Verbal Abuse at work place continues to be the norm; is there no hope?

My husband hates his job!!!

Thanks to his one of a kind, supreme something of a boss. Irrespective of the circumstances, his communication with his boss usually starts or ends up with the boss favorite and go-to deliveries:

“I am so disappointed in you.”

“So you are the one holding the group back.”

“Why didn’t you collect data? Even if it is bad data,” and then there is “why do you collect bad data?”

“Let’s meet on Friday,” code for, let me tell you how you haven’t done anything throughout the week (although I know you have been leaving office past midnight), so you would be pulling a full weekend, again!

“If I don’t get the results I want, I will be making some personnel changes here.”

“You are playing with fire.”

Additional aspects of the dealing include, never saying thanks or appreciating a job well done, agreeing on a certain plan of action and the next day countermanding it with something else, always bitching about the incompetencies of others, always trying to prove how he is so much better than others and what a great opportunity it is to work with him and so on.

My husband’s reaction to the above over the time-period of a mere few months varied over a range of moods and mind-sets.

“It is his way of motivating me, to push my boundaries and work harder.”

“I cannot get a break with this guy.”

“I have a zero-social life and a wife whom I see on average two hours a day.”

“I don’t remember the last time I came home in daylight!”

“Why is this happening to me?”

Daily, it takes conscious effort at his end to gather himself up for another brutal day at work. So, we discussed strategies and scenarios to identify his boss’s behavior to a condition, disease, something to make dealings with him tolerable. Yes, I know; why not go for another job? He is actively looking, but till he gets something, he is stuck! So, the possible theories we came up with to justify the boss’s behavior included;

He has mood swings.

He has mood swings and probably drinks.

He thrives under pressure and aims to keep others on the same frequency.

He just plain hates him.

He is a bully and a genuinely unpleasant person.

This is his screwed-up way of motivating.

Over the period of few months, we tried justifying and dictating my husband’s dealings following the above parameter. The result is, he still hates is job and his boss is most definitely a bully and a verbal abuser.

The reason I decided to identify and address this issue is because I recently learned that statistics show that irrespective of region and profession, majority of us have current or past direct experience of verbal abuse (mostly abusive conduct includes threatening, intimidating and humiliation). However, mostly people tend to rationalize, endorse and in most cases, deny or disregard such occurrences by sweeping them under the rug. And as expected, verbal abuse is above gender bias, so no one is safe! This approach of “mine to command and control” is severely affecting the short-term efficiency of students, assistants, employees and such, and in long term, it is inducing bitterness, loss of self-worth and an innate hatred towards people in the higher hierarchy, thus making work place a living hell for all. In my opinion, this is the result of constant negligence on behalf of the administration and a lack of a reasonable “check and balance” at workplace. The bosses get away with verbal abuse because they think they can, an idea implanted in them by the administration itself.

The slogan, “Everyone is in it, so what’s your problem?” is not working anymore.