by Drew Mitchell

Created on: October 18, 2009   Last Updated: November 12, 2009

A very common theme in a toxic workplace is the concept of "mobbing." One of the bully's strengths can be their ability to make other people turn on the target. Even if the bully is thwarted, the damage caused can have lasting effects if the bully was capable enough to enlist a mob to assist in the torment the target. In one such instance that happened to me, the bully had a rather large "posse" - as many as five people were in the immediate inner circle and maybe a score of others filtered in and out of the group at varying times. Eventually, the bully played their hand one too many times, got caught and was forced to resign. At the time it felt like a red letter day for me. I felt like I would get my life back. This feeling lasted a month - maybe. The bully was gone, but the mob remained. In fact, the bully's words continued to echo up to my last day at that workplace.

All bullies are vermin, but this one was exceptionally nasty. The bully was low enough to use my health against me, bordering on outright discrimination. And it was tolerated. I complained and instead of being vindicated, I was put on the spot for not handling my health "issues." The bully made people believe that my health was one of the main reasons I was a weakling and that I could never be competent to run my department. This tactic was used all the way up the company ladder to the point that the administrator was willing to overlook my positive achievements in favor of "saving face" with the mob.

I know that not everyone is comfortable with people with health issues, whether physical or emotional, obvious or not. I was never able to substantiate the following conversation, but I will always believe that these comments were my boss's way of justifying the bully's use of my health issues against me. I was told that my "non-conformity" was an issue long before the bully used it as a means to prove me unfit for my job. According to my boss, apparently the bully was more vocal about my condition and made it a bigger issue than my cohorts had, but my boss told me that there were "concerns" long before the bully arrived.

I didn't march out on a mission to find out if these statements had any element of truth to them. I accepted the comments at face value and in turn felt like the world was ending. I used to think that it wasn't that big of a deal, but after I was told that there were things being said about me, things did start to make some sense. I do not doubt that the albatross that follows me

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