Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace

by Noa Davenport

Book Overview

Everyday capable, hardworking, committed employees suffer emotional abuse at their workplace. Some flee from jobs they love, forced out by mean-spirited co-workers, subordinates or superiors -- often... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0967180309
• ISBN13: 9780967180304
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: Bonus Books
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

seek help and leave the environment

I'm currently dealing with the affects of this type of cowardly behavior, and I would like to send a message to anyone who has found themselves here at this web page: If you "feel" like this is happening to you, if you "think" this may be happening to you, if you are waking up in the middle of the night, by intrusive thoughts and worries surrounding your work situation, and wondering what is wrong with yourself, then trust your instincts. Leave the environment and seek help. Please do it for the good of yourself, your health, and your loved ones. This has been one of the most crushing, defeating experiences of my life. I hope that I can at least help keep someone from making the same mistakes in not trusting in their own perceptions. Don't worry about revenge via lawsuits, or fighting back, or personal pride. Be concerned about your own mental and emotional well being. Surround yourself with people who give a damn about you. Seek resources such as this book in order to understand your situation, and try your best to start dusting yourself off. These types of environments are severely ill and fronted by phonies. They are the most ignorant, the most scared and would be the first ones to crumble under the same circumstances you have found yourself. There is no honor or valour where you are at. Let them be. Rise above it, and out of it...

I was Mobbed and Survived!!!

One of the most insidious ruses used by management, when they want you out, is to allow, in fact, condone, bullying by your peers. And when you complain, they ask you "What did you do to deserve it?" It doesn't matter if you are the most productive customer service rep. with a large and satisfied client base, if they don't like you or feel threatened by you, you will get mobbed.I had not realized, until I read this book, that there was a name for what I had experienced. With a lot of counseling, talks with trusted friends and anti-depressant medication, I held my own for several years. And what was my sin? Being the Union Rep. with integrity, protecting even some of the people who made my life miserable. What really made my blood pressure go up was when I read that most people who experience severe mobbing, leave the work force and can never return.Fortunately I was able to leave after 19 yrs and start another career in another industry. But I lost seniority, affecting vacation benefits, sick leave benefits and placement on the lay off list. The good thing is that I don't experience the mobbing where I now work and I am in fact, respected, for my Union history (some of it had made the newspapers) and integrity.Being able to put a name with what was happening helped me to be able to make it through the last couple of months on the old job. I also started following suggestions in the book, including using them with the Union rep. who had also not supported me. I am heartened that this harrassment is now recognized and employers can be made to pay for it. But the courts and lawyers are still not too keen on prosecuting. This book is one of the best on the subject, an easy read, but don't read it while in the doctor's waiting room, your blood pressure will go off the charts!!

Scary, Infuriating, And Enlightening

Do you ever read in the paper how a large company is planning to eliminate 1,000 jobs or so over the next year through something called "attrition"? They're not going to lay people off and have to pay those pesky unemployment benefits, they're just going to reap the harmless and friendly windfall of attrition. It's like 1,000 people or so at this company are going to wake up one day and, for no particular reason, just up and decide to get new jobs or whatever! Hey, what a great deal for the company! Such a great deal! Of course, what many of us who have undergone the attrition process learn is that a company actively encourages people to volunteer to quit their jobs. Or perhaps some managers want to encourage certain employees they don't particularly like to quit -- with the implicit collusion of upper management. And of course this encouragement usually takes the form of insults, threats, humiliations, blackmail, manipulations, treachery, harrassment, gangings-up-on, behind-the-back criticisms, "one-on-one" meetings with concerned managers, and various other forms of encouragement. You can complain, of course, but whomever at the company you want to complain to feels, well, they really have to side with Management on this one -- it must be all YOUR fault. Even the most arrogant and self-secure can have bad feelings about such experiences months or even years after the fact. Rage, frustation, grinding teeth, revenge fantasies -- these are your only true pals (it seems). Unfortunately, some people suffer a lot more than feelings of protracted anger. This books describes cases where workers have been rewarded with long-term depression, heart attacks, and even suicide. Management excels at making their mistakes and their policies look like YOUR fault. The most conscientious workers get it the worst, since they actually care enough about their work to take all the criticism seriously. It's a weeding-out of the best, most productive people. I highly recommend this book to everyone who works for any company or organization. The authors spell out in satisfying detail exactly what sort of abuses go on at companies (borderline legal abuse and otherwise). They also discuss the underlying causes that motivate Mobbing: "attrition" is one I discussed above, but job competition, personal dislike, and power politics are also factors. They also discuss how to recognize when it's happening, and what you can do (although I'm afraid getting another job pretty much tops the short list of recommended actions).

Excellent and important book

Anytime you name something you begin to grasp it with more power. The authors have given us the gift of naming a pernicious process called "Mobbing." They define Mobbing as 'group bullying.' Sometimes obvious and sometimes subtly masked by the bullies power it consistently has a negative impact on everyone adjacent. Reading this book brought back numerous personal memories of the intimidating, humiliating, isolating sorts of tactics that mobbing can take in the workplace. The more I thought about it the more I realized that mobbing is much more common than I had first thought. This is a crucial read for those who have been "mobbed" in the workplace, and also vital for employers to read to create a workplace that is safe from the tragedies of mobbing. The book not only outlines the process of mobbing it goes many steps further to give people ways to respond and heal. This is an excellent ground-breaking book. Highly recommended.