When a friend asked me to write about workplace bullying, I remembered the first time I was bullied by a senior manager. She told me I was doing a great job but needed to learn how to “kiss her a#$” (her words) for a promotion. Her boldness took me off guard and I blurted, “that aint NEVER going to happen!” My response ignited a one-year battle of wills over boundaries.

For most of us, defining boundaries is an ongoing, complex journey that typically starts in childhood. I was eight when bullied by teenagers while walking home from school with my cousin. We ignored them using the ‘sticks and stones’ mantra until one day, one of them pushed me in the street. Since we were outnumbered and outsized, I decided to tell my big brother but my grandmother saw me first and asked what was wrong. I told her.

My grandmother immediately asked where they lived and went to their house, introduced herself and stated why she was there. The bullies denied everything and she calmly told them “lie or truth, you or not you, these two are off-limits, so do not speak to or touch us again and tell your friends.” She didn’t state a consequence; she just set the boundary and the bullying ended. This was my bullying defining moment because I knew when my butt hit that concrete, I needed help beyond me and, fortunately, my grandmother was fearless.

I was also fearless when battling my first bullying manager; I wasn’t going to be intimidated and she was equally determined to break me. I was wholly engaged in the fight until a peer said it was creating a hostile environment and I needed to go to Human Resources (HR). The HR manager said in a meandering, emphatic way that senior management “is what it is at that level” and since my performance wasn’t suffering, I was handling it. End result from HR: If I was on fire and needed water, I would have been ashes.

But instead of burning, I emailed my documentation to a senior executive who sent it to the HR executive who addressed it with the bully and the HR managers. The senior executive and I met and discussed the art of office politics, as well as my confrontational skills and value to the company. He encouraged me to consider another management position, but I realized that on some twisted level, the battle of wills was an unconscious distraction from the fact that I no longer found the job challenging. His responsiveness was appreciated, but I started a job search and accepted an offer six weeks later.

Bullying became pervasive as I continued to climb the corporate ladder. In most cases, it was rolling downhill from C-Suite positions. Through these trials, my boundaries remained intact, but I improved my confrontation skills by being assertive and not antagonistic. Generally, the bullies backed off immediately—and when they didn’t, I escalated it.

Most bullies are scared of confrontation, which is why they typically hide behind their position or size for intimidation. Simply put, they wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work. It’s like a fix and, like any other addict, they crave the high. Workplace bullying is a multi-level permission fix requiring weakening consent. Bullies deflect their weaknesses with superficial strength by exploiting working relationships, the bullied person struggles with setting and maintaining boundaries, and the companies allows it when they fail to implement a standard conduct policy for employees, regardless of position or expertise.

Sometimes bullying is stuck at the victims’ level because they are afraid to report it, which is the key reason a bully needs an agreeable target…sometimes it works for them:

• In a company meeting, a senior manager’s boss screamed she was an idiot for taking notes while she was speaking. The boss was using the F-bomb at the manager in front of her subordinates and peers, and the manager visually cowered and remained silent. After the meeting, coworkers told the manager that she took the high road, but to me it looked like road kill because it was painful to watch.

And sometimes…not so much:

• One coworker expressed indifference to a boss’ attempted bullying by saying, “I was eating when I accepted this job and I’ll be eating when I leave─either from home or from the jail cell they throw me in for assaulting you.” The boss looked startled, walked away and the bullying ceased.

No one can determine your limits or set your boundaries better than you. That’s why the first line of defense is always you—stand up for yourself first and, if you don’t have the strength, seek help. If the help isn’t helpful, seek additional help or find an exit. It’s not easy to stand up, but neither is constant humiliation. Martin Luther King said it best with “A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.”

Written by: Gwendolyn M. Ward, Principal at FOOW?

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My nephew called to tell me about his new car and I shared my first car experience at 16: I told him that during the first night I kept looking out the window to verify that it was real. He laughed and admitted that he had done the same thing. When we disconnected, I thought about the “honeymoon period” we tend to have with people and things, and how exhilarating it is at first until it morphs into feelings far less interesting like responsibility. 

Several cars later, I never did a “reality check” after bringing them home, because to me, they were just responsibility wrapped up in transportation. My first car represented freedom since I didn’t have to borrow my parents’ car, or wait for a ride after school or from work. It was my car and I was driving on cloud nine until responsibility swerved in front of me. Understanding responsibility is relatively straightforward when it comes to financial matters; you either execute with timeliness or not, based on your maturity and means. On the other hand, the ability to respond when it involves relationships, personal or professional can be more complicated.

This became clear when an alumnus told me how her excitement after graduation led her and friends to visit their Alma Mater frequently the first year. After the second year, the excitement waned and it became a hassle and they lost interest. Four years drifted by and they hadn’t participated in any activities. When I asked her to define hassle, she said the eight-hour round trip, her job, boyfriend, the football team and possibly her three-legged dog or hog-I wasn’t sure because she was talking in circles. The short version was “she hated to miss it, but she really didn’t want to go.” Not only was her excitement gone, it was completely lost and she wasn’t trying to find it.

This conversation colorfully summed up the main challenge of Alma Maters after graduation, RELEVANCE. How do they matter and keep the relevance while their Alums’ lives evolve? What I wanted to say to the Alum with the three-legged hog was, “you got a life, right?” It made sense that she would go back to the familiar when surrounded by the unfamiliar. She graduated, moved to a new city and didn’t know many people. So she bonded with her college friends and they all went back to the familiar, their Alma Mater. That was fun until they became familiar with their new lives and perhaps realized that the value of those alumni activities had faded away, to the point that it no longer outweighed the efforts required to stay connected.

Familiarity and value are strongly connected to donations. A friend curtly told me that she didn’t donate to her university because she didn’t feel a connection. She donated and supported a number of charities from cancer to heart associations, but donating to her Alma Mater was not an option. She received a great education and paid a great sum to get it, NEXT! To her, it was black-and-white, but that is not always the case. We asked Alums:

 Have you ever donated money to your college? Why? 

56% – Yes and 44% No 

Most of the Yeses were people who received some type of scholarship themselves, so they wanted to pay it forward with the next generation. Other reasons stated were pride in their college, a way to give back, a way to show support to a particular program like the drama club or another club in which they were involved. 

Most of the Nos didn’t provide reasons. Maybe, like my friend, it was an emphatic No!, followed by NEXT. The few that provided reasons said they couldn’t afford it, their school didn’t need it, or paying their student loans is their donation. 

Again, Mattering appears to be the overall challenge for colleges/universities to connect and stay connected with their Alums. In our previous blogs, 88% of Alums said they did not participate in their alumni activities while 66% said they did not feel that their Alma Mater supported them beyond graduation.  For some Alma Maters, defining Mattering will be harder than creating fire with a wet match, but for others it will light a fire under their creativity to reach out and become relevant on different levels outside of their current view. Because loyalty is not inherent upon graduation, especially with the millennial generation: it is EARNED.

My encounter with church envelopes taught me that in a career train wreck every light in the tunnel is not a way out.

At the time, my job was a train wreck pile-up of unchallenging responsibilities coupled with bickering, backstabbing, and bitter co-workers on the management team. I was frantically sending out résumés to escape this disaster and a company contacted me, looking for a manager to create infrastructure to improve their employee and customer experience. Since that was my fame, I took the bait and arrived at the interview revving to go. I immediately learned that the division created church envelopes. And the hiring manager had more passion about the envelopes than a half-naked, painted football fan in Wisconsin.

The manager effused enthusiastically about geographic areas, various religions and the intriguing intricacies of the church envelope business. His enthusiasm, fascination for the product and his accomplishments were clearly a thrill a minute to himself. I, on the other hand, was underwhelmed. Being curious by nature and harboring a love of problem solving, I have never once wondered about the origins of church envelopes. And yet, there I sat, listening to the story behind the churches and the envelopes with a plastered smile…wondering about the injury potential of leaping from a 4^th floor window in a suit and 3-inch heels.

Church envelopes plus a manager who focused on his accomplishments while dismissing employee development to off-the-shelf tape viewings equaled what? Another train wreck? Or was I being paranoid? So I started asking questions to clarify expectations and they basically went unanswered; instead, he stayed on the course of describing his accomplishments over the years. Without a doubt, there was an “I” in his team, which meant his definition of progress was myopic at best, and more underwhelming than church envelopes. It was also clear that he wasn’t the one pushing for this new position and wasn’t on board.

At some point, I realized that jumping out the window in the middle of the interview was, at a minimum, unprofessional. But still, I had to lecture my desperate self who was urging me on, “take it!, at least you will escape your current wreck.” My logical self was saying, Girl you better RECOGNIZE that every light in the tunnel isn’t an escape, sometimes it’s just another train. I finally threw my desperate self out the window and kept sending résumés until I received a better match.

Personally or professionally, change can be a challenge. However, when your desperate self is in complete control, the results can be unfavorable regardless of the challenge. A little desperation mixed with logic is not a bad thing. Desperation can motivate you to change, and logic can help you evaluate past decisions that resulted in your current situation.

Later, I realized that the interview was a meeting of despair, where the manager was desperate to maintain the status quo and I was desperate to escape my wreck. By luck, my logical self slapped my desperate self off the train tracks which lead to better decision making by me. For the manager, I assumed he eventually got on board because for change to happen favorably, buy-in is needed-especially at the leadership level. If not, you will have a situation where someone is always waiting for his or her turn to speak, without the benefit of listening. We asked Alums…How can the Alum Associations or Career Centers improve?

For Alumni Associations and Career Centers

“Offering courses that help further develop your

professional career roadmap/skills as you transition through the different stages in your career. Helping

to evaluate what has worked in your career, what’s important, and how your path needs to change as your lifestyle evolves with work/family.”

“Offer assistance in transitioning to a career or during a job transition.”

“Do MBTI, focus on what you can

find passion in for your career.”

“Provide more outreach/services for gra

duates.”

“Go beyond the typically resume and interview tips to teaching real world tools that will keep me from feeling defeated while I am adjusting to life after graduation

“Alumni associations and career centers need to get outside their comfort zones and provide better support with career counseling before and after graduation.”

For Alumni Associations

“I enjoyed college but feel they should help students more with their careers after college. As students we invest so much in our education that I feel colleges should invest more in their students’ careers after college.”

“We have sister schools that maybe could have helped. Expand beyond your own alum.”

“Work on post graduation involvement and counseling, transition from school environment to work environment – developing skills needed to succeed in workplace (b/c it’s definitely not the same skills used in the school environment).”

“Students need to be aware of the services while attending. In addition, the emails I rec. are directed at donating funds not really speaking about the services that are offered.”

“Organize local chapters for alums who no longer live in the area.”

“Cultivate relationships with students before they graduate. And become more relevant when engaging students.”

“The Alumni Association can help with employment information.

“You already have our cash – now stick with us! The quarterly magazine doesn’t really speak to opportunities and continuing education.”

“Alum association can offer more of a variety of events.”

“Alum Associations are far more influential than career development centers. I suppose more infrastructure, more “Meet and Greets”, more direct mentoring/shadowing.”

“The Alumni Associations could work harder to connect with their graduates before graduation”.

“Provide more young alum events with reduced price tags!”

“The alumni associations should reach out more to graduates in states other than the ones in which their universities reside. Once you leave the state, the only time they seem to get in touch is when they need donations.”

“The Alumni Association website is hard to navigate and it is frustrating. We are scattered across the country but the center seems to focus on local events only- not cool.”

“It is more important than ever that students and grads have more support in the transition from college to the workforce. The Alumni Associations need to strengthen their transition support.”

For Career Centers

“I wish I had more career counseling. I am back in school in order to begin a second career. Getting “real life” experience made me better understand the type of career I wanted to pursue. I went from high school to a four year college and it wasn’t until I had my second job after college that I realized I wanted to pursue another career.”

“Perhaps by posting what opportunities the career centers have to offer to let people know how they are able to assist graduates in a career path and a job in that field of interest”

“Increase number of career fair type activities.”

“Getting students comfortable to different interviewing styles.”

“Career centers should offer internship opportunities for all students and not just those already enrolled in a major.”

“Having people from various businesses talk with the students- about jobs, the work, work hours, demands, and what they are looking for in employees.”

“Career centers should also be available to graduates who have become unemployed. They should have the resources there to help graduates improve their marketable skills.”

“I found that that career counselors were very unorganized but enthusiastic. I had little assistance from them in finding a job or even in what career path to choose. Ultimately I spent years as a waitress before I was discovered by my current boss.”