The Bully at Work: What You Can Do to Stop the Hurt and Reclaim Your Dignity on the Job

Bullies on the job can cause irreparable harm to their colleagues, contend the authors, founders of the Campaign Against Workplace Bullying. While violent or vengeful workers occasionally make the news, there are insidious bullies in nearly every workplace, whether co-worker, boss or junior colleague. Their behavior causes other people to suffer shame, humiliation and fear--all of which can affect their nonwork life as well as their job performance. The Namies recommend that ""targets"" act quickly to dismantle a bullying dynamic once they recognize it, and they also urge government and judicial recognition that ""bullying"" is an endemic workplace issue that deserves to be taken seriously. The last 100 pages of the book are the most useful; one chapter, ""Control Destructive Mind Games,"" analyzes how people let their emotions color their actions. Subsequent chapters offer concrete strategies that ""targets"" can take to alleviate their workplace distress (including using humor to deflect a bully's tactics and finding support among colleagues and friends). Overall, this volume presents an intriguing concept that is rarely given such detailed analysis. However, the notion of ""bullying"" as a crime seems farfetched; the book would be even more effective if it focused on interpersonal skills and tools that could be used to fight back, rather than on trying to initiate change in public policy. (July)