olivia_sutton | America's Culture of Bullying

Originally published on Tumblr, 30 May 2014

America's Culture of Bullying

This country has a culture of bullying and it’s shameful. Everyone has been bullied at some point in their lives - except, perhaps, for the people doing the bullying in the first place. But I’m not just talking about the bully who called you mean names in 5th grade. Or the kid who beat you up after school, because he (or occasionally she - yes, girls can be bullies too, unfortunately) could. Or even the really bad teacher, cop, or other authority figure who abused his or her power to make you feel bad.

It’s worse than that.

I’ve been bullied twice at work. Twice. Once by a man - a fellow Mc-College teacher no less. And once by a woman, a fellow employee in my exact same job position in an office. In both cases, I felt completely powerless - there was nothing I could do, no one to complain to. In the case of the man, I was told it was “meaningless”, it didn’t matter, and I should grow a thicker skin. In the case of the woman - well, eventually it was pretty much everyone in the office (a woman can be pretty good at turning other women against a particular woman) and I was bloody miserable. The culture at that place was so bad and I simply couldn’t complain.

In the end - I lost both jobs (one after another), and if I ever brought it up in conversation - the first words out of anyone’s mouth was that it was my fault.

My fault. You know why the guy started harassing me at the tech school? Because he heard me mention to another teacher that if we were going to treat the kids to free pizza at the end of the term - then a cheese pizza should be a choice. Not the only option. A choice. Because it was Spring, and thus Lent, and if you are Catholic you cannot eat meat on Friday during Lent. It’s a sin. Well, a little one. And yeah, a lot of Catholics aren’t rigid on that - just like a lot of Jews don’t actually keep Kosher. But all I was saying was the school should offer the option. Because it’s a treat. And it’s mean to say, “Well here’s free pizza for everyone except you!”

The other teacher overheard this. He started to attack me. Called me an animal rights Nazi. Called me other names too - like Peta-phile. SCREAMED at me in front of everyone. And he wasn’t part of the conversation described above. He just happened to hear it.

Did I mention this guy was about 6’6”? I’m 5’4” - which is average height for a woman. But overly tall thin white haired mean men remind me of my grandfather and I did not have a good relationship with my grandfather.

So, after recovering from my shock and embarrassment, I tried to explain that I wasn’t an vegetarian. That it was a Religious Observance. That I didn’t say only cheese pizza, but cheese pizza as an option. The guy dismissed all of this. Basically, he said, well - my religion doesn’t believe that, so who cares what you think?

Until I left the job - he preceded to make my life a living hell. He’d deliberately put the pull for the computer projection screen too high. I’d have to get on a chair and pull the thing down every day - even though I was wearing a skirt, because the dress code was business professional. And I wasn’t about to ask someone else to do it. And he’d make remarks and snide comments.

Later he went after me again - I don’t even remember about what, I just remember being scared and embarrassed - again, and when I brought up the previous time, he claimed it was “just a remark”. Just a remark? Just a remark? Telling me my religion at the time was stupid and didn’t matter is just a remark?

Then there were the ladies at the telecom. Oh, dear. That place was toxic - and I’m not talking about air quality. I started the same time as two other women, and there was a third who started the week before or the week after. The one girl was cute, blond, 20-something, and dumb as a rock. Honestly, I don’t think she could even read. But I was not rude to her and I was never mean to her. At first, things were fine - they were great. We even went out to lunch together.

Then one day the Jeep I was borrowing wasn’t working so I had to drive the small Hyndai sub-compact. The car that was technically mine, that I seldom drove because of the really bad weather where I was living. I mean, given the choice between a 4-wheel drive Jeep and a front-wheel drive sub-compact, what would you choose? Since it was mine, it had Democratic bumber stickers on it - I think it was a Kerry Sticker.

One of girls at work saw me walking to the car and actually said, “That’s not your car!” - as if I’m too stupid to know what I drive. I said, “Yes, it is.” and got in.

From that day, everything changed. I wasn’t invited out to lunch anymore. If I invited other women in the group, they said no. The one girl, the real dumb one, started to complain to the boss that I was “mean” to her. I was never mean to her. I kept my opinions to myself - because I’m a professional, and at work - you don’t act like that. So yeah, I complained to friends and stuff about “dumbo” - who thought George Orwell’s political novel, Animal Farm, must be a children’s book. And who came in late one day then said - “well, you must have seen the accident on the expressway.” And when I pointed out that I don’t take the expressway to work (something I had mentioned on more than one occasion) said, “Don’t lie to me - everyone takes to the expressway.” As if there weren’t any other roads. Beside which - why would I lie to her about that? Plus she had her pal - the one who did bully me, read her e-mail to her.

Now - the girl who did bully me was this one’s friend. She was older than me, bigger, heavier, and had at least two, maybe three grown children. Not only do I not have children, and I’m not even married - due to a medical condition, I can’t have children. (This is why I HATE on-line dating sites. ”Do you want children?” is always the first question and I don’t know how to answer it. I can’t HAVE children, so if the man answering the ad desperately wants some - I’m the wrong person. But I have no objection if the guy comes with kids - like he’s widowed or divorced. And for a long time I considered adopting a kid if I really wanted one. I mean - I was talking about possibly adopting when I was 24.) Anyway, this woman constantly threw it in my face that she had kids - like “Oh, my daughter’s getting married” and “Oh my son’s going off to college” and on and on. It wasn’t friendly gossip. It was - “I’m better than you because I have children.” I could tell.

Without going into VERY personal details, I had told her I can’t have kids. And she decided that made her better than me.

She was also very tall - so she’d put things like office supplies in common, especially the 3-hole punch on top of the filing cabinet, towards the back - where I couldn’t reach it.

I’d come in with breakfast, including orange juice, and she’d barrate me for hours about how bad orange juice was for me.

Stuff like that.

Well, the dumb one and the bullying one got together and kept complaining to the boss about me. I did twice the work of either of them and routinely ran out of stuff to do. The boss, of course, didn’t let me know what was going on - so I was never able to tell my side of it.

You know how I found out I no longer worked there? My temp service called me and told me to not bother coming in. I didn’t even get to take my stuff. (I got it back from the service, eventually). And this after a year and two months of working there. So you can’t tell me I was suddenly incompetent.

After the shock wore off, I was relieved. I was actually happy, because it had been that stressful. The next job through the service was very boring but I learned some extremely useful stuff.

And I love what I do now. I mean, for once I have a career-oriented job, not just a job that generates a paycheck - and that’s an important difference.

But everyone has stories like that. And the bullying isn’t just on an individual level. It’s national. It’s the talk show hosts like Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh who can say anything they want - but there is NO even semi-Liberal equivalent to air the opposite point of view. And no, comedians like Bill Maher do not count.

It’s the daily dose of political flyers in my mailbox condemning “Obamacare” - and claiming it’s “harming” the economy. Which is a flat-out lie - buying insurance is HELPING the economy and not hurting it. Besides, for the first time, thanks to ACA, - I can actually get health care, which I couldn’t before due to my afore-mentioned medical condition. I mean, I was actually able to fire my doctor and get a new one who knows what she’s doing.

It’s the parents who decide that since “they don’t believe in evolution” then no child should learn about evolution, even in public schools. If it’s so important to them - why can’t they send their kids to private schools? (Answer: they are too cheap). I didn’t even hear the word evolution until college, thanks to this mentality. (Side note - the Catholic Church has accepted evolution as fact since the 1940s if not earlier. So I’m a bit tired of the bullies who insist the opposite is true).

It’s the bullies who get on school boards and decide not only can public schools not be allowed to teach evolution, they can’t teach science at all - and limit the requirements to a mere two years of science in high school and then pull the funding, so a school can’t teach higher levels even if they want to.

It’s the bullies who defund and close museums - because ONE art gallery had ONE privately-funded exhibit of an avant-garde artist who may have been offensive. Yeah, so - you know, an avant-garde artist doesn’t consider him- or herself successful unless they generate controversy. That is basically what the avant-garde movement is. It has nothing to do with a history museum in the Midwest or an Natural History museum in Chicago. - And they lost all grants and funding when NEA and NEH were de-funded. Talk about babies and bathwater.

It’s bullies who burn books they don’t like - like Harry Potter.

And I’m angry and hurt, and the UCSB thing is just the tip of the ic