i'm being bullied at work

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i'm thinking about not even going back cuz i'm being bullied at work. it's negative, toxic environment. the bully is making fun of me to others and it triggers them to treat me bad. he is condescending, sarcastic, and arrogant. while i was working a shift, him and other person were staring at me "watching" how i do my job. i've been trained and i know what i'm doing, but he treats me like i'm dumb. a few moments later, one of them comes up to me to double check me and because i wasn't using his nazi method and instead actually being NICE to the customer, he was like condescendingly, "Ohh, we better get a manager down here." i like to learn every aspect of things too so i ask questions and always make sure i understand the process and someone was completely hostile to me and meanly replied, "Don't ask anymore dumb questions!" it's like hello, i'm wanting to learn something. why be hostile about someone actually wanting to learn something. it's like they just prefer to pretend to work and stew in their own bitterness. i actually want to do the job correctly and i get bullied for it. screw them, i got tips on thanksgiving and they didn't. funny how the customers like me better. probably cuz kind recognizes kind. plus the manager is a jerk and not hands on, just sits in his uptight office sniffing his butt. he had chipotle deliver him food and doors were still locked. so deliverywoman left it at door. i picked it up and brought it in when he finally unlocked doors to start day and he just rudely grabs the bag from me as if i was going to steal it or something. i was just bringing it in for him jeez. asking him anything is fruitless. i asked one question, he was like "yea yea, we'll go over that" then never gets back to me about it. one namecalling thing i hate, is "ret*d", which is what i'm called. i'm just the dumb pariah apparently. i'm thinking about becoming self-employed at this point.

Self employment may be a good idea, as long as you understand thhe paperwork etc.

It's really f*****g s**t how people can get treated in the workplace these days. You should just leave. Don't put up with it. Cut your losses and leave them to their stuck up ignorance. They won't change. The only thing that will happen is that eventually they will make you feel just as s**t about yourself as they feel about themselves.

Even if you don't go self employed there are other jobs out there. Only plan to stay at a place for a couple of months at a time and keep moving on until you find somewhere where people respect you properly. That way you are the one in control. This is about control at the end of the day.

Sandra

Wow! I've experienced a lot of bullying and you described it perfectly.

First: Believe it. It's really happening. And you sound like a great employee. You are not the problem! I have seen this BS so much! Don't internalize their BS. FOR NOW, do what they ask, don't ask too many questions. (There is a balance between finding ways to learn that doesn't take too much time from others.) But, if I were you, I'd have to continue being nice to customers, but don't do any extras with them.)

I'm not sure where you are in your career. I'm just figuring this out at 69. I don't have enough money to retire, so it's kind of a good thing: I have to face these problems. It's a spiritual quest.

I think, food for thought here, that you have to sit down and plan a new direction for yourself. I think you have to get out of there. They will always be a_holes and the restaurant business is especially nasty. How you do it, is a good question. I got a lawyer for this kind of discrimination, but I'm not sure that's the best route. Sounds like you have to get training in some other business. An initial plan might be 1. to look for another job and 2. search for another career and training. There are better people out there.....but there will always be bullies.

Good luck.

Yeah, I agree with the rest of these posters. I was bullied at work too and when it got too much, I left to be self-employed (I have an employer now but my current company has a decent culture - I've been there for over 9 years as a result). As one poster in this forum said, one of the biggest hurdles in self-employment is the paperwork, but I didn't find this insurmountable. It was also a pay-cut, but on the other hand, what price is mental health and brain space to do positive stuff, rather than stewing over the s**t they poured on you that day?

If you can afford to leave that workplace/go solo, that could be a good idea. But this is my own experience - I'm not aware of any other factors you should take into consideration before quitting. Good luck!

I disagree with the standard cliche advice of "You have to stand up for yourself". In my opinion, this usually fails, except if the bullying is only a very light case.

What really works in reality is something awful that some people don't like to talk about: You have to bully the bully. You have to turn the bully's own techniques against him/her. This is a really awful fact of life. I don't like it at all, but this is how it is in the real world.

When the bully is your boss, obviously you can't bully your boss, so in this case the only solution is to search for a different job, which is difficult of course. Alternatively you could try talking with the boss of the boss, if your employer has a chain of bosses.

Like people here already said, self-employment is a good option. Self-employment is an ideal solution, but of course it's much easier said than done. It's challenging. Great if you can learn how to achieve it.

In a juvenile situation such as a school, if the teachers don't stop the bullying, and if you can't switch to a proper school, then you have to bully the bully in return. For example, if the bully says "You're ugly like a pig", then you fake a laugh and reply with something equally-juvenile and insulting, such as, "Yes I am, but not as ugly as you are, pimple-face!"

Even if the bully is good-looking, you call him "pimple-face" anyway, and tell him he'll never get a proper girlfriend. Ignore the lack of logic in what you're saying, because the bully also speaks without logic.
The above is a juvenile example, but the same principle also applies to coworkers who bully you in workplaces. More than half of all NT's never grow up, in my opinion.

Importantly, ONLY bully the bully in response (meaning in defense), not as an unprovoked attack on the bully. You don't want to become a bully yourself.

Some people will tell you it's wrong to bully the bully, but these people are just believing in what they want to believe, and ignoring the disturbing reality of the situation.

Rotter

That’s an interesting approach. But what if the bully then goes and complains to your boss?

Bullying in the workplace can get pretty sophisticated. For example, someone claiming something is high priority that isn’t and you have 70 other work tickets ahead of him and he’s got a managerial title, low level, but managerial, so he’s trying to throw his weight around. This happened to me, so I quit.

It’s taken 3 months, but I’m getting warm after interviews with 3 companies. Tomorrow I hear about my favorite. Hoping.

The answer to your question is the same as the answer to: What if the victim of bullying then goes and complains to the boss of the bully?

The answer is that the bully usually does the bullying only verbally, and avoids creating any written evidence. So, if your chosen solution is to bully the bully, then you'd have to use the same dirty tricks as the bully uses, such as doing it verbally when nobody else can hear it.

Yes, there is a risk of making a mistake and being punished, but what choice do you have? If you mess up, you might be fired for bullying the bully, but the alternative is to quit, and either way the result is the same: Quit or fired, either way, you lost your job, and you have to seek another job.


I agree. I have also experienced sophisticated bullying. I don't claim to be skillful at defending against it, which is why I'm trying to stay out of workplaces entirely, forever if possible.

A big trap is to take joy in any successful act of bullying the bully. It's a dangerous game. The lesson to be learned is what George Martin teaches us in Game of Thrones: Everybody loses the game eventually. It's stupid to be proud of game-playing skills.

NT's seem to be often proud of their game-playing skills, but as George Martin teaches us, the winners are losers. Everyone who plays the game is ultimately a loser. So, it's best to try to stay out of the game entirely, if possible.


I don't know the details of your case, but maybe you could've used the same technique as many of my past coworkers used: Passive-aggressive. They said yes but passively-aggressively got revenge by deliberately slowing down their work, and introducing artificial delays.

This passive-aggressive "solution" is psychologically unhealthy, especially if done long-term, but what choice do you have? So presumably you already did the best thing in your case: You quit. Unfortunately many victims of bullying can't afford to quit, so they're stuck with using the least-bad "solution", and hoping they don't get punished for defending themselves against bullying.

oops, I totally forgot to say "Good luck" in a superficial and insincere manner. If this was a workplace and I was a new employee, I'd now be 1% closer to being chosen as the next victim of bullying. It adds up over time. If I remembered to say "Good luck" half an hour later, and then if I did deliver my belated "Good luck" half an hour late, then I'd be 5% closer to being bullied or at least disadvantaged, because supposedly it's "weird" to deliver a late "Good luck".

Rotter
LOL. I may be able to retire in a few years. I hope I make it with all my marbles intact.
Companies are stupid. They would get so much more work out of people if they didn’t have to waste time dealing with bullies.

…and here’s a belated, “Thanks for the ‘good luck.’”

Researchers say currently the best-known treatment for keeping the marbles intact for longer is frequent physical exercise, but apparently it only works if it's to the point of huffing and puffing, not only walking comfortably.


Neurodivergent people tend to think the goal of companies is to make the company run well. I believed it for many years. Eventually I had to admit that I was wrong. Eventually I discovered that many NT's have a completely different goal. I discovered their secret.

Do you want to hear it? The secret? The secret goal of NT's? Here it is. Their goal isn't to improve society or make efficient companies or eliminate exploitation. Their real goal is to make spaghetti bolognese out of chop-suey with free invisible noodles.

Yes, yes, I'm fully aware of the fact that the previous sentence makes no sense. Still, that's definitely what their goal is. I'm sure of it now. That's why it's so difficult for people with autistic traits to understand NT's: Because not even the NT's themselves understand what they're doing. Nobody understands it. Nobody CAN understand it. It's pure madness. People with autistic traits cannot be blamed for failing to understand pure madness.

Rotter
Accurate conclusion.

Lol makes sense

Did you just call me a rotter? Again. That's 3 times now. Some people would be offended by that. But not me. I'm not offended at all. You're welcome to continue calling me rotter. No complaints from me, none at all

LOL