Have anyone have had a boss who is a psychopath?

Coraline

The situation has come to a boiling point today. One worker has quit and walked out on the job. Five of us are fed up and agreed today outside of work we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

We will at our next team meeting all verbally warn the bully of how the behaviour is contributing to a hostile work environment, depriving us of dignity at work, and breaking laws. And a litany of other things.

Next if it doesn't change (which we know it won't nobody has challenged this bully before) grievances will follow.

If that doesn't work, tribunals will follow.

Two of us, including myself, have advice from private council to take this matter to court on private grounds under harassment.

We're not taking this $hi te any more.

We're done, and agreed that simply walking away is not an option.

It's going to be an interesting couple months.

Funky_Bold_Ribena

Does this boss have a boss? Can you all request an urgent meeting with that boss to highlight the issues first thing next week?

Southend1

Sorry to hear you're still having problems with this person.

Be sure to take notes of any meeting you have, formal or informal.

Be aware that if everybody raises the issues together at the team meeting the bully is likely to claim that you are all bullying him/her. It may be a good idea to mention it to the bully's manager first to ensure he is aware of what you are doing and why. Having said that, of course the first thing to do in any bullying case is to tell the bully what they are doing, how it makes you feel, that it is unacceptable and that it must stop immediately. If you don't do this you will have problems with any grievance you raise because you could be seen to have accepted the behaviour.

Good luck.

TrickyWicky

Yeah my boss before last was a total and utter head case. He was half english and half european and utterly screwy in the head.

Every day someone was a fu**ing c**t, every customer was a fu**ing c**t, every member of staff at our other site was a fu**ing c**t etc. Every morning he came to work he'd be in a rage until lunch, things would fly across the room, he was wonderful, the best, everyone else was scum etc.

Everyone hated him. Eventually I left as I'd had enough of his constant BS and a while later the company gave him the shove.

Coraline

Funky_Bold_Ribena wrote: »

Does this boss have a boss? Can you all request an urgent meeting with that boss to highlight the issues first thing next week?

The boss does have a boss...several hundred miles away. We need to figure out a way to catch that boss's attention, whether it by grievance or requesting an urgent meeting next time he's around our office (which will be in a month).

As many have mentioned on these boards, we're not exactly eager to go the HR route as it seems that they aren't really on your side in these situations. Especially when this bully is good friends with the HR people!

*Sigh*

Coraline

Southend1 wrote: »

Sorry to hear you're still having problems with this person.

Be sure to take notes of any meeting you have, formal or informal.

Be aware that if everybody raises the issues together at the team meeting the bully is likely to claim that you are all bullying him/her. It may be a good idea to mention it to the bully's manager first to ensure he is aware of what you are doing and why. Having said that, of course the first thing to do in any bullying case is to tell the bully what they are doing, how it makes you feel, that it is unacceptable and that it must stop immediately. If you don't do this you will have problems with any grievance you raise because you could be seen to have accepted the behaviour.

Good luck.

Thank you Southend...I've been reading up on all this stuff for the last days and that sounds like great advice...unless they are made aware that the behaviour is unacceptable then absolutely right, a grievance wouldn't really work.

I also found out interestingly enough that bullying is not illegal...you have to go along "harassment" which is illegal. But I'm not sure if it's different in the workplace, NHS has policies regarding "dignity at work," etc.

Coraline

TrickyWicky wrote: »

Yeah my boss before last was a total and utter head case. He was half english and half european and utterly screwy in the head.

Every day someone was a fu**ing c**t, every customer was a fu**ing c**t, every member of staff at our other site was a fu**ing c**t etc. Every morning he came to work he'd be in a rage until lunch, things would fly across the room, he was wonderful, the best, everyone else was scum etc.

Everyone hated him. Eventually I left as I'd had enough of his constant BS and a while later the company gave him the shove.

That sounds familiar...except this one doesn't use that language but he/she calls my colleagues "idiots" and "morons" behind their back (I mean right to me, a fellow plebe!! God know what's said about me behind my back!)

To add to the craziness, this one is extremely paranoid and constantly blaming us for making at risk of losing her job, and is constantly going on about her bosses in corporate are deliberately trying to stitch he/she up in order to sack!!

Mental!

TrickyWicky

Coraline wrote: »

That sounds familiar...except this one doesn't use that language but he/she calls my colleagues "idiots" and "morons" behind their back (I mean right to me, a fellow plebe!! God know what's said about me behind my back!)

Oh that was the tip of the iceberg. He was also the best at everything, no-one else knew what they were doing (yet it took him 6 months to learn to use the main computer system), he could barely use email etc, etc. Somehow though he was the best of the best and going up the ladder while trying to stitch us all up and set us against each other. Every week someone was being told to watch and record another member of staff and report back to him and then he'd have that same victim try to stitch up the person trying to stitch them up!

Then there were the phone calls.. just done a long night shift, go to bed and then the phone calls.. :mad:

Then you'd get the "Never ring someone on their time off" from him and yet he'd do that just to ring up and call you a c**t :mad:

Then there were the false promises that he'd sort out the issues that kept arising and he never would because he was so incompetent, everyone was lazy (yet he'd be on his mobile most of the day, internet or reading a paper but HE was the hard worker). The temper was the worst though, he was always angry about stupid trivial things.

Coraline wrote: »

To add to the craziness, this one is extremely paranoid and constantly blaming us

Oh yeah I've been there.. last one used to blame us all the time for his incompetence. He misplaced his keys once and then we went through hell.

ohreally

Coraline, I accept that situations such as this can be very demanding however if you do nothing else, try and gather corroborating evidence, as I suspect you're realising, HR may be another hurdle to overcome.

Don't rely too much on witness statements, as when the brown stuff flies, they can dissapear.

Coraline

Thanks ohreally...that's what we're doing now, sorting out our diaries of incidents. Like mentioned before it's unlikely to do much unless we address it directly, in an urgent meeting like FBR mentioned, with witnesses (we're all witness and in part of this) that the behaviour must stop.

I had the same thought about witnesses. As much as I want to trust everybody I get that nagging thought that we're all sitting around waiting for someone else to be the first one to "jump." (I'm guilty of this too). So the only solution I see is if we all did at the same time, as in formally complain to her that the behaviour must stop.

Heck a colleague I even thought of tape-recording all of our meetings with the bully going forward--we'd be bound to get several angry outbursts to substantiate what's happened within a week or so. I'm not sure if this is legal though.

Either way it looks like the sanest/safest option is to wait until I have another job offer in hand.

Can you file a grievance even if you've handed notice in? I know you can go to tribunal up to 3 months after leaving/getting sacked if I read the gov.uk sites right.

What irks me the most at this point is that nobody's ever stood up to this person. We can all just leave and forget about it and move on with our lives, but others will come in and the cycle will repeat. As it's done already. I'm wondering where we are on the ladder of reincarnations of staff here!