Field report Bullying - when your boss beats you up without a word

Punishment through disregard, laughter behind your back: Bullying in the workplace not only ruins your job satisfaction, but can also have far-reaching health consequences for those affected.

Today I know: it was bullying.

Bullying has become a buzzword. Some people claim that they are being bullied if their boss doesn't greet them properly just once in the morning. This behavior is unfriendly, but it is far from bullying.

However, my story also started with greetings, or rather suddenly not greeting someone. In the end, I could no longer write a really good sentence - a problem for a journalist.

I always thought: Something like that won't happen to me - and if it did, I would know how to defend myself.

When your manager wants to get rid of you

Imagine one of your superiors wants to get rid of you, even though you have done nothing wrong.

On the contrary: your appraisals during appraisal interviews were good to very good. You have also not attracted attention in the past through disloyalty.

Wikipedia defines the term "bullying" as follows: "In sociological terms, bullying or mobbing describes psychological violence defined by the repeated and regular, predominantly psychological harassment, torment and injury of an individual by any group of people or by a single person in a superior position."

"How do I deal with bullying?" is a difficult question. First, I had to realize that I was being bullied in the first place. And yes, by the time I realized that one of my superiors was plotting against me behind my back, it was already too late.

At least for me.

I was punished by being ignored

Being the target of a boss on a regular basis is hard to bear in the long run.

In my case, it wasn't a public embarrassment with words. Instead, I was cut without a word. That's right, I was punished by being ignored.

I admit it took me a long time, far too long, to realize what was going on: Bullying! And of course, at first I doubted myself, my person, my journalistic performance, my useless sentences.

For months I felt bad, slept badly, had stomach cramps and my self-doubt grew. Yes, it knocked me down, but I kept getting up and carrying on. I kept working.

I struggled and struggled, went round in circles and wanted to make up for it somehow, no, better - and failed time and time again.

I lacked the courage and the strength

Experts say that bullying leaves its mark on the soul and can cause a whole range of problems. Today I also know that anyone who is the victim of bullying should seek professional help immediately.

I didn't do that back then. Instead, I fell silent for longer and longer. And muddled through. Somehow.

But I didn't let it get me down completely, even though I lacked the strength and courage to take action against my line manager within the company.

The search for a new challenge

In most cases of bullying, the only thing that helps at some point is separating from the aggressor. It was the same for me. I started looking for a new professional challenge.

And I couldn't help but smile gleefully when my line manager suddenly wanted to give me a warning out of the blue during a "crisis meeting" he had called at short notice.

Well, he didn't know at that moment that I had sent my resignation by registered post half an hour earlier.

My own initiative is probably also the reason why I don't have a feeling of "I've lost" after this unpleasant story.

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In fact, the knot quickly loosened - and momoll, the very next day I found the right words to write again. The block that had held me back before was blown away and the sentences flowed effortlessly again.

I don't believe in revenge

"If the yogis are right when they assume that everything in this world is connected to everything else," wrote Dr. Burkhard Jahn last year in his column "Mobbing - wenn Menschen sich gegenseitig fertigmachen" in the "Nordwest Zeitung","then it is likely that causing bullying will at some point or in some form come back to the perpetrator."

I like these thoughts. Even though I don't wish this former boss any harm.

Because I don't believe in revenge, even though I know today:

It was bullying.

Editor's note: The author of this text remains anonymous. He is a member of the blue News editorial team.

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