An eye roll, that’s how I remember it. And probably an exasperated sigh. But I challenge anyone not to feel any degree of frustration for the situation I found myself in that afternoon.
In front of me was a junior member of my team. I was, back then, a 46-year-old programme director for a non-profit organisation.
There were 12 on my team; mostly female, very bright, second or first-jobbers in their 20s. And, I’m afraid to say, a high proportion of them were high-maintenance, melodramatic snowflakes prone to tantrums, sulks and, as it turned out, sinister Machiavellian plots when they didn’t get their own way.
Vicky wasn’t the worst, but she was proving very difficult to manage. Reports were rarely filed on time and there were tears and angry outbursts when she was chased up, or caught lying that work was completed when it wasn’t. The list of issues was growing.
Having applied due diligence, ensuring I’d got all my facts straight, I scheduled a meeting with her one Friday afternoon to discuss her performance. I didn’t want to get rid of her – she was very good at her job when she chose to do it. I just needed her to, well, do it. It didn’t seem unreasonable.
I had no idea of the trap I was walking into; one that – I can see now – had been set Damocles-style against me for several years as the power base in the office began to change and common sense was replaced with wokery.
I couldn’t foresee that this run-of-the-mill meeting would lead to years of stress, sleepless nights and ultimately drive me out of a job I loved and was very good at.
And worryingly, there are many older managers like me in companies across the country left unable to do our jobs for fear of triggering the childish but ultimately ruinous animosity of an over-indulged generation who have never heard the word ‘no’.
Anyone could say anything they liked with no evidence to back it up, Caroline Harvey writes
When I joined the organisation, then in my 20s, in the 1990s, it was a different world. The old guard was still in charge and there was a whiff of cigar smoke about the place.
The bosses were largely male, Oxbridge-educated and undoubtedly paid more than the women.
There were office arguments, affairs and a few ‘handsy’ pests, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
The human resources department had about two people in it; no one really knew what they did, apart from photocopy your passport when you arrived.
As I progressed up the ladder – marrying and having children along the way – and we entered the new millennium, things started to change, initially for the better.
More women breached the glass ceiling and people were recruited from more diverse ethnic backgrounds. The HR department quadrupled and introduced useful things such as staff councils, performance-related pay rises and more equitable promotion opportunities.
Yet, gradually, the pendulum of change started to swing too far.
As the organisation expanded, anonymous personal development reviews – to avoid intimidating face-to-face confrontations – were introduced with no guidance. Anyone could say anything they liked with no evidence to back it up.
The lack of accountability meant that those with insufficient experience – both personal and professional – were getting promoted too quickly.
The dress code got more casual, to the point where flip-flops, greasy hair and ripped jeans were deemed acceptable. Now, I’m no Anna Wintour, but I like keeping my office and home wardrobes separate.
And the hugging. God, all the hugging that was suddenly going on. I started getting nostalgic for the creepy, gropey bosses of old. At least you knew who they were and could avoid them.
Wisely, I didn’t complain when the staff canteen suddenly went vegan overnight, without consultation, leaving us with nothing but a pile of dry carrot and hummus sandwiches to ‘feast on’ during working lunches.
Meat and fish were allowed only when catering for visitors, and it always amused me how, the minute they left, there was a stampede for the leftover sausage rolls.
Nor did I question the queues of employees who volunteered to attend ‘all-day’ activist marches in London – all done on company time, without impacting their annual leave entitlement.
By the time I hit my 40s, I had my own team and was always known as the casual, relaxed and easy-going boss. Things were all going well – until Vicky and Emma, both terrifically bright and ambitious young women, arrived.
Which brings me back to that meeting with Vicky. She brought her laptop with her and sat there typing throughout, refusing to look up.
Eventually I asked her if she was listening. No answer. I asked her again if she could stop typing and pay attention. She looked daggers at me.
‘Vicky, can I ask you exactly what you are doing?’ I asked, to which she responded aggressively: Why did I want to know that? What was I implying? What was my point?
When I tried to reply, she began interrupting anything I said with a stream of passive-aggressive questions. I had never known anything like it.
That was the point I sighed – and yes, rolled my eyes – and suggested maybe we should call it a day, have ‘a little think and a cool down’ over the weekend, and reconvene on Monday (when I could bring in someone from HR to back me up, though I didn’t tell her that). Then I walked out.
When I came in on Monday morning, there was a message waiting for me from HR. Vicky had filed a bullying complaint against me.
Apparently, I’d screamed and shouted, pounded the desk and stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind me, leaving her shaking, crying and ‘fearing for her personal safety’.
Of course, I was shocked and angry – and a little amused. It would all be cleared up quickly, I thought. After all, our meeting had taken place in a glass-walled, by no means soundproof, room within a busy office.
It would take HR moments to speak to other staff and find out none of it had happened. And with any luck, this could mean Vicky would learn to take direction and criticism reasonably and calmly from now on. But no. Vicky had fired the opening shots in a war in which the word ‘bullying’ was her most destructive bomb.
It’s one that, in my opinion, is over-used and being abused and weaponised by a new generation of workers simply to get their own way – and means older managers like me are being left hobbled.
Once a bullying complaint is filed, even if it isn’t upheld, you are damaged and your position becomes untenable. You lack the confidence to lead your team, they lose respect in you and your superiors see you as the problem. It also wastes millions of taxpayers’ money in arbitration, compensation and lost working hours.
I can categorically say I am not a bully.
I fight my corner, admittedly – growing up with three brothers, I had to – but in the workplace I’ve always maintained professional boundaries and been well-liked by colleagues. Rather than the quick check-in I’d been anticipating, it took three months for HR to sort out Vicky’s complaint.
Everyone in the department was interviewed at length, Vicky requested a third party be present whenever we worked together ‘for her safety’ and, in the end, external arbitrators were brought in – charging about £600 a day.
Ultimately, the truth prevailed and her complaint wasn’t upheld. I had to endure a ‘conciliation session’, where Vicky, I and an adjudicator were required to sit under a tree on a picnic rug and ‘say positive things about each other’ for an afternoon.
Vicky said she thought I had a good sense of humour and was good at managing budgets.
I really cannot remember what I said about her. Then we all hugged and went home. It was utterly ridiculous… but at least it was over.
I tried not to think about all those hours of wasted time, all the weekends and evenings I’d had to spend catching up on work as a result and the vast amounts of money thrown away for nothing.
I was keen for things to get back to normal and they did, albeit with frosty cordiality. Yet Vicky obviously now saw me as the enemy and wanted revenge.
She found it in Emma, another twentysomething who joined from another department a few years later. I’d been told she needed ‘a bit of hand-holding’, but was very good at her job.
She turned out to be wildly ambitious and clearly resented being subordinate to me. She also became very good friends with Vicky, which led to my second bullying complaint.
This time my crime was to ‘undermine her’ and ‘use threatening language and gestures’ in a dispute over a report she’d filed.
The truth was that the report was mine, yet Emma took it upon herself to edit it, badly and without asking me, before sending it on to the senior directors without my knowledge.
Once I realised what had happened, I recalled it, corrected her mistakes and asked her not to do that again. Quite reasonable, I think you’d agree, and surely not worth anything more than a quick rant down the pub with your friends.
Yet Emma wanted my scalp – and my job. Her bullying complaint led to months more of arbitration and interviews, which coincided with my elderly mother who had recently been diagnosed with dementia coming to live with us.
It was so stressful that I was often in tears at the dinner table. My husband and children lost the jolly, fun-filled me as my weekends were consumed by preparing statements and gathering evidence for my defence.
All the while in the office, I’d see Vicky and Emma disappearing into the meeting room together for hours on end, as they prepared her case. The complaint wasn’t upheld; the evidence just wasn’t there and I was backed up by another senior colleague.
I started to feel like I was the one being bullied, yet it never occurred to me to complain. It felt counterproductive and I couldn’t face yet more admin.
The final blow came during the annual Work Wellbeing survey organised by HR, which was sent out anonymously about six months later. One of the questions was a loaded, ‘Have you ever felt at risk of being bullied?’ Note that this question was not have you been bullied, but have you ever thought you might be bullied.
Across the company, 40 per cent of staff answered yes. The survey also offered the chance to describe any incidents of possible bullying. HR called me in the next day. I was told that two of the surveys had mentioned me.
The responses, they said, were anonymous, so of course there was no question of telling me who those employees were. But one of them had written a flabbergasting 10,000-word essay about my ‘appalling’ behaviour. It was obviously Emma.
The other complaint came from someone I’d asked several years ago whether her holiday dates were set in stone after they clashed with an important client meeting.
Human Resources basically told me I had to go. I was making them look bad and the directors were losing faith in my ability to manage a department.
To be honest, I was relieved. I’d lost faith, too. After four hideous years, I wanted to go.
I sought advice from an employment lawyer and my trade union, and managed to secure myself a £30,000 severance package that left my professional reputation intact.
Luckily, I got another job the same day I signed my redundancy agreement and didn’t have to work out my notice.
My new role is similar, but in a completely different industry. Colleagues and subordinates are older and more serious, and no, it’s not as much fun – but it’s nice not to be working in a constant state of fear. Plus, all the hugging has gone.
I think I was a victim of an orchestrated plot to remove me. Perhaps I’d outgrown the ‘brave new world’. It was noticeable that the company demographic when I left was about 20 years younger than when I started.
I’ve since learned that both Emma and Vicky have left the company. Vicky had a bullying complaint upheld against her before she resigned and has since burned through three jobs elsewhere. Emma didn’t get my job; she was moved to another department before being managed out when she was found to be unmanageable.
Although I did get some satisfaction from this, I still think the complaint culture in today’s workplaces has got out of hand.
Maybe it’s time to take a step back and ask: who is actually bullying who?
- Caroline Harvey is a pseudonym. Names have been changed.
