PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Bullying / victimisation
View Single Post
Old 29th Aug 2008, 04:15
  #16 (permalink)  
RAAFASA
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 60
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Coordination Unaffected

For the OP, have you discussed this with the people responsible for the bullying/victimisation? It might be a case of politically incorrect, but no malice intended - we all work with the odd dinosaur from time to time who doesn't realise that what used to pass for humour, may not be considered amusing any more - often there is no harm intended.

If you are not comfortable approaching the person(s) involved on your own, perhaps take a friend/colleague for support or check if your organisation provides a dedicated equity adviser to moderate the discussion? Otherwise, send an email or letter if you prefer to avoid face to face confrontation. (Just keep a copy of anything you send as you can use it to demonstrate your attempts to resolve the issue if it escalates).

As we don't have the full story, I don't know if this is appropriate in your case, but the general rule is always to try to resolve these issues at the lowest possible level. So if you can just say "look, when you do/say xxxxx, I feel uncomfortable etc" it might help. After all, we're all supposedly adults!

I've had to explain to a few co-workers (over the years) where the appropriate boundaries are. In one case I had to speak to a guy twice and then involve our immediate supervisor to get my point across. But all these issues were resolved without having to resort to paperwork and nastiness. I don't believe any of them were malicious in intent. Once I explained that I really was upset/uncomfortable, the innappropriate behaviour stopped.

Good luck.
RAAFASA is offline