Workplace violence on the rise - anyone have experiences to share?


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eHA_Admin_Lori is offline eHA_Admin_Lori — Advice Official Moderator Post #1  October 5,2009, 4:40pm
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Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Evidently harassment, bullying and physical altercations in the workplace are on the rise, marked by increases in call volume to EAP's (employee assistance programs which offer confidential counseling to employees) and workers-rights organizations.

Have you ever experienced or witness violence or threats of violence in your workplace?

If so, how have you handled them?
Last edited by eHA_Admin_Lori; October 5,2009 at 4:46pm.
 
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meri75 is offline meri75 Post #2  October 12,2009, 4:01pm
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Unfortunately, yes. I have had to deal with:

~ Two female employees throwing punches at each other. Over a chair. (Fired)

~ Two (different) female employees bullying and harassing staff. (Fired)

~ Two male colleagues wanting to 'take it outside'. (No fight - so warnings)

I'm on the receiving end of a lot of phone calls where I am screamed at and called names. My approach to all is ... 'click!'.
Last edited by meri75; October 12,2009 at 5:44pm. Reason: Oops, forgot to include what I did ...
 
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chawks64 is offline chawks64 Post #3  October 13,2009, 6:58pm
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Funny this topic should come up. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had a coworker try to fight me in the middle of another department's meeting because she felt I had offended her. I sat down and kept doing my job while she continued to yell at me and act like I was egging her on. Kind of hard when you're sitting down and not even facing the person. All I did was keep telling her to shut up and go away, she kept yelling, and after a while the shocked guys around me started trying to talk her down. Eventually she calmed down and walked away.

Not surprisingly, she is the girlfriend of the guy who falsely accused me of sexual harassment a year ago. Nice.
 
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Spider is offline Spider Post #4  January 2,2010, 5:57pm
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I'm at a higher risk for violence from my students than my coworkers. There are a few kids that I am very careful with in terms of word choice and body language; some have already assaulted family members or other students. We had one last year who arrived after stabbing a teacher at her previous school.

The adults don't scare me at all.
 
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scarlet13 is offline scarlet13 Post #5  January 2,2010, 6:40pm
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this doesn't really count, but when I worked at the bar, fights were commonplace. i was hit in the face once while trying to break up a fight between two girls, and once we had a melee where i broke a bottle over a guys head when he pulled a knife on one of the bouncers, who happened to be my boyfriend at the time. ahh, Newark.

other than that, I did have a manager in a store that i worked at who routinely verbally abused employees- screaming, cursing, name calling- she was absolutely out of control. HR did nothing, and the District Manager would pretend like nothing was wrong or make excuses for her- I think she was scared of her, truthfully.

I used to work part time at a gym, and one male employee was in his 60's and used to make filty sexual comments out loud about members (some about underage girls) and other employees. not exactly sexual harrasment by law but it did make for an annoying working enviroment- long story short, he ended up shooting his wife in the face with a shotgun and is currently awaiting trail.

one of the problems I think is that when abuse and harrassment is reported to the corporation, they are too worried about being sued to do anything effective,or they try to sweep the problem under the rug, which gives almost a kind of consent to the perpetrator.

*shrug
 
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bigfincat is offline bigfincat Post #6  January 2,2010, 9:24pm
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scarlet13 wrote :
this doesn't really count, but when I worked at the bar, fights were commonplace. i was hit in the face once while trying to break up a fight between two girls, and once we had a melee where i broke a bottle over a guys head when he pulled a knife on one of the bouncers, who happened to be my boyfriend at the time. ahh, Newark.

other than that, I did have a manager in a store that i worked at who routinely verbally abused employees- screaming, cursing, name calling- she was absolutely out of control. HR did nothing, and the District Manager would pretend like nothing was wrong or make excuses for her- I think she was scared of her, truthfully.

I used to work part time at a gym, and one male employee was in his 60's and used to make filty sexual comments out loud about members (some about underage girls) and other employees. not exactly sexual harrasment by law but it did make for an annoying working enviroment- long story short, he ended up shooting his wife in the face with a shotgun and is currently awaiting trail.

one of the problems I think is that when abuse and harrassment is reported to the corporation, they are too worried about being sued to do anything effective,or they try to sweep the problem under the rug, which gives almost a kind of consent to the perpetrator.

*shrug
ROFLMAO..... wow.
 
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brneyedangel is offline brneyedangel — Advice Member-Moderator Post #7  January 2,2010, 11:15pm
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I was assaulted by a student last school year.

I reported it, and they removed him from my class (I refused to teach the class if he stayed in it). They said the camera in the hall didn't catch it on tape. Well duh--it happened in my CLASSROOM, not in the hallway.

They wouldn't expel him because he was on an IEP for behavioral issues. No kidding, really? Don't ya think it's ironic that he's on an IEP for behavioral issues and he turns around and assaults me over something that happened in the hallway with another student? But as soon as he assaulted an administrator a few weeks later, he was gone. I had bumps and bruises and the kids backing me up, but they attributed the support from my students to my popularity with them, and the bumps and bruises--well, it's not like you couldn't have got those somewhere else, D. Kids don't lie for people in authority over them--especially if it means turning on a friend--and how would bumps and bruises on the backs of my arms and legs, my back, the back of my neck, and the back of my head magically appear during the day if they weren't there when I arrived at work that morning? I was wearing short sleeves and a skirt and my hair was up that day--someone would have noticed them and said something.

Yes, I do still work there. That student is gone, and that is the only time in 16 years that anything has ever happened to me there. Quite frankly, no matter where I go to work, it's always going to be a danger, and it could be much worse somewhere else. I will admit that I don't exactly trust the administration to protect or support me anymore unless doing so is in their best interest. It took a long time for me to be able to get through the day without having a panic attack--even longer to feel somewhat safe there again--and I still don't feel 100% safe. However, I don't intimidate easily, and there was just no way I was going to let this stop me from finishing the school year. Once I got through that, I knew I was going to be okay. It also hardly seemed worth it to lose my seniority, tenure, and salary to go somewhere else that could prove to be much worse than I could ever imagine.
 
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amysb1976 is offline amysb1976 Post #8  January 20,2010, 4:10pm
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well i am a social worker and we have had clients threaten social workers. a coworker was actually killed in the home of a client about 3 years ago. it is sad and scarey at the same time. ive never had anyone outright threaten my life but their tone and attitude is definitely a red flag... i bring the police with me when needed. but, basically, dealing with out of control kids, parents who are on drugs, people with mental health issues that are unmedicated there is always a risk. if someone does threaten to harm us, charges are filed and it usually results in jail time. sometimes i wonder why i picked this field because it is really making me sad and more depressed than normal... it all depends on the cases and the people that are involved and right now, i have a really nasty case.
 
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Wootz is offline Wootz Post #9  January 20,2010, 4:48pm
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Workplace violence? Yep. Been there.

Worst place was the customs shop I used to work at. We tinted windows, installed performance mods, graphics, body kits, truck toys- if it was aftermarket for a car or truck, you name it, we did it. Long hours, too. I went to work before the sun rose and was often there long after it set.
 
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hankscorpio is offline hankscorpio Post #10  January 26,2010, 9:13am

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eHA_Admin_Lori wrote :
Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

Evidently harassment, bullying and physical altercations in the workplace are on the rise, marked by increases in call volume to EAP's (employee assistance programs which offer confidential counseling to employees) and workers-rights organizations.

Have you ever experienced or witness violence or threats of violence in your workplace?

If so, how have you handled them?
Sure, the guy that was my boss at the time basically couldn't manage, couldn't judge character, and couldn't run a business whatsoever. (boss literally left hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work unbilled and never collected on)

He hired a guy who ran away customers (large 10's of thousands of dollar/year type customers) and who physically threatened his manager.

Nothing was done about the employee, and the manager was told to apologize to the employee who threatened him.

Needless to say the business went under a while ago and I'm just thankful to be away from there.
 
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