Thursday, February 23, 2012

Bully survival guide

You believed you were an adult?

No, you are not. You are just a super-sized kid, and just like when you were a kid playing in the street (we used to play in the street in the pre-electronics era), you are surrounded by other friendly kids and not-so-friendly kids - a.k.a. BULLIES.

Bully is someone who - instead of being sympathetic - darts stinging arrows of sarcasm at you when you are emotionally most exposed.

Bully is a kid who - more or less by brute force or cunning - grabs for himself the best tasks and leaves the boring work to others.



A Bully will occupy the best desk. Bully will most of the time NOT document his stuff (so as to keep more power on the project)... he will finish his stuff without testing it, and leave you the boring part of mending the broken details. He will even steal from you the best room in the hotel, etc.

Bully will ask you direct questions aimed at revealing your fragility and making you feel inferior. YOU DON´T NEED TO ANSWER. When asked cheeky question, just reply "why on earth do you want to know? This should not concern you." - this will make HIM look like the wrongdoer.

Most likely the Bully was exposed to a lot of violence when a child, so he introjects the rule that violence is OK.
Possibly he was also educated in a family with highly competitive and individualistic values.

Occasionally, the BULLY might simply be so self-centered that he does not even realize that he is being obnoxious - he assumes that he is the Center Of All Things and doesn't feel any empathy for other human beings, for the Planet and for other creatures.

The best time to study a Bully is when he meets new people. Typically the bully will ask the newcomer questions that allow him to boast about his knowledge and experience. Example "where are you from?" "Cambodia" "Oh I have seen this movie featuring a girl from Cambodia", "oh I can say hello and how-are-you in Cambodian". He will never say something warm and welcoming like "oh Cambodia is such a beautiful country and Cambodian such a charming language".

For the Bully, the world is a stage where to strut his super-inflated Ego.

Bully knows the world through movies, not through direct experience. He is too techie to actually venture out and get in real contact with reality.

Possibly, he is highly carnivore, technology freak and he adores to drive cars. He casts scorn on ecologists and doesn't give a damn about the future of this planet. Basically, he is a Homo Destructor (aka Homo Destroyens), the most common form of human being.



It's not easy to deal with the bully, unless you are a violent person yourself.

First, don't remain isolated, talk about Bully with your friends, they will help you overcome the trauma.

Second, ignore the bully and treat him coldly.

Third, refuse to clean up his mess, unless management explicitly asks you.

There is no point in talking to management, most likely they will believe you are grown up enough to cope with these issues on your own.
Unless there have been episodes involving physical violence, it's very difficult to prove that you are being subject to moral violence. Humans can see blood on your skin but not in your soul.

http://high-schools.com/blog/problems-facing-students/bullying-survival-tips/


PS one month after: Bully has left, and soon after we discovered the extremely poor quality of his work... so far nobody had realized, because bully was keeping it concealed. Management also realized that Bully was only promoting his own agenda, playing with technology rather than resolving business needs, with a typical "information hiding" strategy. Now we are all much more relieved and we are able to organize and discuss democratically.
Most of the stuff Bully has done, has been thrown away and redone. The rest keeps giving serious maintenance problems.

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