I always thought of it like this: if a workplace makes you feel devalued or is toxic (gaslighting and ranting about you behind your back), you quietly find new pastures.
Now, however, I think this is the wrong approach: why do I have to accept they bully me? I should defend myself. And doesn’t the manager have to make sure a workplace ain’t toxic? Instead of quietly looking for a new job next time this happens, wouldn’t it be better to confront, document and escalate instead of letting it go? even if HR only exists to protect the company and not me.
If HR and manager do nothing to address the problem, wouldn’t it be a better strategy to start working the least possible and let the company fire me, while looking for another job?
Like others have said (or hinted at), never make an ultimatum you are unwilling or unable to follow through on.
And saying you’ll leave “unless x happens” is just such an ultimatum.
A hostile work environment is grounds for a lawsuit. Document everything, bring it to a lawyer for council. If you have a case, they will tell you whether to talk to HR. If you don’t have a case, you have no leverage here.
As long as you’re willing and able to follow through with it if needed.
A better approach might be to ask them to fix it without the ultimatum first
I have only ever worked in germany so thats all I can talk about from a legal perspective (not a lawyer):
If people bully you and you can find evidence for it, the colleagues, maybe your manager and the whole company can be shit out of luck and you win. A lot of folks have successfully sued (which is very cheap in germany, you dont even need a lawyer at first) for „mobbing“ (bullying essentially).
If one or more colleagues bully you, you collect evidence, confront your manager. They then have reason to terminate the offender if the evidence is strong.
If the manager doesnt act, you have reason to sue and get considerable sums out of the company.
But yes, if people go behind your back and oust you, they are in the wrong. Even if you did wrong, they should talk to you about it or involve management. Social ousting is never an acceptable reaction imo.
If HR and manager do nothing to address the problem, wouldn’t it be a better strategy to start working the least possible and let the company fire me, while looking for another job?
Doing your job and looking for another job is the best course of action if they don’t do anything about issues involving other coworkers. If they don’t care enough to do anything when it is reported, they are not going to do anything if you give an ultimatum other than making your job miserable enough that you quit or fire you, whichever costs them less.
Don’t under perform in a way that gets you fired though, as that could jeopardize any money you get from being fired like unemployment or whatever you have in your location.
Depends, do you like the job ? Is it worth the effort in changing the dynamic?
HR and management will never help you.
You should bully them back.
Offer to bring everyone coffee from the place they all like. Add a little powdered laxative. Do the same thing again next week but with more laxative. Gradually up the dosage until everyone has the mega doodoo blastoff and accuses the coffee shop of doing food poisoning on them.
Put low batteries in the smoke detector so it constantly beeps. When someone changes them, put another low set back in the next day.
Apply the “when vestmoria is offscreen, other characters should be talking about vestmoria” principle to meetings and presentations.
Always keep a web browser window open to some gun manufacturers website. When someone walks up, alt-tab it to the top then alt tab it away at the last minute.
If you’re not doing it already, butt into conversations and start mansplaining to everyone about the thing they’re talking about. Bonus points if you’re a woman.
Don’t do the laxatives things. Poisoning people is very illegal, for good reason.
Bring a bigass eight line hookah into work and blow banana flavored clouds. When people complain offer to switch to a different flavor.
Can you be my new best friend
If you maintain documentation or comment code, start weaving a disconnected, corkboard narrative into it.
This is the worst advice possible haha you’ll end up getting arrested.
Buy an old carbureted v8 sports car or pickup truck. Get to work early every day so you can leave early as well. When it’s time to go, start revving the engine “so it’ll warm up and even out” in the parking lot right next to the office.
What is actually wrong with you?
When people talk about the news in gaza around the watercooler, always defend israels actions and bait people into accidentally saying things that you can accuse them of being an antisemite for.
I think doing a good analysis of strategy here will depend on a lot of factors.
Firstly, before coming up with a strategy, it is good to have a clear idea of your goals / the strategic problem you are trying to solve. I see or could infer a few possible ones: you want to work in an environment where you don’t feel bullied, you want to ensure others aren’t bullied, you want to see bullies punished, to maintain positives in the company and want to enjoy those without the negatives of being bullied, or perhaps that you believe in the goals of the company or have some stake in it, and want it to succeed. Different goals might lead you to a different course of action.
Next, you would want to diagnose what’s really going on. Are there just a few bullies, in a company mostly full of professional people, or are the bullies the majority? Are senior leaders in on the bullying, or is it only lower level employees? Why do you think the bullies were hired in the first place - is it because bullying is considered okay in the company, or is it not considered okay but they slipped through? Why do you think the bullying hasn’t been addressed already? Is it because senior managers don’t know? Are the bullies friends / relatives of senior leadership? Are the bullies high performers that the company really would want to keep around, or do they get barely get anything done? Also, are the bullies even aware they are being bullies? Are they unaware they are being insensitive, and likely to change if made aware, or are they actively being malicious and well aware of the impact?
Next, consider the direction you want to take, and analyse the likely impact on your goals. You could find another job - how easy that is would depend what the job market looks like for your role, and how good the terms of your current job are. It wouldn’t achieve goals around making it better for others. You could try talking to the bullies if you think that they might just be unaware of the impact of their behaviour and that they might change. If that doesn’t work, you could try talking to a manager / HR member, perhaps either to arrange mediation, or for them to take action. You could also just try ignoring the bullying if it isn’t having much impact.
To choose from the many possible directions, it might help to think from the perspective of the company shareholders, senior leadership, and HR department. What would you do in their shoes if you learned of the bullying? If it is the majority of the company doing the bullying, then something like replacing all the bullying staff is going to be an instant non-starter. The best possible would be to slowly roll out training, policies, and new hiring practices to try to improve the culture over time. If it is a few people who, it now turns out, are the reason for high staff turnover and lower profits, then they might be quite happy to take action. Although probably not if the bullies are the senior leaders.
Examples? And how often is it happening?
you should already be doing the bare minimum. no job pays enough to buy back what it takes from you.
but as has already been said have something lined up before you go to management with this and don’t even hint that you’re thinking of walking.