Saturday, February 11, 2017

The Hostile Work Environment

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The last few years I have been working in a highly toxic work situation, I mean a seriously hostile work environment.  The person I worked with had the trifecta of disease which translated into her inability to play well with others. She had a very unstable bipolar disorder, was a long term alcoholic and had one of the worst cases of narcissistic personality disorder I have every experienced.  She flung about wild, delusional accusations  all of which my boss believed.  She had gross gaps in her memory and frequently was unable to recall recent conversations.  Everyone was her servant in her mind.  

Previously she had been found in her office by the custodial staff one evening with an empty wine bottle on her desk, passed out on the floor.  She had hit her head on the corner of the desk and was lying in a pool of her own blood.  Naked.  Yet she kept her job.  Fear of a law suite because of the Disabilities Act, maybe. 
 
The three of us would have meeting after meeting in my boss' office.  The post mortem on the meetings went somewhat like, "Why can't you get along with her?"  "Get along?  The only way to make her happy is to do her work for her. "  "Then why don't you?" he suggested.  I tried explaining to him that I already had a full time job.  If he wanted me to do her work for her then he should draw up the contract and make me an offer for overtime at which point he threw up his hands in exasperation and stormed out, (he was prone to tantrums and yelling himself.)

One lovely meeting the woman had a classic psychotic break right then and there.  My boss had tried to explain to her that she could not "boss" me around as she was not my supervisor.  She lost it.  Her voice changed into some state of demonic possession and I had scenes flash in my mind from the movie The Exorcist.  "You are not the boss of me......you need a boss....I don't need bossing, no one can boss me, no one can control me, I don't need CONTROLLNG!"   It was spooky.  I assumed we would be calling an ambulance and she would be on a 72 hour hold with evaluation. I turned to look at my boss.  Equally disconcerting was my boss sitting there, legs crossed,  looking and acting as though nothing unusual had just happened.  I could only think what a horror his home life must be for him to sit there as if this was normal.  

I have questioned myself often as to why I did not file a hostile work environment complaint.  Obviously I am lacking litigious sensibilities.  I truly thought it would make things even worse for me which was probably true.  I was ever so tired on the inside of fighting the ridiculous nonsensical battles. Taking on yet another battle didn't make sense at the time.  

She finally resigned. Oddly, there has been some fall out from my work environment returning more to normalcy.  I am still on hyper alert, just waiting for the next unfounded, false accusation.  I dread seeing my boss as I've come to realize he is a very broken human being and the tantrums he has are ugly.  I still dread going to work.  I have unexpected bouts of anxiety.  While the poisoning has ceased, the effects of its toxicity are fading slowly.  It's going to take some time to heal.


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