About 15 years ago, I started providing training and educational services to a large organisation and had about 15 regular clients plus an open door to consultations which any staff member was free to join. I worked there for about five years and overall may have worked with as many as 50 different individuals.

A couple of years later - Mama_Rah - my wife started working for the same organisation - although it was before we got married - thanks in part to the contacts I had made, but mainly down to her own talents. Incidentally, she was working in a completely different department to any of my clients and thus there was no crossover or conflict of interest due to my relationship with her.

It was a big step for her into a field that she'd never worked in before and then the trouble started.

The onboarding process took about a week and then she was up and running and placed under the supervision of a senior member of her team who happened to be several years younger (this may have been a factor in what followed, but I'm not sure).

The organisation had to stick to strict regulatory policies due to the industry it was operating in and these policies were frequently updated to reflect necessary changes and there was a large manual that served as a guide and especially for new joiners.

It was a lot to absorb and understandably the manual could not leave the premises.

My wife then, as she was increasingly undertaking tasks autonomously, found herself having to check the procedures to make sure she was following the rules. Please remember, she was still feeling her way into the job and learning all the time. Her senior then reprimanded her that it was not the right time to be reading up, rather she should be focused on the direct element (i.e. completion) of her work.

Unimpressed as she was, my wife took it on the chin and with determination and resolve, she decided on an alternative course of action. She started going in early to grab a coffee so she could spend some time going through the manual to familiarise herself with it and the expectations that followed. This had the additional value of her being able to read in the quiet as few other employees were there at the time. She would then start work as usual and work until her regular finish time.

She was not using it as an excuse to finish early.

Again the senior disapproved and told her that she can't come in earlier either. Absolutely flummoxed by the senior's attitude she didn't know what to do. She was expected to learn the procedures and yet no facilitation was provided. She was feeling more and more out of her depth and then it got worse.

The senior turned nasty. At times when my wife was struggling with something, often technical in nature, the senior would belittle her and call her names and label her as stupid and incompetent for the slightest thing. All too frequently this was done in front of the rest of the team, which adds up to total humiliation for my wife who then in turn was coming home and balling her eyes out on my shoulder. I was horrified and even suggested that if she were to come home every night in such a state then she should resign. However, I also recall telling her that, rather than quitting too hastily, I would see what I could do about it and thus I began by looking into this senior.

I quickly discovered through Linkedin and another similar site that this particular girl never lasted any more than nine months in any job. I duly reported to my wife that she would most likely move on very soon, but it was of scant comfort as in the here and now the bullying was going on and getting worse and my wife was hardly coping.

However, the second strand involved somebody who, even to this day, I call "one of my favourite people in the world". She was one of my direct clients and a perfect blend of thorough professionalism, competence and decency. She was polite and well-spoken and I really couldn't find anything negative to say about her. This also bore out in her status in the company. She was a team leader and received special training, including a placement abroad for several months as she was being groomed and fast tracked for a role at a much higher level.

Sadly, a few years later they closed her team down and made her redundant instead of retaining her, even with a sideways move. What the company did was stupid, wasteful and just downright shameful. And even worse, from their perspective they lost her talent - which they had invested heavily in - to the competition. Good on her, but just stupid concerning the company. 

Last month, when we were on a train going on holiday, I spontaneously bumped into her in the restaurant carriage and it was the first time I had seen her in more than ten years. In that time she has continued to recommend clients to me, including her best friend and her sister.

I did get chance to speak to her briefly once about a year ago when she was visiting her sister during an online session I was conducting with her sister.

Anyway I digress. Back to the point...

I asked her to check in on my wife to see what the real story was. I was understandably biased towards supporting my wife, but that same bias might distort my view of the real picture. My client readily agreed and she acted on it immediately. Whatever she did turned the heat up and initially things got worse for my wife, but this was very short-lived. My client also happened to be friends with my wife's team leader and so inevitably they too had a conversation about it. It turned out that there had been other issues with this particular senior; it wasn't the first time.

Suddenly, it all came to a head in a team huddle when my wife's team leader struck a decisive blow. First of all, in front of everybody, he insisted that this senior apologise to my wife and then he effectively demoted her while stating that she clearly not able to do the job.

I would not normally approve of such an approach, but in the given circumstances it was highly appropriate because she was given a taste of her own medicine and nothing else had worked. I had the impression that she'd been given guidance after previous incidents but not changed her ways when as a result.

The girl soon left the company - probably pretty much on her normal nine month timeline. To me it confirmed my suspicions that this girl's behaviours get her into trouble and then she moves on, often with a helping hand. I could be wrong of course. In fairness she needs help and support, but at the same time she cannot be allowed to be nasty and abusive to others and that is the bottom line.

You may find yourself asking the question as to why she was ever a senior in the first place. Good question, but people who are professionally competent often move quickly up through the lower levels in an organisation. Indeed my wife also quickly moved up two levels relatively quickly once her environment became less toxic. 

The decisive factor in getting a resolution was the involvement of my client who proved to be both a powerful and a well-connected ally. Please note I did not build a good relationship with this client just to "use" her, That would be very shallow, in the same way that Andy (in the article I posted yesterday) didn't seek to put himself into a powerful and protective alliance I did not seek this either. My professional relationship with my client grew and stood on its own merits regardless of anything that was going on with my wife. The fact she continues to advocate my professional services, even to this day, is more than enough proof of this.

My client owed no loyalty to my wife, she didn't even know her at that time. So her actions, which proved to be so effective, came down to her response to my personal request - and herein lays the value of building such powerful relationships. As I discussed another recent post direct personal relationships lead to a greater level of personal commitment, with no expectation of a quid pro quo (see also A Lesson on Communication and Relationship Building)

Thus, as I argued yesterday, the most effective way to avoid bullying / mobbing is to build effective and powerful alliances with those who can and will protect you

And even all these years later both Mama_Rah and I remain grateful to my former client and I for one was very happy to see her last month and to see that she is prospering and doing well despite how she was treated by her former employers.

As always, stay safe and well my friends.