How to recognize a bully

For quite a bit of time I had a wrong idea about how to recognize a bully. In my mind, a bully would be the person who would push you, pull your hair, make fun of you, kick you when you were down, and most of all, this would happen in a school yard.
Therefore I was more worried for my kid. He is only 4 now, but I can detect a hypersensitivity in him, that would make him a target, I am pretty sure of that. Plus he is a very intelligent kid, which would be another problem, right?
To my big surprise, adults are as much into bullying as the kids. Only that it’s done in a much more perverse way.
First case was my ex boss, a misogynistic pig.
Second case: one of my current colleague.
But I have learned something, and that is: how to recognize a bully.

Here are the signs:
- He will steal your ideas in a blink of an eye; as soon as you notice that your colleague is interested in your projects without giving any info on his, be aware!! Keep your info ambiguous.
- He is going to ask for updates on your projects to deflect the attention from his lame performance
- He is going to challenge your reports talking loudly in the meetings and making reference to some things he might have found out from your slip of the tongue. Again, be very careful with what you say
- He is going to back stab you with every possible occasion, especially if your performance is better than his
- He is going to pretend being your friend and he does that with art, being or looking compassionate if you have problems… be even more aware of the friendly behavior, it’s only deceiving and the more you say when you are upset/sad/vulnerable the more ammunition you provide
- He is going to remember only what he wants to remember, therefore get into the good habit of saving emails or any type of info/approval you need from him
- For him, lying is a second nature and can do that in a blink of an eye. Even if proved wrong, he would try to turn the tide in his favor somehow
- Being a woman in corporate world is tough;you have to prove yourself many, many times and if your bully colleague can make a mistake and be angry as a ‘manly’ way of dealing with various issues, as a women you are going to be considered hormonal and your mistakes are not forgotten, especially whey your colleague will make sure nobody forgets them
- A bully will never ever congratulate you for your success, on the contrary, he will try even more to destroy your reputation and your job performance
- My bully colleague is a brown nose as well and he is capable of spending a huge amount of time kissing asses

Recently I managed to secure a huge account for the company I am working for, and the first reaction of my bully colleague was to attack me for something that was not under my control and not related to the big account, just to cool things off a little bit, until our bosses forget about my success. Unfortunately that will happen pretty fast… I mean, the forgetting part.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s better to have a mediocre but constant performance,rather than bringing money to the company but not being able to replicate the success too often.

How to play the corporate politics: 10 things you should know

I wish I would have all the answers. So far I made a few mistakes and you would think that I have learnt something, or have I?
I am on my second corporate job and slowly I am learning my way around.
On my first job I was Quality Manager for seven years. Everything went down the drain with the arrival of a new plant manager with whom I could not get along.
I am a pretty good-natured person, liked by most people, but somehow I could not find a common ground with this guy.
According to some books, I have been emotionally harassed. He was a bully and I was way too sensitive to cope with his behavior.
Or maybe I have been just unprepared to deal with a bully.
I am not detached enough even now, after two years since my leaving that company, to talk emotionless about what happened. It was bad, really bad. The decision to leave came after I got my first panic attack, when I was convinced I had a real heart attack and that I am going to die leaving my husband and my toddler alone.
The panic attacked was followed by a horrible depression. Finally I left.
My current job:Research and Development Engineer.
I was happy with the change, until I came across corporate politics.
I am not a young chick, I should have known better than that, but I am still caught by surprise when I find out that my colleagues are back-stabbers.

You are going to read lots of advice in the papers, but you know what? Most of them are so far from reality and so far from what you can actually do when you are facing the prospect of losing your job, especially if you are the main bread winner, that it’s not even worth mentioning.

How to play the corporate politics?
Here are my suggestions:
1. Keep your ears open and pay attention to the little things happening around you
2. No matter how friendly your colleagues seem to be, keep your guard up because in today’s dog eat dog world there is no free lunch
3. Be careful what you say; gossip is good when you have to get information, but try to keep your mouth shut on sensitive issues
4. Keep vital information to yourself until the right moment comes to use it. Maybe it does not sound right, but you know what? Everybody else is doing it so it would be stupid not to follow the trend
5. Restrain to criticize or make fun of senior managers in open meetings; they won’t forget it and most of them don’t have a sense of humor
6. Back up your activities with everything you can: paper, emails, whatever could be used when you have to prove your point or defend yourself
7. Keep in mind that you are replaceable!!!! Don’t get too comfortable to the extent of letting your guard down
8. Trust your gut feelings while dealing with people
9. When you have a bully around you, don’t piss him off proving him that he is a mean maggot, because he is going to morph into a man with a mission: to destroy you. You can’t punch his nose, you can not have a rational conversation, so all you have to do it to try to keep calm and think that his life is a miserable one (in most cases) and that at the end of the day you are going back home, to your family who loves you, and he is going back to an empty house with nobody to ask him how was his day
10. Always keep in mind that people have their own agenda and if you are smarter than most of them you are in greater danger of being back stabbed because you are going to be perceived as a potential threat to their position

Final thought: Good Luck to all of us fighting to keep our jobs in a cold corporate world.

New Year resolutions

I am not sure how popular New Year resolutions still are, but for me they are a way or planning my year to come.
Some people find it easier to categorize the resolutions: job, family, new ventures, etc. I guess you have to have a type A personality to be that organized. I am not, so my resolutions reflect pretty much who I am.

Although my intention was to write them down before entering into the New Year, I kept postponing until today. But hey, better late than never, if it’s any saying like this.

Here they are:
1. I am going to find a way to increase my blogs popularity without compromising my ethics
2. I am going to add a category detailing my struggle with infertility and how finally I got my bundle of joy
3. I will exercise more than last year (ouch… last year was pretty lame so anything done this year will be better, so it’s like a mini cheating honestly speaking) and improve my diet
4. I will not let my colleagues get under my skin again!!! This year I will develop the necessary skin and skills to succeed
5. I will make the effort to work on the websites that I plan to turn into sources of revenues
6. I will find time for me, time to do what I need to keep me sane: meditation, reading, watching quality movies

I think this is it so far.