Working with
Bitches
Working with
Bitches
Identify the Eight Types of
Office Mean Girls and Rise Above
Workplace Nastiness
Meredith Fuller
Copyright © 2013 by Meredith Fuller
First published as Working with Mean Girls by Penguin Group (Australia), 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Da Capo Press, 44 Farnsworth Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, Massachusetts 02210.
Composition by Cynthia Young
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fuller, Meredith.
[Working with mean girls]
Working with bitches : identify the eight types of office mean girls and rise above
workplace nastiness / Meredith Fuller. — First Da Capo Press edition.
pages cm
“First published as Working with Mean Girls by Penguin Group (Australia), 2011.”
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-7382-1659-1 (e-book)
1. Problem employees. 2. Women employees—Psychology. 3. Bullying in the
workplace. 4. Abusive women. 5. Interpersonal conflict. I. Title.
HF5549.5.E42F85 2013
650.1'3082—dc23
2012041914
First Da Capo Press edition 2013
Published by Da Capo Press
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Note: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. This book is intended only as an informative guide for those wishing to know more about health issues. In no way is this book intended to replace, countermand, or conflict with the advice given to you by your own physician. The ultimate decision concerning care should be made between you and your doctor. We strongly recommend you follow his or her advice. Information in this book is general and is offered with no guarantees on the part of the authors or Da Capo Press. The authors and publisher disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book. The names and identifying details of people associated with events described in this book have been changed. Any similarity to actual persons is coincidental.
To Sandra Hacker,
with respect and gratitude
CONTENTS
Prologue
Introduction: The B Words: Bitch and Bully
Part One: Mean Girls—They’re Not All the Same
How to Identify the Mean Girl You Work With
1 The Excluder
2 The Insecure
3 The Toxic
4 The Narcissist
5 The Screamer
6 The Liar
7 The Incompetent
8 The Not-a-Bitch
Part Two: Understanding How Women Work
Behind the Scenes
9 Mother, Companion, Amazon, or Psychic?
10 Heart Versus Head
11 Women at Work
Part Three: How Can You Help Yourself?
Take Stock of Yourself
12 Managing Workplace Stress
13 Should I Stay or Should I Go?
14 Frequently Asked Questions
Where to Get Help
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
About the Author
PROLOGUE
We’re quiet because it is awful to admit and you don’t want anyone to know. Your husband knows; you’re crying over the stove. Your teenagers wonder if their high-achieving mother is actually just pathetic. You doubt yourself. You don’t want patronizing advice about how to manipulate a manipulator—I wouldn’t play the bitch game, even if I was capable of it.
—Kaylene
Bitchy behavior can be so insidious or slippery that it’s often hard to tell if you’re really being targeted or if you are simply too sensitive. You feel an uncomfortable mix of confused, amused, devastated, and angry. You don’t want to believe that someone in the sisterhood could possibly be working against you, whether consciously or unconsciously. You think you should be able to handle it, especially when you pride yourself on bringing out the best in others, or you assume that it’s merely a personality clash or miscommunication that you’ll be able to fix. But if you can’t fix it, the negative effect gets harder to cope with. You remain haunted by a cruel secret that you’re too humiliated to mention—another woman is causing you grief, and you haven’t done a thing to deserve it.
You appreciate that you won’t get on with every other woman at work—but how come some bitches can deeply wound while you are immune to the shenanigans of others? How come you can laugh off the antics of some, but those of others are not so benign?
You might have seen Mean Girls (2004) and laughed and cried in subconscious recognition. Most of us can recall a mean girl from school days—perhaps you were upset by malicious things girls said or did, or maybe you noticed how the in girls were mean to the girls on the outside. If you didn’t have direct experience of this at school or in your teenage years, you probably know of a friend or relative who was troubled or hurt by bitchy behavior.
What happens to these mean girls? Some of them grow out of it, but others grow up and go to work, taking their nasty behaviors with them.
In my psychology practice, I specialize in career counseling. Over the last thirty years, I have worked with thousands of people, both individually and in groups. My clients are aged from their early twenties to midsixties and range across most occupations. The gender split is around two-thirds female, one-third male.
Most women who come to see me have one of two major issues: they feel invisible, devalued, or hurt by their relationships with managers, colleagues, or staff in the workplace, or they are in a poor vocational fit and don’t know what to do. In a significant number of cases, the two themes are intertwined.
Of the women who have problems with the people they work with, an increasing number are worried about female workplace relationships. Dismissive, snide, nasty—in other words, bitchy—behavior from another female is a distressing component of their work life. They have usually suffered privately for some time before they seek professional help; being on the receiving end of another female’s nastiness is painful to talk about.
Most of my clients who work with bitchy women have one of two reactions. They are either shocked because they haven’t come across such insidious behavior before, or the experience forces them to revisit bad memories of school days where they were marginalized or taunted by mean girls. In some cases, clients have grown up with a mean female family member—a mother or sibling—and are dismayed to find the torment repeated in the workplace. When bad memories are triggered, women often wonder what they are doing to attract this behavior.
I became curious about a conundrum. Over the years, I’ve heard so much detailed distress from clients about bitches in their workplaces, yet so very little from friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and the general public. Women will readily talk about their lack of potential partners—the f
ear they won’t find anyone to have a child with—or confess that they can’t find a decent man (or woman) to go out with. Surprisingly, it seems that admitting to having no sex life is easier than fessing up that you are struggling at work because your boss is a bitch. Why is this so?
To explore this furtive topic of bitches at work, I established focus groups of women of different ages and occupations and who hadn’t met each other before. I assumed I would need to facilitate conversations between strangers and that there would be a slow warm-up. Not so! As soon as we sat down, a frenzied and sustained discussion took place. Relief! Given permission to talk, these women appreciated an opportunity to vent about a topic that had silently dogged them. Many had assumed that they were the only ones with the humiliating “female flaw” of attracting the bitch in the workplace.
I analyzed my notes from clients. I spoke with friends and colleagues. I contacted various social media sites and association memberships and invited anyone I knew to complete an anonymous questionnaire or interview, or both. Strangers who heard of my research called me with stories that they would recount in florid detail.
The floodgates opened. Despite the public silence on the topic, I experienced an outpouring of horrific tales that secretly haunt some of these women to this day. For several women, speaking about it has been so profound they realized that they couldn’t complete the survey or interview—it was way too painful, even after many years had passed.
Why do nearly all members of the female population instinctively know what bitchy means? With the exception of three or four respondents, no one asked what “working with bitches” meant. They knew in their bones, from personal experience or observation of others in their workplace. They had seen the mean girls in action at work.
Yet, in professional settings, it is rarely, if ever, discussed. Occasionally someone might say, “There’s a bitch at work,” or “I work for a real bitch,” and in most cases, their shrug indicates that it’s part of life and that no dialogue will be entered into. Some women raise their eyebrows knowingly, and the conversation moves on. But other women will frown, accusing the others of betraying their sex (“That’s not nice”; “You shouldn’t label women like that”; “Well, I’ve never had that experience—maybe you’re doing something to attract it”; or even, “You’re letting the sisterhood down”).
Who wants to be misunderstood, called a traitor, considered pathetic, or wear a sign that says “bitch bait”? And so mostly, a woman who works with a mean girl—a bitch—will keep her problem to herself.
Let’s be clear. Bitchiness isn’t bullying. I talk about the differences between the two B words in the introduction (see page 7). While bullying has been featured in the media for some time, very little—if any—serious attention has been given to bitchy behavior. Is it considered such a trivial piece of female behavior that it isn’t taken seriously? Do people not know about it unless it has happened to them? Has it been considered such a minor subsection of bullying behavior or so harmless that no one bothers to raise it, or is it too politically incorrect?
Regardless of what other people think, coping with a bitch at work is exhausting, hurtful, and stressful beyond belief. Just because it isn’t bullying as such—just because you are not being threatened physically or mentally by someone who is using her power over you—does not mean that it is not serious or dangerous. Bitches might not exercise aggression, put your physical safety on the line, threaten you with dismissal if you don’t comply with their instructions, or frighten you into submission or tears—but they wage a campaign nonetheless.
What bitches do is insidious—they may cloak their malevolence with sweetness and niceness, accusing you of being the power monger while they are “too hurt or scared” to speak to you. And they might be so subtle that no one could ever prove that something happened.
I have been a psychologist and career counselor for thirty years. Having participated in training workshops or counseled women from nearly every industry, I have noticed that bitchiness exists in every work arena employing at least two females. Counterintuitively, in the industries where you’d least expect to encounter bitchiness, you are likely to find more of it.
In this book, real women, aged from sixteen to eighty-five, tell their truths and do not pretend it is of little or no consequence. They confess to feeling paralyzed or hunted like a defenseless deer, to taking sick leave or resigning to get away from the bitch who is draining their lifeblood. Some of the women I have spoken to have been on disability leave for a year, have endangered their spouses, have left a job they loved, or have had to accept a lower position or lower pay to flee as quickly as possible. A few have gone to mentors, psychologists, counselors, and trusted friends to brainstorm new responses and techniques for greater understanding and to minimize harm. Some are in therapy to explore ancient family dynamics that were triggered by interacting with the bitch. Most agree that it would have been more helpful to seek professional support sooner. Others have waited it out, believing that the bitch would eventually move on, and sometimes that is exactly what happens. Others have made formal complaints, and two women I counseled have received a court settlement and are not allowed to discuss their cases. A few have enlisted help from other staff, but many have maintained their silence, warily putting on a professionally neutral face each day while mourning their lost job satisfaction. Eventually, most of the women have created a safer, happier lifestyle, working with another organization, or in self-employment; some have found a dream job since they left their place of employment, or have downscaled or gained a promotion. And a few have looked on with satisfaction as the bitch who made their life hell was fired or laid off or resigned.
These women are a reminder that over time the pain recedes. A few continue to feel angry and resentful, but their skills at spotting another bitch may be better honed. Many have taken courses, visited a psychologist, read books, constructed a support circle of friends or colleagues and found ways to inoculate themselves for the future. A few can laugh about it now. Several note that it was a watershed that has helped them to grow, live a more fulfilling life, or move in a wonderful new direction. One has had her revenge: she prevented her old nemesis from being offered a position with her new organization. A couple have joined an elite club: anyone who has been devastated by a particularly well-known bitch may join. Nearly all of them mentioned how important it is to talk about it with someone who understands.
I am grateful for their willingness to tell their stories and to reveal their vulnerable selves in order to assist others who believe that they are alone. Women don’t cope well with bitchy behavior in the workplace, nor should they be expected to. It harms, damages, violates, and confounds.
This book is designed to help you to cope with and be safe from bitches—postschool, grown-up, working mean girls. It’s time to put the issue on the table and help the women who are affected decide how best to protect themselves.
INTRODUCTION
The B Words: Bitch and Bully
You say bitch like it’s a bad thing.
—Greeting card
Most people in the work force might not know exactly what constitutes bullying, but there’s no doubt that workplace education and media attention have contributed to increased awareness. Ideally, every workplace should have policies and procedures to deal with bullying and harassment, because employers should wish to provide a safe environment for all their workers. Are there procedures to follow where you work? It is useful to know your organization’s protocols, as codes of conduct and legislation differ among states and organizations.
Bullying is when people (male or female) repeatedly and intentionally use words or actions against someone or a group of people to cause distress and harm to their well-being. Without going into the details of what constitutes bullying—that is not within the domain of this book—let’s say that bullying usually centers around someone exerting power and control over a person who has less power.
Bitchy behavio
r is not particularly about power and control and is far more diffuse. If bullying is binary (it either is or isn’t happening), then bitching is on a continuum from covert to overt or sneaky to theatrical exaggeration. It can be a subtle tone, a spiteful laugh, or refusing eye contact. Some snivel, others smirk, and some sabotage.
If acknowledged as existing at all, it is usually considered a harmless, female style of interaction with other females. A number of men have said, “I steer clear of silly catfights.” Other managers, both male and female, say that they expect staff to resolve their own interpersonal problems, and do not intervene.
Bitching usually has elements of envy or jealousy, hatred, or mischievous boredom or is seen as simply unfortunate behavior displayed by women lacking emotional intelligence for myriad unknowable reasons. The behavior can easily be dismissed as trivial, petty and “girl stuff,” and sometimes that’s all it is.
Different categories of bitch are capable of using such stealth or finesse with their target that the behavior remains concealed from others. Unlike bullies, bitches can play the innocent-victim card themselves; they can label their behavior as memory loss, a misunderstanding, a personality problem, or bewilderment because they only intended to help. They might label the target as not having a sense of humor, because they were only joking (and could be so two-faced that everyone else believes they are incapable of such nastiness), or plead ignorance because they don’t even know the target.
Having a work bitch ignore you, or whisper a saccharin, ambiguous aside into the ether—a comment that you can’t even be sure was meant for you (especially if you don’t know them well)—doesn’t seem important when some women are bullied to such a degree that they take their own lives or need sick leave and therapy to recover from a real threat to their physical, mental, or emotional safety. However, being worn down by a bitch does have consequences, and these can interfere with workplace satisfaction, creativity, happiness, and health. Competent, high-functioning staff lose their passion for work or leave an organization in desperation. Many women decide to leave a workplace they once loved because they feel betrayed, unsafe, or cynical when changes take place and they get a new (bitch) boss. They doubt that management will acknowledge the situation, let alone right the wrongs. They might eventually seek help after long enduring being undermined, being compromised by resultant psychosomatic complaints, or being victoriously plotted against. But by then, resigning is the only option.
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