I recently received an email from two former ADWC employees, both complaining about a certain unnamed (as yet) supervisor and their bullying tactics at work. The paragraphs below are just as I received them.Teacher 1. I thought was doing fine at my new college (ADWC) until the department had a new supervisor appointed in the middle of the academic year. From that moment on, everything that I did appeared to be wrong, and I was constantly criticized in front of both students and colleagues. In the end the whole business got me down so much that I had to quit at the end of the year.
What happened to me? Well, I had begun to suffer from nightmares, had trouble sleeping, felt almost constantly jumpy, and my family noticed that I had become persistently grumpy and negative. I seemed to pick up every small illness that was going round the college, leading me to take many days off sick, which of course led to even more criticism from my supervisor, and caused a good deal of friction with my colleagues, who resented having to cover my classes so frequently.
My supervisor was extremely artful in persistently devaluing and demeaning my contributions to the department and harassing me to complete work (which I had readily volunteered to do) or do it again. Apparently, my standards of work were not high enough for HCT!
Later I discovered I was not the only one who had suffered at the hands of this supervisor. A chance meeting with a teacher from another HCT college revealed the same grisly truth about this inadequate sociopath.
Teacher 2. I was also bullied by the same supervisor, but at a previous HCT college. Unfortunately I used to get very upset about what was said to or about me, and I would try to forget about it by drinking. I eventually found the verbal intimidation and stress too much, experienced failing health, and also had to resign at the end of the academic year.
I was team leader when the new supervisor was appointed, and it immediately became clear that we had lost one very competent manager and unfortunately gained a social inadequate, one who managed to virtually destroy the department after a few weeks of arriving. Within a month, three of my colleagues were needing medical treatment as a result of the new supervisor’s actions, and staff would regularly be seen breaking down in tears on campus.
This supervisor’s approach to staff motivation usually consisted of making disparaging personal remarks, employing passive-aggressive behaviour, spreading malicious gossip, passing off ideas generated by others as their own, and even resorting to the occasional use of abusive language to myself and other teachers. Many others were also affected by this behaviour, and complaints were made to the Director, yet no real action was ever taken. Just before I left the bully had even co-opted a colleague to participate in completely ostracising me from the team. In the end, I had to leave a job which I loved, while my former ‘colleague’ took the post of team leader.
We all need to stand up to these pathetic and wretched individuals, which the warped HCT management system produces with such apparent regularity. If these bullies are allowed to continue their campaigns of vendetta and intimidation, they ultimately wreck people's minds and make their lives utterly miserable - just like the bully’s own miserable and pathetic life, in fact. The only effective response to this sort of workplace bullying is to expose the perpetrators for what they truly are - useless, degrading, and rubbish individuals. Hopefully, through this blog, we can do just that.
I’ll reveal the name of this ADWC supervisor very soon. Before I do, let’s have the cruel bastard sweat some first!
