29 Sep 2012, 9:20 pm
As an Aspie, one issue I've come up against in a previous job was mobbing - not the really overtly hostile, PTSD-causing kind, but more subtle and passive-aggressive - like gossiping that I'm some spaced-out weirdo, that I just don't 'get it' sometimes even though I'm very smart...basically the typical Aspie insults. Or ignoring emails, not inviting me to lunch (or occasional meeting), etc.
All this was brought about by one manager who basically insulted me behind my back and even to my face in front of others - this was quite a few years ago right around the time that the anti workplace bullying movement took off. This manager was basically your archetypical office byatch, she made others shudder in her presence and had little tolerance of patience for delays in schedule or differences in people 
. She made it a point to belittle me, so the others followed suit - basically like your middle/high school pyramid so to speak. Same bully tactics, different surroundings. 
What I've noticed is that mobbing behaviour is more prevalent in cultures dominated by office politics and informal channels. Basically, the cliquey surroundings, where the non-believers or non-followers are branded "the enemy".
Mobbing as a form of workplace bullying can be very hard to overcome, basically you need to look at a transfer to another dept (or company!) or get some great accomplishment under your belt where people might have new-found respect for you. That is, if they don't sabotage you in getting there!! It's not like the regular one-on-one bullying where a supervisor might take you in a closed room for "coaching" and then tears a strip off you, tells you that their 12-year-old son can do X better than you can, etc. - those bullies are more cowards than the ones who will have the audacity to belittle you in front of others thus encouraging them to turn against you.
Reporting the behaviour to HR might make it worse, since they'll realize that you're the unpopular one, and will use the democratic (read: "tyranny of the majority") argument to kick you out of there. Using the "p" word, i.e. persecution, will make it worse IMO. I don't know what it is with modern society but telling anyone that you're being persecuted, no matter how true it is, will make you look like a crazy person - including and especially in the workplace, thus diminishing your credibility and likely to get you fired. Yet only a small minority of those who claim to be persecuted actually have mental illness (and are imagining mobbing or persecution), but somehow that group spoils it for the rest of us with genuine claims. So I think society tends to act on persecution claims with preconceived notions. Heck, I had a former therapist who once told me that only the Jews have been persecuted!! well, if you look at the history of the workplace, you've had black, gay, women, physically disabled and other groups who have been persecuted by a majority who didn't think and act on the same wavelength as them, so how can it be any different for Aspies??
01 Oct 2012, 4:50 pm
