November 2nd, 2009
Mean Girls at Work
by Lori Gottlieb, Women’s Health magazine, Nov. 2009
When I was offered a job as a junior network television executive at age 26, I was beyond excited. I’d get to be creative, meet talented sitcom writers, and best of all, work for a woman I idolized. Amanda,* a TV veteran who worked on some great shows, seemed intimidating from afar—drop-dead gorgeous and extremely successful—but in our interview, she was warm and funny, listened carefully to my ideas, and complimented me on everything from my intellect to my earrings. I showed up my first day thinking, “This will be the Best. Job. Ever.”
Instead, I drove home every night in tears. Amanda stole my ideas, sabotaged my relationships with writers, and “forgot” to tell me about meetings. It was like high school all over again. How could this be happening in a respected company run by professionals? …. Finish reading the original article at the magazine’s site
Read more about woman-on-woman bullying.
Tags: woman-on-woman, Women's Health
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I would like Lori Gottlieb to contact me. I would like to discuss a story about workplace bullying,harassment,retaliation,discrimination and things that have happened to me in the workplace in a police setting. I am also interested in starting an advocacy/support group. I have filed a complaint with the EEOC and after doing so, I was then turned down for a teaching position that I applied for. Please, please contact me.
Annette Reda
Contact Lori G. at Women’s Health. Follow the link to the publication itself and look for her contact e-mail.
Been dealing with a cyber-bully/troll on a forum. Same problem as in workplace. Unless you are caught up on all the details you simply won’t get it – so how does a manager/arbitrator/steward figure out who is telling the truth and who is not? Nobody has time to understand the whole thing so how can appropriate remedy/restitution be determined correctly and timely? The forum perp twists everything around and is brilliantly insanely devious with it. This troll has a sidekick and watching these two is morbidly fascinating, like Gollem in “Lord of the Rings” or some of the squirming demons in C.S. Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters.” I am frustrated because this is a person “trolling” for clients on-line and having known this individual for several years I feel that it is unethical to allow her presence because I do not trust her to do good business – but it is not my choice so I chose to leave because I no longer wish my good name to be associated with that. It brought up all these issues for me because one should be able to plant their feet and stay. Our criticism has finally been heard but I feel that while her new behavior is better we have effectively trained the criminal to be more deceptive whereas before all the negative leakage was a good warning sign for potential victims.
Hi Lori,
I enjoyed your article back in Nov 09 – Mean Girls At Work — I am a professional trainer and will be presenting at a Fortune 100 company– on “Boundaries in Business” I would love to quote your article and make prerequisite reading before the training session. I believe it will create a lot of good discussion.
Thanks
Tim Hast