Product Description

The high profile experts on workplace bullying have now completely updated and revised their classic book.

A landmark book that blazed light on one of the business world's dirtiest secrets, The Bully at Work exposed the destructive, silent epidemic of workplace bullying that devastates the lives, careers, and families of millions. In this completely updated new edition based on an updated survey of workplace issues, the authors explore new grounds of bullying in the 21st century workplace.

Gary and Ruth Namie, pioneers of the Campaign Against Workplace Bullying, teach the reader personal strategies to identify allies, build their confidence, and stand up to the tormentor - or decide when to walk away with their sanity and dignity intact.

The Namies' expertise on workplace bullying has been featured in such media outlets as The Early Show, CBS Radio, The Howard Stern Show, CNN, PBS, NPR, USA Today, and the Washington Post.

"Sheds light on one of the business world's dirtiest secrets - corporate bullying." -Dayton Business Journal

"Filled with remedies for an ailment that is ravaging workplaces..." -Harvey A. Hornstein, PhD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #96898 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Bullies on the job can cause irreparable harm to their colleagues, contend the authors, founders of the Campaign Against Workplace Bullying. While violent or vengeful workers occasionally make the news, there are insidious bullies in nearly every workplace, whether co-worker, boss or junior colleague. Their behavior causes other people to suffer shame, humiliation and fearAall of which can affect their nonwork life as well as their job performance. The Namies recommend that "targets" act quickly to dismantle a bullying dynamic once they recognize it, and they also urge government and judicial recognition that "bullying" is an endemic workplace issue that deserves to be taken seriously. The last 100 pages of the book are the most useful; one chapter, "Control Destructive Mind Games," analyzes how people let their emotions color their actions. Subsequent chapters offer concrete strategies that "targets" can take to alleviate their workplace distress (including using humor to deflect a bully's tactics and finding support among colleagues and friends). Overall, this volume presents an intriguing concept that is rarely given such detailed analysis. However, the notion of "bullying" as a crime seems farfetched; the book would be even more effective if it focused on interpersonal skills and tools that could be used to fight back, rather than on trying to initiate change in public policy. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Because bullying has been identified as a contributing factor in the epidemic of violence in schools, teachers and counselors are being trained in methods for dealing with bullies. Unfortunately, many bullies do not stop their disruptive, hurtful behavior after they leave school and get jobs; they often just become more subtle. Few people, though, acknowledge that workplace bullying is or can be a real problem. The Namies, both psychologists, are out to change that. In 1998 they launched the Campaign against Workplace Bullying. Calling those who experience bullying "targets" rather than "victims," they have counseled nearly 3,000 such targets. They define what bullying is, show why it is harmful, and attempt to explain why it occurs. They describe efforts in Europe to prevent bullying, where the problem is taken more seriously, and they decry the lack of substantive legal recourse here in the U.S. The authors provide techniques and tactics for bully-proofing oneself and show how targets, once sufficiently prepared emotionally, can move on to "bully-busting" and "tyrant-toppling." David Rouse
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Info
Exposes the destructive, silent epidemic that devastates the lives, careers, and families of millions. Teaches strategies to identify allies, build confidence, and stand up to tormentors. Softcover. DLC: Bullying in the workplace.

Customer Reviews

Informative as well as therapeutic!
For those of us who have suffered the consequences in our career, our pocket books, our health, our marriages and personal lives at the hands and mind games of a Bully at Work, this book is an important "must read". This book helps to clarify the chaos and lead the reader to understand the perpetrator, those that support and nurture the perpetrator, and most importantly the innocent victim, the Target. I am a 55 year old professional, a physician, with years of education. I fell victim to a real "Bully", and suffered the consequences. I realized the Bully was rude and obnoxious, and taking a toll on my life, and my patients. I did not understand the pyschology and sociology until it was too late. Now I am using the information to relieve the pain, and yes, to finally take some action! Help yourself, and those who you love, and who love you. This book is the easiest to read, to understand, and to help you to recover and to take action. The price is right. Get it, and get on with it!

BULLIES - FAMILY / WORKPLACE / SCHOOL / NEIGHBORHOOD
Excellent compliments to this book are: Emotional Blackmail: When People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You by Susan Forward and Donna Frazier; Why Is It Always About You?: The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism by Sandy Hotchkiss and James Masterson; The Angry Heart: Overcoming Borderline and Addictive Disorders by Joseph Santoro and Ronald Cohen; The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman and Robert Pressman; Understanding the Borderline Mother: Helping Her Children Transcend the Intense, Unpredictable and Volatile Relationship by Christine Ann Lawson; Living with the Passive-Aggressive Man by Scott Wetzler; Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited by Sam Vaknin and Lidija Rangelovska (Editor); Children of the Self-Absorbed: A Grown-Up's Guide to Getting Over Narcissistic Parents by Nina Brown; Treating Attachment Disorders: From Theory to Therapy by Karl Heinz Brisch and Kenneth Kronenberg; Toxic Coworkers: How to Deal with Dysfunctional People on the Job by Alan Cavaiola and Neil Lavender; Bully in Sight: How to Predict, Resist, Challenge and Combat Workplace Bullies by Tim Field.

And if you want to pursue the subject even further, you may be interested in reading The Narcissistic / Borderline Couple: A Psychoanalytic Perspective On Marital Treatment; Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility by Jim Fay and Foster Cline.

Message: Find Another Job
I can sum up the content of this book in a few statements: 1. Being bullied at work is unfair and painful; 2. Management will not support you; 3. There is virtually no legal recourse to bullying at work; 4. The best thing to do is find another job.

Oh yeah, there's lots of psychobabble in between, but if you read between the lines, they are basically telling you there's not a thing you can do about bullying at work. The authors are pushing their own Institute's agenda, which is to have anti-bullying laws passed in the USA (as they have been in many other countries). I totally support this agenda; I just don't think this book was of particular help or interest to me, a professional who is being bullied at work by an uneducated, verbally abusive thug.

While the authors purport to support people who are the Target of bullies, there is some subtle blaming-the-victim going on in this book that I find very offensive (that Targets may be self-defeating,without good boundaries, self-blaming,etc.)

At the same time I purchased this book from Amazon, I also purchased Mobbing:Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace. I found it a much more helpful, frank book. Yes, the bottom-line message is the same, but minus the offensive psychobabble.