The first rule of bullying, or bullying 101 is to pick a weak target, one that is isolated and one that cannot fight back. So when my manager took a red hot crack at me, you would have thought he sought better advice from the office snitch and actually got his facts right. But this is where we find ourselves as a state government organisation, a toxic environment thrives on malicious gossip, bias and discrimination, and of course cronyism.

So, I have been unsuccessfully targeted by the manager who has one year into the position and boy did he regret that. I fired back really hard, geez, that hurt a number of them. I had a fair idea they would come after me, so I had already prepared as this is their modus operandi. This is a manager who is still on his L-plates, lacks the prerequisite communication skills, does not possess empathy and exhibits poor judgement.

He thought he had built himself a leadership team, what he has done is inherited a dysfunctional group of people who lack technical skills required to get the job done effectively. They built themselves a toxic little group that thrives on group think, lacking the creativity to actually solve problems. They lack transparency, they apportion blame, they seek recognition of the people they are supposed to be serving and they certainly lack credibility. So I ask myself, why do managers attempt to harass and intimidate workers in their charge? Well, it is usually to cover up their knowledge, skills and abilities. They feel intimidated by these people, they are typically lazy and they seek to steal team recognition to cover up their own insecurities.