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Summary: A must have book for those in the work force
Review: 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 colorful 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. Despite the fact that many (perhaps most) of us Mobbing vicitms go on to get better jobs, and a few folks even start their own businesses, it's never a good experience. Even the most arrogant and self-secure among us can have bad feelings about such experiences months or even years after the fact. That "What Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger" philosophy isn't much consolation, either (thanks, Nietszche), particularly at the time it's happening. 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). The workers of America need to organize against this, darn it! Organize!
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Summary: BULLIES - FAMILY / WORKPLACE / SCHOOL / NEIGHBORHOOD
Review: Excellent compliments to this book are: Emotional Blackmail: When People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You by Susan Forward and Donna Frazier; Why Is It Always About You?: The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism by Sandy Hotchkiss and James Masterson; The Angry Heart: Overcoming Borderline and Addictive Disorders by Joseph Santoro and Ronald Cohen; The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman and Robert Pressman; Understanding the Borderline Mother: Helping Her Children Transcend the Intense, Unpredictable and Volatile Relationship by Christine Ann Lawson; Living with the Passive-Aggressive Man by Scott Wetzler; Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited by Sam Vaknin and Lidija Rangelovska (Editor); Children of the Self-Absorbed: A Grown-Up's Guide to Getting Over Narcissistic Parents by Nina Brown; Treating Attachment Disorders: From Theory to Therapy by Karl Heinz Brisch and Kenneth Kronenberg; Toxic Coworkers: How to Deal with Dysfunctional People on the Job by Alan Cavaiola and Neil Lavender; Bully in Sight: How to Predict, Resist, Challenge and Combat Workplace Bullies by Tim Field. And if you want to pursue the subject even further, you may be interested in reading The Narcissistic / Borderline Couple: A Psychoanalytic Perspective On Marital Treatment; Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility by Jim Fay and Foster Cline.
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Summary: At Last Someone Decided to Talk About It!
Review: I found this book extremely helpful. I've been a victim of mobbing for 12 years and didn't even realize it! I wondered what the problem was. I really wasn't even aware that I was being harassed, because I really didn't have a concise definition. I've been "working" on myself for years trying to fit in at the company where I work. The bosses where I work get very upset when the mobbing doesn't work, too! ... I just realized a couple of months ago, that upper management is in on it. I also didn't realize that I can sue their butts!
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Summary: Required reading for Lennox International employees
Review: I learned about this book by chance; I'd never heard the term "mobbing" before. As someone who was mobbed for three anguished years, I found this book a revelation. Because my harassment was neither sexual, religious, nor ethnic in origin, I felt I had no legal recourse--and I felt terribly alone. This book gave a name to what happened to me, and assured me that I am far from alone. Again and again, I saw myself and my tormentors in its pages. Although it was painful to recall some of the worst abuses, I take great comfort in the knowledge that I was not responsible for what happened to me. My manager and her cronies were cruel, vicious, and malevolent. I eventually left and moved on with my life; my manager is still there, no doubt causing terrible pain to another stessed-out employee trying desperately to please her. I hope the US will follow the lead of some European countries and pass legislation against workplace mobbing and bullying. It is illegal to abuse spouses and children; it should also be illegal to abuse co-workers.
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Summary: A must read for those who are bullied at work
Review: Mobbing: Emotional abuse in the American Workplace is a must read for anyone who has been bullied or harassed at work and for others interested in this phenomenon. This book is a soup to nuts resource taking us from the origins and basics of mobbing to the eventual healing and prevention. It is concise and detailed leaving no stone unturned and is loaded with terminology essential to define and identify acts of mobbing and the course one goes through in it's aftermath. The examples given, anecdotes in each chapter and the highlighted lists of terminology make this book an easy read for those who need to understand why one's job can bring so much misery so unnecessarily. As a former victim and now a union shop steward and anti-bullying activist, I say run, not walk, to buy this book. You'll be glad you did and you will be armed with the information to heal, and to understand what happened to you and what you can do about it. As a shop steward I have already used the terminology and concepts found within to prepare and file a grievance on behalf of a client. This book has become a valuable handbook and reference I use daily to sort out the various types of bullying and emotional abuse found in my workplace. Bob Miller PAWA People Against Workplace Abuse
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Summary: There's A Name For It!
Review: 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!!
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Summary: Mobbing : What Happens Before Workers Go Postal
Review: This book is a MUST READ for all those who are employed in the American workplace. We have all heard of the "disgruntled employee" who goes into his / her present or former workplace and shoots up the management. Why does this happen? Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace methodically and clearly explains how workers reach this deserate point in their work lives. This gross, cruel, dysfunctional behavior-psycho terror expresses it well-is perpetrated by business and large corporations. Such completely unacceptable behavior needs to be addressed by business and government, and those who practice it should be held accountable. Psychological torture of the mind and heart constitutes a breach of everything that we, as Americans, consider the American character.
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Summary: Mobbing : What Happens Before Workers Go Postal
Review: This book is a MUST READ for all those who are employed in the American workplace. We have all heard of the "disgruntled employee" who goes into his / her present or former workplace and shoots up the management. Why does this happen? Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace methodically and clearly explains how workers reach this deserate point in their work lives. This gross, cruel, dysfunctional behavior-psycho terror expresses it well-is perpetrated by business and large corporations. Such completely unacceptable behavior needs to be addressed by business and government, and those who practice it should be held accountable. Psychological torture of the mind and heart constitutes a breach of everything that we, as Americans, consider the American character.
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Summary: Bless them for writing this
Review: This phenomenon--mobbing--is almost as painful to watch as it is to experience. It destroys the morale of anyone around it. To see people behave this way destroys one's faith in human nature. It's "hounding," and "badgering" and "pecking," and these are all animal terms. As a personal and professional coach, I listen to people all the time who have been through this or seen it happen, and together we struggled for words to describe it. This book gives us the words and is the beginning. I was pleased to read that it's a tort. It should be. I was also pleased to read that, should the 'mobbed' individual need therapy, it is to be considered an injury, not an illness. In a personal communication with one of the others, Gail Elliott, she told me that when she gives talks on this, many people tell her "this will never happen on my watch again." Thanks to the authors for giving this ugly thing a name so that we can understand it and begin to eradicate it. This book is a must read.
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