My HR rep was powerless, and could not help with a bullying, threatening supervisor. She wanted to help but was in fear of her job and had not support to get anything done. It was pointless. She would even have me meet her in the bathroom to talk and check in because the supervisor and his special VP friend had cameras installed and if they saw you talking to certain people would come out and ask why you were wasting work time or interrupt. The bathrooms were the only spaces that you could "meet" without being interrupted. The cameras were a result of their affair and the increasing paranoia of the female involved since she was convinced everyone was talking about her...

I got out of a terrible situation this fall. I endured a bully supervisor for well over a year. I had more experience in our field than she did, and rather than use me to bolster her section, she turned on me. She started to pull projects and funding from me, micromanage, turn minor time card issues into major crises that required top leadership involvement, and gossiped like Perez Hilton. She was incompetent and a liar and everyone know it, but for whatever reason management supported her. She caused our organization some trouble but she was, and probably still is, very important to a handful of people, so they continue to defend her. I actually loved my job and had planned to stay there for several years, but once I realized that she could do no wrong and that my strong performance record meant nothing to management when it came to my supervisor's happiness and fragile ego, I knew it was time to get out. It was a real shame because I did not want to leave at all. I waited until the time was right and I found something new I could live with for a while. I'm not happy, still angry, but in the end, I no longer have to wake up dreading another unpredictable day. Sometimes I think I could have fought it out and withstood a few more months. I have to remind myself then that things were NOT going to change. And yes, as everyone else here has said, HR is pretty much useless. Even HR turned on me when I had a valid complaint. Again, my supervisor was a skilled liar who had friends in high places. Perhaps HR was scared of her, too. My supervisor and her protectors only backed off when I threatened legal action-- I think they were used to bullied staffers running for the hills rather than fighting.

Most painful learning of my career -- HR is there for the company, not you. If they think you have a lawsuit brewing they will close in and protect the company (and even the abuser) at all costs. I have been bullied at work (it sucks) and when I reported it to my boss and HR, they made my life a living hell. I ended up choosing to leave rather than continue the abuse and it turned out to be one of the best career decisions of my life. I hope this will work out in a similar way for you.

Unfortunately I have found HR is there to support management (was actually told this by an HR representative), not employees. I have never had any resolutions to any management difficulties when I engaged HR. Sad, but true. Am in a bullying, discriminatory situation right now and don't where or whom to turn to.

I work for a household name, Fortune 500 company, and HR is pretty much worthless. Employees can't talk to them - they have to leave a message and hope for a response. When they do give a response, they make a lot of promises, but don't actually fulfill any of them, etc. We had an employee who frequently angered customers, aggressively pushed their work onto their coworkers, hid from customers so that they could play with their phone all day, was willfully obstinate and insubordinate, came to work when they felt like it and left when they wanted (despite the company having VERY strict rules on punctuality), was quite possibly a straight up pathological liar, and who constantly tried to manipulate and pick fights with other employees - the more senior the position, the worse the behavior towards them. The manager was well aware of all of this, but every time they tried to write up this employee, HR would say that the employee's actions weren't bad enough to warrant a write up. Doing drugs at work? Not bad enough. Leaving 2 hours into an 8 hour shift just because? Not bad enough. Not showing up at all with no warning, blatantly lying about a medical appointment and having a friend text the manager pretending to be someone with authority in an attempt to excuse them for the rest of the day (we knew the number that the text came from)? Not bad enough. This employee would have been fired YEARS ago, but HR wouldn't let us write them up, and every branch in the area knew about this employee, so no one would take them. We were stuck. When I started collecting information to build a bullying case against this employee, the system scanned my e-mail and flagged one of them. HR was QUICK to contact me, citing a 0 tolerance policy on bullying, but then nitpicked what bullying "actually meant". Harassment was not bullying. Harassing all employees instead of just 1 (despite the extra harassment that I, personally, received on a daily basis) wasn't bullying, etc. Also, just for the record, I almost didn't get to start this job all those years ago, because the last hiring form to be filled out had to be done by my manager on my 1st day of work, and HR wouldn't let me start my 1st day until that form was filled out. It took 3 weeks of arguing with them for them to understand the problem with that situation. HR is useless to the everyday worker.

Bullying and workplace abuse is a management and leadership problem. Poor management and leadership allows these behaviors to become pervasive in any organization. Show me a leader or manager with strong moral boundaries and standards, I will show an organization without this type of behavior. It all starts and ends with leadership. You can rest assured that all the stories shared above, the leadership team encouraged or covered up the bad behavior. They are the ones to blame. My advice: hit it where it hurts. Their pockets. Lawyer up, settle the case for a nice amount of cash, and move on! Giver yourself time to heal, before jumping into the next job.

I sent an email to all four owners and my boss, with a copy to HR. In it I stated what I had endured, seen, heard, and was extremely specific as to what had happened, mentioning all those who witnessed each event. In the email, I stated that I was uncomfortable and what I had witnessed was harassment, unfair, and unprofessional. I sent the email on a Friday and Monday morning; the primary two owners came down from NY to have a conversation with me, the accused, and several other people. Later, I found out that upon receipt of the email, they immediately contacted their host of corporate attorneys because I used the words, "hostile work environment". The attorneys told them to get the matter resolved immediately, or this would-be big trouble for them. And yes, I began job hunting and left shortly thereafter. In my case, the woman who was the problem was at one time HR and had been demoted by the owners. It was my understanding that she had some information on them, so she hadn't been fired for fear of retaliation. Corporate politics. I can't tell you what to do, as that is a personal decision. But I am praying that God will grant you wisdom.

I worked in HR and was targeted by my own team so I don’t know how well you can trust your own HR dept. I was seeing unethical decisions being made and asking questions like, why and how did we make this decision? I was told to get on board and written up for not being a team player. Next thing I know, I was terminated. I have never been in this place in my entire career. These people should be ashamed of themselves and I hope karma bites them hard! If I knew without a doubt I could win a lawsuit I would go after them in a heartbeat, but they know enough to cover their bases. I have never felt such shame and defeat in my life, even though it’s completely irrational and I know I didn’t deserve what happened, it still hurts like hell. My plan is to rise above and come out of this stronger than ever and more confident than ever because that is one thing I allowed them to do was make me feel like I was completely incompetent and it wasn’t me...it was them!!!! A$$holes!!

Yes, I have experienced abuse, blatant sabotage, inappropriate sexist remarks and as I got older ageist remarks that were back-handed compliments such as, "Wow! You really look great 'for your age'!" When I thought I was finding errors in the organization's finance department incorrectly posting in our accounts--including missing revenue entries that totaled thousands of dollars--I was targeted. This was an organization. When I had a boss that I found passed out over the steering wheel of her car with the car running, the smell of alcohol everywhere--a boss that never showed up for work for over a year--and I went to HR for help, I was referred to EAP and was told that it was because I had a problem with my manager!!! This was a different organization. At yet another organization, I placed employees at companies. My boss tasked me with auditing whether we were in compliance with the contracts with the employer organizations insofar as educational and criminal record preferences. Some organizations would take employees no matter what their education or criminal record histories were. Others specified. I found over 100 blatant instances where the account managers knowingly placed people in jobs that if the employer organization knew would have been a breach of contract matter. I also also tasked with checking our I9s and found that one of the account managers was placing people who had falsified the document--the account manager completed the I9s. What happened? I realized that the manager asked me to do the audits because she needed a fall person as she didn't want to be the "bad" person to the employees. What happened to me? I was let go as I was "not a good fit." I am finding that this appears to be everywhere anymore. I am telling you. It was not this way in the past. If people or organizations did this type of stuff, they were held accountable--not the person who was following the law, company policy, everything we were taught about leadership, working, etc. How are these types of people getting into power in the first place and more importantly, how are they staying in the power????? When I brought bill-padding (fraud) to yet another organization's attention, I was targeted. And, every time in all these organizations, it was because I was "not a team player." Nope, I don't and won't play on the unethical, let's skirt company policies and the laws team, not now, not ever. It takes a lot more energy to figure out how to break laws/policies, etc., and get away with it than to do it right and move on to the next project. Why don't companies realize this? Also, this type of stuff causes brain-drains which costs a lot of money and the constant turnover results in higher costs in training, mitigating the errors new employees make as they are in the learning curve, etc.

Report it but be prepared to leave. Retaliation is real but hard to prove. And the company will always defend the offender unfortunately.