Socioeconomic bullying and the workplace
Have you ever been bullied at work?
For an astonishingly large number of people, becoming the victim of bullying from fellow workers, and even bosses, is an everyday reality; to put it more precisely, it is a constant nightmare.
It is simply irrational to be in a place where you are supposed to work hard and honestly to earn a living, when everybody else-instead of working towards common goals-seems to be always on the look for the weakest and most sensitive and vulnerable persons, in terms of character or hierarchy in the company.
Sadly for many employees, before being bullied in the workplace, they have already been "cannibalized" by their classmates at school. In fact, they are they always the same victims, the "usual suspects", who attract all sorts of aggressive behavior from other humans.
Why does this happen?
Perhaps one reason is competition. Working in a competitive environment, for example, at school, and striving for higher grades, or giving your best in the workplace, in order to get promoted and earn a higher salary, will definitely trigger jealousy.
In the end of the day, although schoolmates or colleagues may share the same organizational structure and the same rules, they all have individual goals and ambitions, which are incompatible with each other, and these personal aspirations are usually the reason of conflict.
As a result, the "weakest links" are the easy targets for people in higher and more powerful positions, or those with an innately aggressive character.
This situation is now very common and has aggravated because of the harsh economic climate. Yet the persons in charge of groups at school (teachers) and in the workplace (managers) seem to do very little to stop it.
The victims of bullying suffer some sort of primitive expiation. Once someone is sacrificed, any stressful condition seems to subside.
There seems to be an endless rat-race without any limitations; to achieve the highest school grades, in order to get the best job, and, once you get the best job, you have to compete again, in order to prove that you are better than your colleagues.
Economic recession and the subsequent limited number of available jobs in specific occupations make things worse, and the situation will deteriorate even more.
Is this endless competition going to lead to improved performance, where only the best and most competent persons will be able to survive? Is this the epitome of the old saying: "Only the tough get going when the going gets tough"? Should anyone else with a lower level of skills and/or a less aggressive character be bullied?
I don't think so, because human evolution has always been based on the exchange of skills (born inherent and acquired) among people.
Even those who are less skilled for a specific task or job may prove to perform better, when it comes to surviving in a very different, unexpected condition.
Further reading:
Socioeconomic determinants of bullying in the workplace: A national representative sample in Japan
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