), said she was cold, but this is nothing new – in an office, some people are always cold, some people are always warm.

Sue then said she was cold.  Again, nothing new.

Then Pat said she was cold, really cold.  Suddenly, like a rusty engine starting up, all three of them started repeating how cold they were, over and over again, one after the other, almost synchronised.  It was extraordinary.  I thought they were joking at first, but they weren't, they were serious.  I didn’t say anything, I just carried on with my work as best I could.  I wasn't sure what was going on.

“Aren’t you cold?” Lynne suddenly snapped at me, while the others looked on, Pat smirking.

“No,” I said, “I think the office is quite warm, actually.”  Not just me being 'hot blooded' (which I'm not), other people were sitting around without jackets.  It was, most definitely, not cold.

“Maybe we should throw water over you if you’re that hot,” Lynne snarled.

I looked up from my work then.  Lynne had said it not in a casual, jokey way, but really maliciously, as if she really meant it.  “Oh thanks!” I said, and all three of them all looked at me and laughed.  I was the centre of attention, providing them with entertainment, and I didn't like it one bit.

I felt very  uncomfortable after that, but ignored it as best I could.  The morning was punctuated by loud, in-depth conversations amongst the three of them about the office temperature and frequent mentions of how cold they were, so unbelievably cold.  They made a big fuss about putting on cardigans and jackets and sat huddled and shivering in their seats in front of me.  They tried to involve Joan in these conversations, and she said she wasn’t cold but then she was busy and didn’t have time to notice anything – including what was going on in the group.  Joan didn’t really like to get involved. 

I tried to ignore it all, but I found it deeply hurtful.  I didn't understand why they were doing this.  Nobody had said anything about the one blower being turned off, they just attacked without warning.

At midday you would have thought the second ice age had come the way they went on about the temperature.  I was starting to feel extremely intimidated.  I was up and down from my desk a lot, at the photocopiers and printers, but every time I returned the three of them would be in the middle of a conversation with each other and then they'd suddenly stop and glare at me.  As soon as I sat down, one of them would say, “It’s so cold in here,” or “I’m bloody freezing,” or “My fingers are too cold to type.”

It wasn't cold!  Nobody else was saying they were cold, just these three, repeatedly.  They were playing some really nasty game.

I kept my head down.  It would stop, I kept telling myself.  If I didn't react, they'd soon get bored.  But they didn't stop.  They kept on and on, so cold, they were so cold, unbearably cold.

Then Pat said, “Oh I’m so cold,” in such a strange way – like a petulant child – that I looked up quickly from my work and saw her grinning at Sue and Lynne.  She saw me staring at her but clearly couldn’t stop grinning, and had to pull her cardigan up to cover her face.

I knew then that it was all deliberate, that they were doing this on purpose.  The realisation made my internal organs drop and I felt a rush of blood to my face.  It was like being hit with a baseball bat.

I was being verbally attacked.  It was an awful feeling.  Three of them were attacking me, deliberately.  I was quite literally stunned.

It snowballed after that.  In the afternoon, in between overblown conversations about the temperature, Lynne looked at me and told the others, “We’ll just have to keep on until we get the heating turned back on again.”

“No you won’t!” I snapped, “I’ve had enough already!”

The three of them all turned to me at once, and burst out laughing.  It wasn't a natural laugh, it was really hard and nasty.  They'd got a reaction out of me, and they were loving it.  I felt incredibly intimidated. 

I tried not to say anything else - I didn't know what else to say, to do.  I simply ignored them as they went on endlessly about the temperature.  They worked themselves up into an excited frenzy, all of it instigated by Lynne.  It was incredible to witness, like mass hysteria, but bloody awful to be on the receiving end.  Lynne seemed indignant about the fact I’d had the heating turned off above me (yet hadn't spoken to me about it).  Every single time she left her seat and marched behind the others, she’d say something like, “We shouldn’t have to work in these conditions!” or “It shouldn’t be down to one person to control the temperature of the whole office!” or “This is intolerable!”

I felt completely out of my depth.  I’d never come across this kind of insidious behaviour before.  They actually seemed to be enjoying themselves at my expense.  They kept looking at me and grinning and whispering amongst themselves.  It was terrible.

I went home feeling very upset.  But, I told myself, it was just a bad day, Lynne had obviously been in a crap mood and the others had joined in because they were bored.

Or something like that.

It wouldn’t happen again.  Just a one off, I kept telling myself.

But it wasn’t.

Tuesday - Day 2

As soon as the three of them arrived the next morning, they started all over again.  They were cold.  The office was freezing.  Didn’t I think it was cold?  No, I didn’t.  I must be hot blooded then, how could anyone think it wasn’t cold.  Are you cold, Pat?  Oh yes, Pat was cold.  How about you, Sue, don’t you think its cold?  Sue thought it was freezing.

“I wore my thick trousers today,” Lynne announced out loud, “And I still can’t feel my legs.  This is ridiculous!”

“I’m wearing boots and my feet are like ice,” said Sue.

“I can’t believe how cold it is,” Pat sniggered, glancing at me.

Over and over and over again, one after the other, taking it in turns.  And every time they said something, they’d all look over at me - Pat grinning, Lynne sneering.

I asked around the office, but nobody else seemed to think it was cold, just these three secretaries.  People had their jackets off.  The office temperature was normal.  But they just went on and on and on.

I kept my head down, feeling bloody awful, but the comments were relentless, all of them directed at me.  They got to me.   

I came back to my desk after photocopying something and found the building maintenance man up a ladder by my desk.

They were having the heating vents checked because they were so cold.  The maintenance man positioned his latter under the blower I’d had turned off above me.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"They want me to turn the blower back on."

The silence in the office was suddenly deafening.  They were all standing at their desks staring at me.  I said to the maintenance man, "Don’t turn it back on, I’ll boil.”

“But its so cold in here,” Lynne roared, as the others stood there grinning at me (like children watching a fight).  “We’re freezing!”

I blanked her.  I didn’t know what else to do.  I just ignored her and the others and tried to get on with my work.  The office was most definitely not cold, they were making an issue out of nothing.  They insisted the maintenance man take some tiles out of the ceiling above them to ‘draw the heat over to their side’ (they sat right in front of me!).  They demanded he take the temperature at desk level to find out exactly how cold it was.  Later, the maintenance man returned to check the thermometer.  It was 21.7C (72F).  The maintenance man tells them that’s normal room temperature.  Lynne snarls, “It should be 23 degrees!  This is intolerable!”  She furiously glared at me.

I have never felt so intimidated in all my life.  I didn’t respond to their comments, I didn’t want to make it any worse than it already was and I didn’t really know how to react, what to do, what to say.  I'd never been in this situation before.  I just wanted them to stop. 

I felt under attack, abused.  And still they continued.  On and on about how cold they were, how cold it was, glaring at me, constantly smirking and whispering amongst themselves.

“I’ve actually had to put my jacket on!” Lynne snapped, pulling her suit jacket on over her thin blouse.

“I’m just so cold,” Sue whined as she sat there in her skimpy tee shirt.

"I can't believe how cold it is in here," Pat said, grinning over at the others.

On and on and on.

Eventually, I couldn’t take it any more.  I was desperately upset by it all, I felt in deep distress.  I went to my manager barely able to hold back my tears and said, “I want to move desks, they’re being really nasty!”  The manager looked at me with surprise and said she’d arrange it, but she didn’t intervene at all, she didn’t come over and say anything to any of them, didn't try to find out what was going on.

I was, effectively, left alone with a situation I didn’t know how to handle because I’d never encountered anything like it before.  The snide comments continued unabated.  This was undeniably a systematic and insidious attack and I’ve never felt more alone in my entire life. 

I went to my boss, crying, and asked to take an early lunch because something had upset me.  Before she could respond, I raced from the office and walked around the city centre, crying uncontrollably, trying to compose myself, trying to stop feeling as if I’d been physically attacked – that’s what it felt like, as if I’d been physically abused and couldn’t catch my breath.    I kept chanting to myself, “Suck it in, Alison.  Don’t let them get to you.  Stop bloody crying.”

I don’t cry.  I certainly never cry at work.  If my children, my family, people I love are unhappy, I cry for them, but I never cry for myself.  Never.  And here I was, walking the streets, completely unable to halt the tears of misery.  I didn’t understand what was going on, why it was happening, what I’d done to deserve such despicable behaviour.

I felt sick going back to the office.  As soon as I walked in, I saw the three of them all huddled together in a group, whispering to each other.  They all turned as one to glare at me as I came in.  Sue muttered something about being sorry if she’d upset me, she hadn’t meant to.  I told them I didn’t want to talk about it, I couldn’t talk about it - I didn’t want to start crying again in front of everyone, everyone who was now looking at me because a fuss had obviously been made about me leaving the office in such a state.  I was embarrassed. I don't like attention, and the focus of the whole office seemed to be on me.  I couldn’t stop myself crying.  I didn’t want to give them the pleasure or cry in front of all the people who were now staring at me, and hurried to the kitchen area.  Pat chased after me. 

“None of it was directed at you,” she said.

“Suggesting you throw water over me isn’t directed at me?” I sobbed.

“I didn’t hear that,” she said.

No, I’ll bet she didn’t.  “Just leave me alone,” I said, walking off.

The manager's desk is right outside the kitchen.  She heard it all (and told me later she'd heard Pat saying they hadn't meant it).  But still she did nothing, didn't take control, didn't take the situation in hand.  She simply ignored it.

The atmosphere in our group was diabolical after that.  I was too upset to talk, to work, to do anything, I just sat there like a zombie wondering why this had happened, why it was happening to me, why they were being so incredibly nasty.  Work was impossible, I couldn’t think straight.  A client rang asking for someone and I couldn’t think who it was.  It was my boss.

They didn’t speak to me at all after that.  I was well and truly ostracised.  They were silent except when I left my desk, when they would huddle together to whisper and then  fall silent again when I returned.  Someone from another part of the office came down and said, “There’s a bit of an atmosphere down here.”  It was palpable.  I wasn’t imaging it.  I felt physically ill and so tense I could barely move.

I went home traumatised, completely unable to understand any of it, totally unable to comprehend the behaviour.

Wednesday - Day 3

I was apprehensive to say the least going into work the next day.  I was absolutely dreading it.  Surely they couldn't continue ignoring me.

Oh, they could.

The silent treatment was intensive.  Except for Pat, who grinned whenever she spoke to me like I was a three year old.  “You alright, Alison?” she’d ask, with a huge smile, while the others looked on.  “Are you okay?”  It wasn’t meant in a nice way, it was demeaning and patronising.

I sent an email to my manager, who was working in a different office that day.  I wrote:

My manager replied that it certainly wasn’t acceptable behaviour and asked who the ‘ringleader’ was.  I told her it was Lynne.  She replied that she wasn’t surprised as Lynne could be “very difficult”.

At last, someone had taken notice, someone else thought that this was unacceptable behaviour too.

I thought it would all be sorted.

It wasn’t.  I sat there all day, silent, upset, nobody speaking to me, listening to the whispering and the giggling going on right in front of me.  It was excruciating.  I returned to my desk at one point.  Pat and Lynne had their backs to me and didn’t see me.  I heard Pat saying, “When shall we have the heating turned back on?” and Lynne saying imperiously, “She's moving soon, I think we should at least wait until she’s gone.”

It was awful.  Truly awful.

Thursday - Day 4

I was physically sick before leaving the house for work.  I cried on the bus and had to force myself to go into the office.  This wasn’t like me at all - I'm an easy-going, happy person and this feeling of dread was overwhelming, like drowning.  I didn’t know what was happening.  I actually felt as if I’d witnessed some horrible accident, that I’d been involved in a terrible crash or something.  I felt like I'd been physically mugged.

I approached my manager immediately.  She didn’t take me to a private room to discuss it, so I had to tell her everything in the middle of an open plan office, in front of other people.  I again explained to her what had happened, what had been said.  “I don’t deserve to be treated like this,” I told her.

“Nobody’s approached me about the heating problem,” she said.

So, all that fuss, all that going on and on about how cold they were, and none of them had actually gone to the office manager to complain about the heating system. 

No, they were enjoying themselves much more sorting it out themselves.

“I’m not sitting there,” I told her, “I’m not sitting at that desk with them a minute longer.”

“I’m in meetings all day,” she said, “I can't deal with it now, just sit there for now until I can arrange for you computer to be moved.”

I had no choice but to sit down.  The others came in, silent, glaring.  I went to the toilet and threw up, that’s how bad it was.  The atmosphere was so awful that the temp secretary we’d had the day before rang in to say she wasn’t coming back.  We were sent an email about it: “The temp said the department was unfriendly, nobody helped her and the atmosphere was terrible.”  And the atmosphere wasn’t even directed at her, it was directed at me, but I was still there, suffering this nightmare.  As soon as the others got the email they started furiously tapping away at their keyboards in response, no doubt blaming me for the atmosphere.  I wanted to fall into a hole and disappear..

I packed up my belonging (my smiley faces, my funny pictures) ready to be moved.  My desk was empty and nobody said anything about it.  They ignored it.  Just as they ignored me.  I kept going to the toilet to heave down the bowl.  I’d never felt like this before, intimidated, violated, humiliated, treated with such inexplicable cruelty, being used as entertainment in some vicious game.  I felt they were just waiting for me to move so they could have the heating above my desk turned back on again, that's all they cared about, nothing else.  I found it intolerable, unbearable.  I had no resources to deal with this.  It was absolute purgatory.

While I sat there, clearly distressed, trying not to cry or throw up, Lynne sat at her computer, smiling to herself and humming.  Her personal comfort was her only priority.  She was clearly a woman who was used to getting her own way and got it no matter what she had to do.  I’d dared to turn a heating vent off and she wasn’t having it. 

That was all they cared about.

I felt overwhelmed.  I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.  My heart was pounding so hard in my chest I thought it might actually explode.  Mid morning, with no sign of me moving in sight, I stood up, I faced all three of them, sitting so smug at their desks.  I looked at each one and said, “I cannot physically tolerate to sit here with you any longer.  You got what you wanted, you’ve made a grown woman cry, and I hope you’re very proud of yourselves.”

They look back at me, absolutely stunned.

I walked out of the office.  Outside I rang a friend in another department who knew what had been happening, and blurted it all out in between fits of sobbing.  She told me to go back and talk to my boss, to at least tell him why I’d left.  I go back into the building and call my boss from reception, asking if I can talk to him.  He comes down straight away and I explain what has happened.  He’s appalled.  He wants to get the HR department involved but I’m too upset, I need to go home, I just need to get away.

[Later I find out that my friend telephoned my boss and said, “I’ve just spoken to Alison.  She’s desperately upset and I just want to know if anything is being done about this.”  To which my boss replied, “Oh yes, something is certainly being done about it!”  I think my bosses were told by my manager that it was being dealt with, when it wasn’t.]

Friday - Day 5

I emailed my manager from home and told her I wasn’t coming in, that I was taking a day off as holiday because I simply couldn’t face coming into the office - just the thought of it filled me with absolute dread.  I asked her if my computer had been moved to another desk.  It hadn’t.

The manager rings me.  She tells me she’s ‘had a word’ with Pat and Sue (but not Lynne) and that they’re very upset, that they’ve denied everything, that none of it was intentional, that it was all a huge misunderstanding and I’ve taken it all the wrong way, blown it up out of all proportion.  I try to tell her it was no misunderstanding but she positively won’t have it.  She tells me to go out for a coffee with them to sort everything out like its some silly secretary squabble!  This was no squabble, this was a mobbing, a vicious attack instigated by one woman who incited others to join in.  This was bullying.  There was no doubt in my mind about this.  And it was being ignored.

Suddenly I’m being labelled a super-sensitive woman prone to hysteria who takes offence at the slightest thing!  This is so beyond what I’m really like that I’m dumbfounded.  At my last PDR (Personal Development Review) the following comments were made: about me:

·        A very popular member of the secretarial team who always displays a positive attitude and remains calm at all times.  Has demonstrated her commitment time and again with her ‘can do’ mentality and determination to provide a good service to clients

·        Alison is always welcoming to new people within the department and keeps everyone amused with jokes and amusing comments

·        A true team player in every sense of the word … very happy to assist others and has established good working relationships with individuals in other departments and other offices

·        Extremely good at multi-tasking and thinking on her feet … [her work] is valued greatly by her fee earners.  Her ability to troubleshoot problems, even when they are not necessarily hers to sort out, greatly reduces the pressure on those around her

The weekend that followed was awful.  I couldn’t stop crying.  I was so dreading going into work on Monday that I became hysterical.  Only my ever-patient (and bloody furious) partner stopped me from going completely over the edge.  I couldn’t sleep.  I couldn’t eat.  I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  ‘Something on your mind’ took on a completely new meaning, it was in my head all the time.  I couldn't think about anything else, concentrate on anything else.  Why had they done it?  Why had it happened?  Why was I being treated this way? 

Why was nothing being done about it?

I tossed and turned all of Sunday night, trying to sort it out in my head, to comprehend how people could be so incredibly nasty.  I just wanted to understand it so I could cope with it, but I couldn’t.  My partner was so incensed he threatened to come into the office to sort them out, but this was something I had to deal with myself.

Monday - Day 7

After throwing up at home, I forced myself to go into the office on Monday morning.  I went straight to my manager and asked to speak to her privately.  She asked if she could bring her porridge with her.  In a room, I told her yet again what had happened, what they had done, how it had affected me.  She again told me I’d taken it all the wrong way, blown it up out of all proportion, and did I really believe they’d behave like that.

“But they did behave like that,” I insisted.

“They’ve denied it,” she said.

“If I imagined it, why did they suddenly stop speaking to me?” I said, “Why did they ostracise me?”

“They said you were unapproachable,” the manager said.

Unapproachable?  Me?  I would speak to anyone, help anyone, make anyone laugh.  I’d never had a problem with anyone in my four years at that company, never complained, never caused or took offence, just got on with my work and got on with people.  Suddenly I was being described, out of all character, as unapproachable?

“I can’t say I like your attitude,” the manager added, pacing up and down the room.

“I’m bloody angry I’ve been treated like this,” I told her.  “I didn’t deserve it, it’s unacceptable behaviour, and you’re not doing anything about it!”

But she was adamant.  She refused to accept what I was telling her.  We were there for almost an hour, me furious and upset, the manager agitated and clearly unable or incapable of dealing with the situation.  “There’s an atmosphere in the whole office,” she said, “And I’m not moving your desk until you sort it out.  Now go and talk to them, argue with them if you have to, but get it sorted.”

I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall, with me telling her I’d been bullied and the manager saying I hadn’t, that I was overreacting, that it was all my fault.  Now she was telling me she wouldn't take me out of that intolerable situation until I sorted it out - not her, not management, not them, me sort it out with them.

I felt I had absolutely no choice but to go out there and face them again, my persecutors.

I approached our group of desks.  They all glared at me.  I was desperate to get my desk moved, to get away from this incredibly nasty group of people, and swallowed every ounce of pride I had.  I said to Sue, “Do you fancy going for a coffee?”  She looked at me, terrified, and said she was sorry but she was busy. 

Good start.  Sue immediately ran off to speak to the manager.

I looked at Pat.  “Coffee?”  Pat agreed eagerly.  We went to a local café and sat there, me explaining how upset I was by their behaviour, Pat grinning and casually saying they hadn’t meant it.

“We were wondering if you were menopausal?” she suddenly asked.

I looked at her.  “Fuck off,” I said, “I’m not that bloody old.”

“No, really,” she giggled, “We were wondering if you were menopausal.”

“Fuck off, Pat.”

Like an over-excited child, she then started rambling on about my star sign and how they should watch out for the sting in my tail.  She told how my manager had ‘explained you down to a tee, she described you perfectly,’ whatever that meant (another dig).  She rambled on about how she’d told her husband about my behaviour and he couldn’t believe it, couldn’t remember who I was (I’d attended their wedding reception).  “He couldn’t even remember who you were,” she laughed again (another dig).  She asked what my partner thought about it.  “He’s not very bloody happy, I can tell you,” I said, and Pat laughed, all but clapping her hands together with glee. 

“I said to them after you left on Thursday,” she twittered, “I said to them, we’re going to get in trouble for this.”

“In trouble for what?” I asked.

“In trouble for making you leave the office like that.”

“How did you make me leave the office, Pat?”

Her smile faltered a little as she realised she’d said too much.  She started babbling on about how she’d told her bosses what I’d done, how I’d behaved, and nobody could understand it. 

So much for ‘sorting it out’.  Pat was still revelling in all the drama, really enjoying herself.  She was as high as a kite on it all.

I just looked at her and thought, you silly, stupid cow.

“So you’ll agree its best if I move my desk?” I finally butted in.

“If that’s what you want,” she said cheerily.

It was, most definitely. 

One down, two to go.

We went back to our desks.  I sat down.  I realised instantly that they’d had the heating above my desk turned back on again, full blast.  How long before I left the office on Thursday had they arranged that?  Minutes?  I sat at my desk beneath a column of unbearable heat, unable to say anything, sweating, hot and bloody fucking miserable.  Eventually Sue said, “Shall we go for a cigarette?” and we went outside. 

I told her what I’d told Pat, how upset I was by their behaviour.  Like Pat, she said they hadn’t meant it, but she couldn't look me in the eye.  Sue is young and was obviously uncomfortable with the whole thing, so I didn’t push it, I just wanted my desk moved, that was all I cared about now, to get away.  As we stubbed out our cigarettes I said, “So you’ll agree its best if I move desks?” and she nodded.

Two down, one to go.  Only I couldn’t face Lynne.  Not because I was afraid of her vindictive, superior mouth, but because I couldn’t bring myself to even look at her without feeling this incredible rage inside me, like a volcano ready to erupt.  I'm not normally an angry person and I admit the rage I felt towards this woman frightened me.  I couldn’t look at her without thinking, how dare you, how dare you do this to me, who the hell do you think you are to cause someone even a minute of misery.  So I didn’t say anything.  Lynne wandered over to me during the day (as I sat there sweating) and muttered something about work, then wandered off again.  No explanation, no apology, just carry on as normal.

I emailed the manager: “All been sorted, we’re all okay now, we all agree its best if I have my desk moved.”  She replied, “I said it was all some silly misunderstanding, didn’t I.”.  I looked at her words and thought, is this the way life really is, lying and scheming to get what you want?  Is this really who I am, a liar who lowers herself like this to escape something from something horrible?

I sat there all day, unbearably hot, unable to speak to them, just waiting to be moved, while all around me the other secretaries happily (and victoriously?) carried on as if nothing had happened, so very cheerful.  I felt depressed, dejected, despondent.  I felt I was in the middle of some awful nightmare.  Everything seemed unreal.  I went for cigarettes and cried.  I went to the toilet and cried.  I just wanted to get away from something I found utterly despicable.  I wanted to be pulled out of the car crash and be able to recover. 

I wanted my desk moved.

It wasn’t.

Before I went home that night, I went for a last cigarette.  A mate from another department came out too.  When she asked me what the matter was and I blurted it all out.  She was disgusted.  “If that had happened on my floor,” she raged, “All the secretaries would have jumped on it right away.  Your manager should have acted immediately!”

It’s nice, when you’re in the depths of despair, to hear someone say that you’re not really going round the bend, that it was unacceptable behaviour by anyone’s standards.

My management had let me down and failed in their ‘duty of care’.  They were, in effect, in breach of my contract by allowing it to happen in the first place and then compounded it by doing nothing.  (When I later queried the legalities of this I was told that, unless it was race, age, or sex discrimination a case against my inept management would be long and expensive, and would probably fail.  Yep, thanks).

Tuesday - Day 8

Eight days after this all started, I once again hauled myself, more miserable than I’ve ever felt in my life, into work.  I rang my partner before I went into my office, crying uncontrollably because I felt depleted.  It was like going into a war zone, uncertain when the next bomb was about to go off, the next snide remark, the next dirty look.  I was thinking about it all the time.  It had affected me badly.  I tried imaging the Only Fools and Horses ‘Batman and Robin’ scene to 'buck myself up', but it didn’t help.  I thought I might actually be going mad.

“If they don’t bloody sort your desk out today,” my partner roared down the phone, “I’m bloody coming up there to sort them out once and for all.  Why the hell isn’t anybody doing anything about this?”

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I really don’t know.”

Like a zombie, I walked into the office to face another bloody awful day with people I had come to loathe with a passion I’d never before experienced.  My confidence was on the floor, my humour had been quashed - I’d never been without my sense of humour before, and I missed it.

As soon as the manager saw me she jumped out of her seat and raced to my desk to unplug my phone.  A whole week after I’d requested it, they were finally moving my desk!

I didn’t need any prompting, I shifted all my belongings in minutes while my computer was moved.  All the secretaries came in and glared at me, but I didn’t care, I’d got what I wanted and I didn’t have to tolerate them any more.  They would have to find their entertainment elsewhere because I’d been freed.  I had escaped.  I felt like I could breathe again.  The relief was enormous.

Lynne sat at her desk, and all smug and self-satisfied.  “Do you still think there’s an atmosphere?” she sneered as I walked passed.

“Yes,” I said, “I do.”

“I expect it’s because we’ve all been too busy to pay you any attention.”

Yeah, fuck you too.

I sat at my new desk, overwhelmed with relief, a whole two metres away from them.  I could still see them, still hear them.  I felt traumatised by what had happened, but at least I was away from them now, I didn’t have to associate with them any more, I could gather my shattered senses together again.

Days passed, the atmosphere still awful, me still bloody miserable.  Pat rushed up to me one morning and, still grinning (always grinning, she so liked gossip), said, “You know, when I get PMT, I feel a bit sensitive.  Do you get that?”

I sat back in my chair and looked at her, wondering if she even knew how offensive she was being.  I knew exactly what she was trying to say, it wasn’t a subtle point she was making.  “No,” I said, truthfully, “I don’t get PMT.”

“You don’t!” she gasped, affecting pure amazement worthy of an Oscar.  “Really?”

“Really.”

“I so surprised,” she said, grinning.  “I have to have chocolate when I’m due on.”

“I don’t have a sweet tooth,” I said, coldly.  “I only like black chocolate occasionally.”

Pat immediately stopped smiling and glared at me.  “Dark chocolate,” she said (Pat is Asian), “You mean dark chocolate, don’t you?”

Oh you’ve got to be bloody kidding me!

“I’ve always called it black chocolate,” I said.  "If you look on the internet or in a cook book, you'll find that recipes always relates to black chocolate."  I turned back to my work.  Pat scurried off to whisper with the others.  They did that a lot, gathered where I could see them, whispering together and glancing over at me.  A lot.

At the end of the day, when I walked out of the office, the manager hurried over to me.  “Are you happy now you’ve moved desks?” she asked quickly.

“Yes,” I said.

The manager ran off again.  It was the one and only time she had ever asked me anything about what had gone on instead of simply refuting my allegations.  It was her only direct intervention with the entire situation.

Over the days that followed some of my confidence returned and I began to notice things.  Like how Pat and Lynne’s bosses now looked at me strangely when I passed them, how curt they were when I said good morning.  One boss got into the lift with me one day and stared at me like I was an unexploded bomb – there was no mistaking this, the man was terrified! 

I became aware that people were looking at me differently, staring at me, watching and avoiding me.  A couple of uninvolved secretaries suddenly started speaking to me very abruptly as if they ‘weren’t standing for any nonsense off me’.  Others just seemed nervous if I spoke to them, like they couldn't wait to get away before I accused them of bullying.

There was, clearly, gossip all over the office and I was now being viewed as some hysterical, menopausal woman who was likely to break down again over the slightest thing at any moment.  I was hurt by the unfairness of it.  It just wasn’t me, wasn’t me at all.  My character was being ripped apart and I hadn't done anything.

I kept catching Pat gossiping in corners with other people, giggling and whispering, her hand literally covering her mouth.  She stopped as soon as she saw me and rushed off, grinning like some Cheshire cat who’s had the cream.  Oh did she enjoy herself. 

They arranged a secretarial lunch and invited me, making out they were the ‘good guys’ making the effort.  Fortunately, I’d arranged lunch with someone else and told Sue.  Sue turned to the others and shrugged, "I tried!".  At 1 o’clock, none of them moved from their seats for this supposed lunch, they kept glancing over their partitions at me, watching me.  My friend arrived a few minutes later and said the looks she got as she walked passed would have floored a charging rhinoceros.  "What's up with them?" my friend asked me.  "I've absolutely no bloody idea," I replied.

It was like entering the Twilight Zone, where nothing was as it seemed.  I began to realise that the company I worked for tolerated and accepted office bullying as the norm, as a product of a high pressure culture.  Mine wasn’t the only episode of bullying I’d witnessed.  One secretary had a boss so impossible and unreasonable to work for that she was under medical supervision for high blood pressure and had to have time off with diagnosed stress.  Management were fully aware of this, but she’d been waiting months to be moved to a different department - management said there were no other vacancies in the company, despite the fact that they had three temps working for them at any given time.

Another secretary had taken nine months off work with stress because of the excessive demands of her ambitious boss.  “I thought I was going mad,” she told me.  I knew exactly what she meant.

Yet another secretary is regularly and publicly berated in front of the whole office for mistakes her boss had made.  The boss stands there hysterically screaming abuse, and not one single person ever dares to stand up and say, “Excuse me, but this is unacceptable behaviour.”  Not one!

Yet another secretary celebrated her 50^th birthday and her boss said to her, “You don’t have much to show for the last 50 years, do you.”  The secretary was eventually forced to leave (they didn’t take her off probation for seven months and she eventually got fed up and left).

It was that kind of environment.  And now the focus was most definitely on me.

Informal Complaint

Accepted.  Tolerated.  And yet the company had a bullying policy.  I read it avidly, and felt so strongly about what had happened that I decided to make a formal complaint since my manager so adamantly refused to do anything.  I asked to see someone in the HR department.  A week later, they gave me an appointment.  I went into the meeting room with my manager and a young woman from HR.  The HR woman started by saying, “Well then, Polly.”

“You can call me Polly if you like,” I said, “But it’s not my name.”

“Oh,” she said, and then asked me to explain what my complaint was.

“I’ve written it all down,” I said, handing them both a copy of my written statement, “So I don’t forget anything, and so you have a copy for your records.”

“Oh,” said the HR person, “Its quite long, isn’t it.”

“A lot happened,” I said.  “And I’d like something done about it.”

My manager was mostly quiet, except to say that she never heard me tell her I wanted to move my desk because they were being so nasty (the look of surprise on her face when I said it told me she did, and did she agreed to move secretary's desk for no apparent reason?).  She said staff shouldn’t be turning off heating vents, but that was hardly the point was it.

The HR person was very cold and abrupt, almost dismissive.  “You don’t seem very shy to me,” she said, reading it in my statement. 

“I'm a bit shy,” I said.  “I don’t like attention and I don’t like fuss.”

“And yet you’re here, in this room, making a fuss,” she drawled.

“Because I don’t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else.”  And I didn't.  I actually consider myself quite a strong person, but there were other secretaries in the office who could be described as timid and more shy than me, god forbid this should happen to them.

The meeting continued.  “Are you sure Lynne said these things to you?” I was asked.

“Oh yes, I’m sure,” I said. “She looked straight at me when she said them.  Lynne made certain I knew the comments were directed at me.  There is no doubt about this.”

“Do you think there might be another reason why Lynne would behave like this towards you?” I was asked.

I hesitated.  “I was supposed to work for another boss who was returning to work,” I said, “But my workload meant that I couldn’t, so the boss was given to Lynne.  I don’t think she liked that very much.  Lynne likes to talk on the phone a lot, she’s never had to do much work, and now she has quite a lot.  I think she might be a bit peeved about that.”

The HR person looked at the manager.  “Lynne says she doesn’t have a problem working for this boss,” the manager said.

“How do you know if you’ve never spoken to her to her about this?” I asked.

The manager just shrugged.  She didn’t answer.  The HR woman said, “Have you witnessed any bullying at this company before?”

“Yes,” I said, “Usually between bosses and their secretaries."

"So you've never witnessed bullying amongst the secretaries?”

Silence while they waited for me to ‘understand’ that bullying simply didn’t occur amongst secretaries.  I could almost hear them thinking Never admit to a bullying problem.

Finally, the HR person leaned back in her chair and said, “Well, we can do two things, Alison.  We can do nothing - ”

“You’ve already done that,” I said.  “It didn’t resolve anything.”

“Or,” she said, “We can investigate the matter and interview people to see if they witnessed anything.”  Except there hadn’t been any witnesses, only Joan, who was either so busy with her enormous workload she hadn’t noticed anything, or else she simply didn’t want to get involved.  “But if we investigate you’ll still have to work with these people afterwards, and that could make things a lot worse,” she warned.  “So, what do you want to do, Alison?”

They both stared at me.  “Those are the choices?” I said.

“Those are the choices.”

“You’re not going to do anything, are you,” I said, falling back in my chair.  “You’ve never even approached Lynne about this.  You know she’s difficult, and yet she hasn’t even been told that her behaviour is unacceptable.”

Silence.

“So, what do you want to happen, Alison?  Do you want us to investigate?”

What was the point?  No witnesses.  Their word against mine, three against one, and my manager backing them up by denying it every happened.  I was already being portrayed as a hysterical woman.  I looked at them and thought, they’re not here for the employees, they’re here to protect the company – they don’t care what happened or if it happens again.  It was all corporate bollocks.

“Forget it,” I said.  “It’s pretty clear the company doesn’t take bullying seriously.”

And I left the meeting, despondent.

The Aftermath

I got on with my job.  People still came up to my desk to chat and have a laugh with me, and all of them were subjected to dirty looks from Lynne, Pat and Sue.  “Why are they glaring at us like that?” my friends would say.  “Because you’re talking to me,” I told them, “They think we’re doing what they do, they think we’re gossiping about them.”

One lunchtime the whole group stood up and started merrily saying to each other, “Come on then, girls, lets all go out for a fabulous lunch.”  And laughing, they all trooped passed my desk showing solidarity.  When they returned, however, their mood had changed.  They were all utterly silent.  They didn’t speak to each other.  A perceptible atmosphere had formed amongst them.

Apart from a couple of friends, I hadn’t told anyone what had happened – lets face it, its embarrassing to admit you’ve been bullied, it smacks at weakness, and I'm certainly not weak.  And besides, I don’t gossip, I don’t like gossip, I never indulge in it and I never listen to it, I'd rather make my own mind up about things.  But word had clearly gone round the entire office and people obviously thought I was the one with the problem because they’d only heard one side of someone’s story (and because my manager hadn't done anything about it, it hadn't happened, I'd been upset about absolutely nothing).  Others, who knew me better, guessed there was something not quite right going on.

One particularly vocal secretary who had heard ‘on the grapevine’ what had happened, came over to show her support for me.  I told her we’d seen a mouse in the office that morning.  She glared straight over at the group and said, loud enough for them to hear, “Rats attracting rats!”  It didn’t help matters, but it made me feel good to have someone on my side.

A couple of weeks later I had a dentist and a doctors appointment in the same week and came into work late on two mornings.  Both times I found either Lynne or Pat hovering around my desk asking people where I was.  They questioned my whereabouts every time I was absent from my desk for any length of time.  It was like being watched.  They were watching me because they were afraid of what I’d do.  They were afraid that people might realise what had really happened.

Pat and Sue were at their desks quietly talking one lunchtime.  After a while, Lynne went up to them and said, “Are you talking about me?” 

They were getting paranoid!  They were afraid they'd be the next target.

I booked a day off work, and when I came in the following day I discovered that my desk phone had been turned off so they wouldn’t have to answer it!  And there was a picture on my desk reading ‘Somebody doesn’t want to be at work today.’  They were still trying to get to me, but I wouldn’t let them.  I was starting to feel angry, very angry.

I still felt winded.  My confidence had suffered a severe blow and I felt tense and stressed all the time.  I consider myself quite a strong person, but the ‘mobbing’ had knocked me sideways, like being hit by a truck.  I was having trouble sleeping and lost almost a stone in weight over a three week period because I couldn’t eat.  It was in my head all the time.  Why?  Why me?  Why like that?  What could I have done?  Why didn’t I do this, why didn’t I do that?  Why didn't anyone believe what had happened?

It got to the point where I’d be talking to someone or watching a film on TV and realise I hadn’t been aware of the last 10-15 minutes because I’d been thinking about it constantly.  I’d toss and turn all night and wake up exhausted.  One morning I woke up to my partner saying, “The carpet's wet.!”  We both looked at the ceiling, searching for a water leak.  And then I remembered a dream I’d had - running through a forest, people chasing after me, running and running and then squatting to do a wee in a bush.

I’d got up in my sleep and wet the floor without waking up!

That was it.  I realised I needed to do something before I went insane. 

I arranged to see a counsellor.  I cried all the way through the first hour session, but felt better afterwards.  I saw her once more, and just talking about it seemed to help.  It was like being pulled back from the edge, having someone say I wasn't going mad, that my reaction to a terrible situation was normal.  What I was enduring had a name.  It was called trauma.  I was traumatised.  And knowing what it was made me able to cope with it better.  I would recover.

I went to my GP and told her I was depressed (me! depressed!).  She asked why I felt this way.  I told her I’d been bullied at work.  She said I wasn’t depressed, I was suffering from severe stress and suggested I take a week off.  But I knew if I had a week away from the office it would be worse when I went back.  I was stronger than that.  I had to deal with it and face it head on.  But it was difficult.  God, it was hard.

I went to work every single day, and every day I started to feel a little better.  My workload was enormous and I was struggling to keep up, so sent out an email to all the secretaries asking for help.  Sue responded immediately.  She helped without hesitation on quite a few occasions.  She made a point of talking to me while the others continued to ignore me.  She was young, it was easy to understand why she had joined it (maybe because she was afraid not to).

Pat continued to come over to my desk and make subtle comments like, “Are you feeling better now?” (to which I replied, “I wasn’t aware I’d been ill!”).  Still enjoying the game.  But I began to see that she was just a nasty little gossip.  She came in one day with her teenage daughter, who glared at me open-mouthed like I was some kind of alien.  It was funny.  I was the office nut, but I looked pretty normal eh?

At a department meeting, Pat cheerfully gathered the group to all sit together on the opposite side of the room from me.  I thought it was a bit of a daft power game, but her face was an absolute picture when Carol (who had been off ill when the mobbing happened and who had argued with Pat since about the lighting!), made a point of sitting next to me.  Pat couldn’t stop looking over, suddenly not smiling any more.  Yeah, I’ve got friends.

I was still feeling stressed.  It was just the sheer effort of forcing myself to go to work every day to face who knew what.  It was like open season, no mans land, a place where management turned a blind eye, where nobody seemed to be in control.  I felt myself stiffening every time Pat or Lynne got up from their desks, wondering what the bloody hell they were going to do or say next.  Lynne would walk passed my desk with her nose in the air, or else she'd stiffly say, "Morning, Alison," as if it took great effort to even speak to me.  Pat kept coming over to ask me to help her with something - I'd shown her five or six times how to do this thing (a simple internet link) but she still kept on asking me to show her again and again ... a couple of times I'd stood at her desk trying to explain it, and she didn't even look, she carried on a conversation with Sue, just letting me do it for her.  It was a power thing.

I felt stressed every single day.

One morning I came in early and Carol started talking to me about work stuff.  Suddenly, I couldn’t stop myself, I had to rush to the toilet.  Carol followed me in and found me crying.  I couldn’t control it, it just gushed out of me.  I thought I was coping, but suddenly all my pent up emotions and frustrations poured out like a tidal wave.  “I used to like my job,” I sobbed, “Now I dread coming into work every day and it shouldn’t be like this!  Why is nobody taking this seriously and doing something about it?”

Carol is a very down to earth, jolly person.  She took control, told me some nice things about me (“You’re great,” she said, “You’re one of the nice people”) and some things about Pat and Lynne that made me see things a bit clearer.  Basically they were self-centred bitches.

“Get some Kalms tablets,” Carol suggested.

“Yeah,” I said, wiping my red eyes, “Like they’ll help.”

“You’d be surprised how many people in the office are taking them.”

So I got some.  I took them.  I expected nothing.  They worked almost immediately.  I stopped worrying.  I stopped stressing.  I felt a sense of well being I hadn’t felt in the longest time.  I began to sleep once more, and that helped a lot.

Starting to Recover

Finally, after weeks of uncertainty, I began to feel somewhere near normal again.  Some of my confidence started to return. 

I was slowly recovering. 

I felt my strength come back, a little bit at a time.  I had done nothing wrong, I had nothing to be ashamed of.  My humour returned, and thank god for that.

One day the heating system broke down and the office temperature soared.  People kept saying they were hot.  I waited almost with baited breath for Lynne to say she was hot so I could snap, “Maybe we should throw water over you if you’re that hot!”  But she didn’t.  Maybe she knew better.  But it made me smile just thinking about it.

One of the group printers had been broken for days.  I rang up the maintenance department and they again said they’d come and fix it.  I had to restrain myself from putting a note on the printer reading, “Fault reported, we’ll just have to keep on to maintenance until we get it fixed, YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THAT, DON’T YOU!”  I didn’t, but it made me smile.  If you can laugh at it, you can live with it, someone once said.

I was definitely starting to feel better.

Inept Management

Then, out of the blue, two months after the event, I receive an appointment from the HR department.  I was to attend an assertiveness course!  No consultation, no ‘do you think you’d benefit from?’, no ‘is it convenient for you to spend a whole day on some course?’  Just an appointment, telling me to attend. 

“Why have I been put on this course?” I emailed the HR department.

“Your manager suggested you would benefit from it,” came the reply.

The manager who sits on my floor, a mere four or five desks away from me, who I walk passed dozens of times every day and who never once thought to mention or discuss it with me.  I forward the appointment to her, adding, “Fabulous!  The ‘instigator’ isn’t even spoken to and I get sent on an assertiveness course!”

No reply.

I ask my friends and family if they think I need assertiveness training in case I had a distorted view of myself.  They all laughed.   A workmate tells me she’s never met anyone less in need of assertiveness training.  Another says, “You?  Assertiveness training?   Are you kidding?”  My sister gasps, “Are they taking the piss?” 

My partner, who is a manager himself, says the company are merely ‘covering’ themselves by trying to show I’m an insipid, lily livered wimp who can’t stand up for herself and needed help coping with people (rather than having to tackle the real problem).

“So I’m the easy option?” I gasp. 

“Dealing with one very nice person or dealing with three malicious ones, what do you think?"

The day of the course arrived.  I determinedly don’t attend.  I’m not a victim by any stretch of the imagination and don’t wish to be portrayed as one.  I don't need an assertiveness course, I need an effective management to deal with the poison being spread around the office by these spiteful women.

Ten minutes after the course starts, my manager catches me in the corridor.  It’s the first time she’s spoken to me in weeks - we both know she failed in her duty as an office manager by ignoring something she should have taken control of, and this makes us both wary of each other.   “You should be on this course!” she says, like she’s telling me there’s a bomb in the building.

“I’m asserting my right not to attend,” I say calmly.

“But you have to go!” she cries.

“It’s not work related, it’s not compulsory.”

“It is work related and it is compulsory,” she snaps.  “The company thinks you’ll benefit from it.”

“The company is wrong,” I snap back.  “It’s not my behaviour that needs addressing here.  How dare anyone make a judgement of my character like that, without even bothering to consult me!”

She seemed to get all flustered then.  “Being assertive doesn’t mean being bossy,” she splutters.

“I know what assertiveness means!” I say sharply.  I’m not an idiot!

“It’s being rolled out to the whole company, everyone has to attend this training,” she says, and suddenly we both know she’s lying.  She backs away from me, saying, “I’ll have to report to HR about this.  We’ll be having words about this, Alison.”

I watch her walking away and furiously say to her fast retreating back, “Yes, we will be having words about this!”

She vanishes.  I stand there and think, bloody cheek!  I stand there and think, accuse me of being a weak, lily livered wimp will you!  Address the real problem!  Do not label me a victim, I am not a victim I am a target, there's a difference!

I almost look forward to having a meeting with my manager and HR, I have more than a few things to say about their actions, or rather, their complete lack of.  But I don’t hear anything more and, of course, the course isn’t rolled out to the whole company.  All faith in my management disappears, I don't trust them, they lie to cover their own backs.  It's every man for himself in this office.  There's nobody in charge.

The Aftermath

Months after the event, I’ve got myself together.  Sue and I are talking, Pat is still gossiping like mad around the office but people are getting quite bored with it.  She regularly gives her work to other people, saying she’s too busy to do it, then sits there gossiping waiting for the work to come back - people are getting fed up of that too.

And Lynne … Lynne has said the atmosphere in the department is intolerable and she’s looking for another job.  I hope she gets one, I hope the office temperature will be to her liking – God forbid she should feel the merest chill.  I hope I never come across anyone like her again. 

I’ve looked for another job too.  I didn’t want to work for a company that accepted (and still accepts) bullying as part of the culture, but in the end I decided that the job I wanted was the job I already had.  And besides, I refused to be chased off by vindictive idiots.  They would get what they deserved in the end, I wanted to be there to witness it when it happened. 

I didn’t imagine it.  I didn’t ‘overreact’.  I know what happened because I was there, I saw it, I heard it, I experienced it, and it was mortifying.  I was, most definitely, mobbed.  I complained, was ignored, and fell down a black hole of misery.  But I’d clawed my way back out again. 

Three months on it occurred to me that, although Lynne, Pat and Sue were wary of me afterwards (and Pat continued to be malicious every chance she got because she just couldn’t leave it alone, like a dog enjoying a bone), they weren’t at any point angry with me.  I thought about that.  I thought, if someone had wrongly accused me of bullying I would first be devastated that I'd hurt someone, but if they continued to accuse me I’d be angry about it.  Lynne, Pat and Sue were never angry, because they hadn’t been wrongly accused.   They’d enjoyed themselves at my expense and had got away with it.  I try not to speak to them if I can help it.  I can see from where I sit that they're all pretty miserable (except Pat, with her incessant giggling and endless gossiping).

I’m not a vengeful person, but I can’t help feeling pleased that they’re miserable, that Lynne is telling people she can’t stand the atmosphere (that she created with her imperious barbs).  I wonder if they think it was worth it.  I'm sure Pat does, Pat is still enjoying herself, I'm forever coming across her in the office, hand over her mouth, whispering and giggling.  It's very wearing.

Good things have come out of this though.  I’m a positive person who believes everything happens for a reason.  I’ve discovered that I have some seriously good friends who supported me through the worst times, and for that I’m truly grateful.  I’ve learned that I’m a lot stronger than I imagined, and certainly a lot stronger than I was before.  And I’ve lost weight! 

I believe people show themselves for what they really are eventually, it’s all just a matter of time (maybe that’s why Lynne’s leaving).  I firmly believe what goes around comes around.  I truly hope they get what they deserve and their nastiness exposed.

I can dream.

I’m a happy person by nature and I’m funny.  I have a good life and, for a while there, I allowed people to spoil it for me.  These were small and insignificant people with tiny lives and a vicious streak of malice in them.   They caused me enormous distress, but I’ve survived, I’ve risen far above them, and come through it a much better person.

Because, in the end, I am, and have always been, better than them.

And still it continues!

Two months later ...

I thought it was over.  I thought I’d survived it.  My working life was miserable, but just about bearable.  I stayed because I didn't want to be forced out of a good job.  I like my job.

But it carried on!

The atmosphere in my office kept getting worse and worse.  As soon as you walked through the doors you could sense it, this heavy, oppressive silence.  Other people commented on it too, it wasn’t just me.

I still kept catching Pat gossiping endlessly with other people.  I'd come across her by the photocopier or in the kitchen, with her hand across her mouth, sniggering.  And then she'd notice me and straighten up quickly, walk passed grinning.  It didn’t bother me at first, but then people started talking to me like I was ill or made out of glass or something.  People were being 'delicate' around me.  It was really strange.  It got to me.

Pat kept saying – completely out of the blue – “Are you feeling better now, Alison?” or, “Are you okay now?”  She just kept saying it in an incredibly patronising manner.  And always with that excited grin.  She knew exactly what she was doing.

And the atmosphere got worse.

There were lots of changes in our office.  Several of the Big Bosses suddenly left and we weren’t told why.  A partner in our department just disappeared, didn’t come in one day.  Rumour had it he’d been sacked.  He’d been there 20 years!  I was beginning to see that office politics was like a virulent poison that spreads if not kept in check.  And it certainly wasn't being checked, it was left to run it course by an inept management.

The email system was changed.  The document software was changed.  The stationery we used was changed.  Company formatting was changed.  The telephone numbering system changed.

So many changes.

Too many changes.

And we stopped having secretarial meetings to keep us updated on things.  We hadn’t had one for months.  We were being kept in the dark – treated like mushrooms, insignificant plebs.  Everyone commented that there was something strange going on but we didn’t know what.

It caused a lot of uneasiness amongst the secretaries.  As if things weren't bad enough already.

I tried to carry on as normal, to be invisible, to not drawn any attention to myself at all, just keep my head down and ignore the fact that I was now viewed as some nutcase.  But things were getting more and more difficult.  I didn’t trust my manager – she had lied to me twice (first by saying she hadn’t heard me saying they were being really nasty when I asked for a desk move, and secondly when she said the assertiveness training was being rolled out to the whole company).  I had no faith in her ability to control what was going on in the office.  She just seemed to ignore it.

I was starting to feel decidedly uncomfortable again.

In order to get to my bosses or the toilet, I had to walk passed the ‘group’.  I didn’t speak to them, I didn't want to give them any reason to start them off again or give them something else to gossip about.  Pat looked up at me with her sneering face every single time I walked passed.  Sometimes, when I passed, Joan – who had previously been uninvolved and who sat right opposite Pat - she would say, “Morning,” in a pointed way, as if she was willing to say it even if I wasn’t.  Whenever this happened, Pat would immediately look up and grin.  She was still enjoying herself.

I knew it was starting up again.  There was unrest in the office, and I was becoming the target once more.  It may sound silly (she said ‘morning’ in a really pointed way) but an office environment is very insular, very institutionalised.  There are no outside influences.  I knew only too well that small, insignificant incidents could explode out of all proportion, and I already knew what these people were capable of.

So, in effect, I ignored them in the hope that they would ignore me.  I had to protect myself, not draw attention to myself in any way.   I just wanted to be left alone to get on with my job.

In order to leave the office, I had to walk passed the manager’s desk.  That was fun too.  Communication had broken down to the point where we just said ‘morning’ and ‘bye’ to each other.  She just sat at her desk, ignoring everything.  She hadn’t dealt with the bullying, and the situation had gone from bad to worse because she – the manager – hadn’t intervened at all.  Easier for her just to dismiss it, ignore it.  But because she hadn’t acknowledged the bullying, she was effectively condoning their behaviour and they were still telling everyone in the office that it was all my fault, that I’d ‘overreacted’ and wrongly accused them of something because there was something wrong with me.  And now, of course, the awful atmosphere was my fault too!  Because, keeping myself to myself to avoid any more trouble, I was once again ‘unapproachable’.  It was a vicious circle.

I began to dread – really dread – going to work every day.  It was an uncomfortable working environment.  Everyone was miserable. 

But the focus was well and truly on me again.  It’s difficult to explain.  People started talking to me like I’d been ill and they had to be gentle with me (not helped by Pat constantly asking, in her wheedling, patronising voice, if I was okay now, if I was feeling better now, if I was alright now).  Or else people would be unusually abrupt with me and couldn’t wait to get away, whereas before we’d have a laugh and a joke.  Secretaries I’d previously been friendly with (because I’m friendly with everyone) suddenly didn’t have time to talk, they couldn't wait to get away.  A mate started making excuses not to come to lunch and instead started going out with Lynne.  All very small, silly things, but with Pat still whispering and giggling all over the place it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on.

Yep, I was the office nut.  Previously a ‘well liked and popular member of the office’ I was clearly menopausal/neurotic/over-sensitive and had made a false claim of bullying (and because management hadn’t done anything about it, this enforced the view).  I had become an object of ridicule.

It was a whispering campaign.  I didn’t imagine this either, Pat was everywhere, constantly glancing over at me as she whispered in someone's ear, or suddenly falling silent if I approached her talking to someone (let's face it, you know from people's abrupt actions if they've been talking about you or not).  There was absolutely nothing I could do about it except tolerate it.  I certainly couldn’t go to my manager – like she would do anything!  And I couldn’t retaliate in any way or they’d rush off declaring that “She’s off again!”

I was left, quite literally, at my desk with my mouth agape, completely unable to understand why this whole thing had escalated to such enormous proportions.

Nobody was in control!  Nobody was in charge!

And then, it got worse.

Oh boy, did it get worse.

Thursday 25 May 2006

Because my bosses are out of the office a lot, I regularly check their emails in case something urgent or important comes in that needs dealing with.  I’m efficient like that!  I take a pride in my work.

Today, I see an email from the manager to all company bosses, attaching a plan for the new office layout.  Of course, I look at it.  Management haven’t bothered to consult the secretaries about the departmental move at all, its only natural after everything’s that’s happened that I want to know where I’ll be sitting.

On the floor plan, they’ve named the secretaries and allocated them desks.  I see my name.  I see where they’re putting me.  I actually feel physically sick.

I’m being moved back to the same group, to the desk right next to where I sat before, still directly underneath the heating vent that caused this whole nightmare. 

I’ll be sitting opposite ‘them’ again.  In the line of fire again.

I can’t believe it.  They’re putting me back with my ‘attackers’.  They haven’t given me the slightest consideration.  They’re insensitive to the point of disbelief.  Moving me back is vindicating them, management making a statement that nothing happened here, that I'm the one with the problem, that there's something wrong with me.

I’m too stunned to say anything to anyone.  It’s incomprehensible that they should do this.

The nightmare will start over again.

Tuesday 30 May 2006 (after a bank holiday Monday)

As soon as Pat and Lynne come into the office this morning, they almost trip over themselves in their haste to come over to my desk, all excited, like hyperactive children barely able to control themselves.  I brace myself.

“Have you seen the floor plans?” Pat asks, her eyes ablaze.

“Yes,” I say.

“What do you think?”

They’re both leaning against my partition, staring down at me, smiling.  I shrug.  “I just take it all with a pinch of salt,” I tell them.

Pat giggles.  She knows I don’t like it.  She is so going to make the most of this.

“You’ll be coming back to us, then,” Lynne says.  “Nothing every changes, does it.”

The implication is clear.  The expression on their faces says it all – it couldn’t be more obvious.  They’re thrilled I’m being forced back to their group, positively orgasmic that management are making me sit with them again - its vindication! 

Later, in a quiet moment, I approach the manager about the floor plan.

“Could I just be moved to the desk on the edge of the group,” I say, “Not right in the middle, in the ‘line of fire’ so to speak.”

The manager looked up at me.  “Why have you seen the floor plans?” she snaps.  “Secretaries shouldn’t have seen the floor plans!”

“We’ve all seen the floor plans,” I tell her.

“Why have you seen the floor plans?” she asks again.

“We’ve all seen the floor plans!”

She gets all flustered then.  “The plans have been approved by all the associates.”  Without ever once consulting the secretaries – who are, in the great hierarchy of corporate life, treated like primeval sludge.  “I can’t change them now.”

“Can’t I just have the desk at the end of the group?”

“I can’t have secretaries dictating where they will and won’t sit!” she suddenly snaps.

“But you know why I’m asking this!” I tell her.  “I can’t sit there with them again.”

She looks at the floor plan, exasperated (exasperated!).  “I can put you in the middle of the office,” she sighs.  In the middle of the office, away from everyone else, sticking out like a sore thumb.

“Won’t that be a bit obvious,” I tell her.  “I just want the desk at the end of the group.”

“No,” she insists, “If you won’t sit where we’ve put you, you can sit in the middle of the office.”

So, more humiliation.  Is there no end to this? 

All the energy just drained out of me then.  This simply wasn’t worth it any more.  I wasn’t going to argue the toss again with someone who clearly couldn’t comprehend what was going on – or, more likely, chose to ignore it because that was the easiest option.

“Life’s too short for this,” I told her still exasperated face, “The end of tether has most definitely been reached.”  Long surpassed, in fact.

If the company couldn’t show me a modicum of sensitivity after what I’d been through – what I was still going through – I didn’t want to work there any more.  It used to be a nice place to work, I’d been there for almost three years and I loved my job, I was good at it.

But the mood in the office had changed.  Morale amongst all the staff had plummeted.  Big Bosses were suddenly leaving and we (the plebs) weren’t told why.  Nothing was explained to us.  Rumours were rife.  Bullying was allowed, tolerated, ignored.  It was almost a form of crowd control – let the minions do what they want as long as they don’t start questioning what’s happening within the company.

Pat was barely in her seat for the rest of the day, she was off gossiping around the office.  A couple of secretaries come up to me and say, “So, we’re all being moved around, what do you think of your new desk?”

It’s all anyone around the office can talk about – where they’re moving to and where I’m moving to.

Pat is, once again, thrilled to be the centre of attention as she joyously lets everyone know where I’ll be sitting.  The atmosphere is electric.  Everyone seems really hyped up.  Management are moving me back as a statement that ‘nothing happened’ – I have been labelled, my ‘behaviour’ will not be tolerate, ‘they’ have carte blanche to do whatever they want without fear of retribution.

Fucking great!

I can’t put myself though this any more.  I just can’t do it.

I have no resources left to get me through another nightmare.

Wednesday 31 May 2006

For the first time in my life, I have a massive panic attack before I leave the house for work this morning.  My heart pounds in my chest so hard I’m convinced I might be having a heart attack.  I’m hot and sweaty and feel faint.  I feel like I’m dying.  It terrifies me.  This is not who I am!

My body and brain are screaming out for me not to go into the office, to not endure this endless torment any more.  But I force myself into work – over the last five months I’ve come to realise that thinking about going to work is often worse than being there.  Once I’m there I am coping with it (usually), I’m dealing with it.  It’s just the thought that today I might not be able to cope any more, or that today might be the day when they start again.

It’s very exhausting pretending that everything is okay, that you’re not hurt every time ‘they’ look over, every time ‘they’ start whispering and giggling, every time ‘they’ say something patronising or snide.  All day.  Every day.  It’s a form of torture.

It’s like living on a knife edge, forever wary of what they might say next.  Every morning for the last five months, as I approach my office, my stomach turns over and every instinct I have screams for me not to go through those doors and endure another day of snide comments – “How are you feeling today?” Pat often asks me, or, “Are you feeling better today?” or, “Are you okay now?  Are you sure you’re okay?”  So incredibly patronising.

Every morning for the last five months I’ve walked through the door saying, “Come on, you old cow, you can do this!  Don’t let the stupid bitches get to you.  It’s just a job.”

It’s just a nightmare.

This morning, as I approached the manager’s desk, my whole body was throbbing with adrenaline.  On the journey into work, I considered what I might say – “I didn’t think it was so unreasonable to ask for another desk in the same group.”  Or perhaps, “I think you’ve handled this entire situation appallingly.  In fact, you haven’t handled it at all.”

In the end, though, I simply didn’t have the energy to argue the toss with someone who clearly didn’t give a damn.  So I just went up to the manager’s desk, put down my notice of resignation, said, “Enough,” and walked away.

A couple of minutes later, despite the fact she only sits a few desks away from me, she sends me an email.  “Are you sure you want to do this before I process it?”

I reply, “I just want to work with nice people again.”  I just want to work in a normal environment again, to not have to watch my back all the time, to not have them watch me all the time, and not have to put up with all that incessant gossiping and whispering and giggling.

The manager says nothing else.  Like every other secretary, I’m just a number, just an allocation to a fee earner.  Her biggest concern is probably who is going to work for my bosses when I’m gone.

Gone.  I feel enormous relief just thinking about it, like a huge weight has been lifted from me.  There is an end in sight.  I don’t have to put up with this any more.  I only have to endure another 16 days in this working hell and then I will be free. 

It all sounds very dramatic, but unless you’ve experienced it yourself (and I never have until this happened) being bullied and then being systematically gossiped about in an enclosed environment is the most debilitating, horrific, excruciating thing, especially for someone who’s a little shy and loathes any kind of attention.  It’s not paranoia, I don’t imagine it, I don’t have to, it’s just so obvious.  A couple of people have said they’ve noticed the same thing.  Whenever I look up from my desk I catch Pat or Lynne peering over the top of their partition at me.  They look away quickly, but every single time I glance over at their group, at least one pair of eyes is staring back at me.  It’s like sitting in a goldfish bowl.  People stand at Pat’s desk, talking, and they’ll look over at me and then grin at each other.  It’s all these little things that really get to you, every single day for five whole months.

Later that day, I go out shopping for a birthday present for a friend to take my mind off things.  On the way back to the office I kept thinking, “I don’t want to go back.  I just don’t want to go back.”  It was such an intense feeling.

And then my heart started pounding, and I felt hot and sweaty.

I was in the middle of the city centre, in a busy shopping area, having another panic attack.  I had to sit down and put my head between my knees.  Somebody asked if I was okay and – even then, when I thought I was dying, that my heart would suddenly stop beating – I made a joke, because that’s what I’m like.  “Overdid the shopping,” I tell them.

I went back to the office.  I sat at my desk.  I tried not to see Pat whispering at her desk with someone else, glancing over at me and trying to hide their grins.

What the hell is wrong with these people!

Thursday 1 June 2006

Yesterday, when I handed in my notice, I felt good.  Relieved.  Reprieved.  Obviously I haven’t told anyone I’m leaving, I couldn’t stand for Lynne or more especially Pat to come over and gloat – and they would, they certainly couldn’t let an opportunity like that pass.  “We’ve just heard,” they’d grin triumphantly.  “Why are you leaving?” they’d ask with huge smiles.

Because of you.  Because you’ve made my working life intolerable.  Because  I can’t stand you staring at me any more, whispering and gossiping around the office.  Because I’m tired of going to the photocopier or the toilet and finding you in there, giggling and then falling silent when you see me.

Because I don’t want to have to become like you in order to survive in this horrible place.

I’m not isolated.  I do have friends, family, people who know me well (because I am such an affable person, lets not forget this – although its hard for me to remember how I used to be sometimes).  I tell these people what has happened and is still happening at work, and they can’t believe it either.  My partner, who is a manager himself, is incensed that this had been allowed to happen and that it continues – he would have dealt with the same situation differently, he would have dealt with it full stop.  Friends say, "And management haven't done anything?"  Not a thing.

I’m not a recluse.  I’m not anti-social, quite the opposite.  I like people.  I like having a laugh.  I like helping people out.  I’m bloody good at my job.  I don’t imagine things.  I don’t like attention.  But its true I’m not gobby.  Its true I can be shy, especially when faced with a group of people who think its terribly amusing to humiliate and belittle me en masse.

I’m not paranoid.  I like my life and I like myself because – as I’ve said before – I’m a very positive person.  I’m funny.  I’m forever spouting stuff like Don’t sweat the small stuff, and Life is to be lived.

But my character is being torn apart by this malicious gossip, and nobody is doing anything about it.

My working life has become intolerable.  Again!

Friday 2 June 2006

My worst working day ever.  I woke up, thought about going to work, and had yet another panic attack as I lay there in bed.  The stress is enormous.  It's been like this for months.

I really can’t take this any more.  I’m afraid I might die (god forbid at work).  I’m afraid I might actually drive myself mad with all of this.

But I go to work.  I seriously don’t want to, but I have a notice period to endure before I can leave.

The atmosphere is, once again, unbearable.  I catch Pat by the photocopiers, merrily gossiping and giggling again.  And again she shuts up and walks off with a satisfied smile when she sees me.

I walk in on Pat in the toilet, laughing with two young bosses, who both glare at me.  Gossiped about, again.

Pat simply cannot stop laughing all day, she is enjoying herself so much.

I’m so tense I don’t know what to do with myself.  I try to get on with my work but it’s difficult to concentrate.  I try to hold normal conversations with people who’ll still speak to me, but I feel lightheaded.

I go out to lunch with two friends.  I feel spaced out.  I struggle to keep up with conversation.

I think I’m losing it.

On the way back to the office, my heart starts to pound again.  I call my partner.  The poor man has had to tolerate this for months, frustrated that nothing is being done about it, frustrated that he can't do anything to help.  He tells me to leave, “Just leave!”.

I can’t leave.  I’ve already walked out twice, one more time and they’ll think it’s a genetic flaw. 

But I really feel ill.  Really ill.  I’ve never felt like this before, so stressed, so tense.  When I walk back into the office, I can hear Pat laughing at her desk.  I sit down and she immediately looks over at me.

I go to the toilet and pass Pat on the way.  She snarls something under her breath as our paths cross, I don’t catch what she said but it certainly didn't sound pleasant and (unusually) she doesn’t giggle. 

I really, seriously, can’t take this any more.

I make a decision.  I quite literally have to save myself.

I wipe everything personal from my computer.  I discretely pack all of my personal belongings.  I manage – I’ve no idea how – to make it through the afternoon with the sound of Pat’s laughter constantly ringing across the office.

When I leave, I walk out without saying goodbye to anyone.  I walk passed the manager’s desk without a word.

I leave the office, determined never to go back again.

Fuck the bloody notice period.

I got home and tell my partner, “I am not going back.”

He says, “You do right.  I wasn’t going to let you go back after your phonecall today anyway.  You were distraught.  Enough is enough.”

Enough is enough.

It’s over.  I’ve been hounded out of a job I previously enjoyed.  My inept management have totally failed in their duty of care in allowing an employee to suffer such excruciating humiliation.

I am never going back to that poisonous place.

NEVER!

Saturday 3 June

I woke up at 3 o’clock this morning, suddenly wide awake and frantic, my heart pounding in my chest.  I’d dreamed that my partner said, “Just pull yourself together and get back to work.”  He wouldn’t do that, of course, but the dream seemed real.  I was terrified. 

I lay awake, wondering if by some legality or other, they could make me go back to work out my notice period. 

I don’t care.  They would have to drag me kicking and screaming back to that terrible place.  I view it now like a dark dungeon, a place of torture, humiliation and misery.

It can’t be right that people can be treated like this.  I didn’t deserve any of it.  The situation was handled appallingly.  I’ve been told that, because my company is a large legal firm, they’re apparently ‘beyond the law’ because no other legal firm would consider taking them on in a ‘constructive dismissal’ case.  I am but a small cog in a large, untouchable machine.

But there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and a small cog doesn’t really have that much to lose.  I may only be a secretary, but I have an intensely strong sense of justice.  I’ve been turned from a happy person who loves life into a rather depressed one with no job.  I’ve lost all my confidence and am not even sure if I could ever work in an office again, I never want to encounter this kind of behaviour again.  It's deplorable that nobody did anything to stop this.

Monday 5 June 2006

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