Is ignoring Bullying?

elvis_lives

Hi,

Quick question. Is ignoring in workplace bullying?

My mother works in an office of about 12 people. There years. New girl started, very opinionated and loud but grand girl. One day before Xmas she made a mistake with work, my mother told her she was doing it wrong but the girl was adament she was doing it right. My mother said ok its your choice. Turns out my mother was right and the lady was pulled up on it by the manager.

Now my mother dreads work as this girl won't speak with her at all, ignores her, excludes her and just makes her feel uncomfortable. If she has to speak with my mother, she will email her (work related) but only if she has to (i.e manager says to).

What do you think?

Shelflife

dont go near your mothers workplace, if a family member came to talk to me about work issues I wouldnt entertain it.

The new girl is being rude, but as long as she is professional with your mother theres not alot that can be done about it imo.

maybe your mother should bite the bullet and have a word with her.

witnessmenow

You 100% can not ring your mothers manager about this. If you cant convince your mam to do something about it there really isnt a whole lot more you can do. Would you like if your mam rang your manager? It is not appropriate.

If you are calling as a customer and she is rude to you I guess you could ask to talk to her manager.

Hitchens

horses head might work :cool:

Kristopherus

My advice would be to butt out and do not get involved in any way with any member of staff in that firm. You have absolutely no right to get involved. Your mother is old enough to be able to fight her own battles. If you do get involved in any way, do you not think that it will reflect on your mother, perhaps in more ways that you'd think?

elvis_lives

Thank you for that

I don't like the idea at all about it as I don't think it is right (looks bad)

Hence coming here for advice.

I will persuade her to speak to the other girl and try sort it again (she did last week but she just ignored her)

Thanks again for the advice.

SamAK

Sounds like this new girl needs a nice healthy dose of cop-the-fcuk-on.

Childish behaviour.

looksee

This is absolutely not your business, except to offer a bit of moral support if your mother is looking for a sympathetic ear. If she does not bring the subject up you should let it go. Drop the subject, do not try and do any 'persuading' of your mother, she has attempted to deal with it and been rebuffed, you need to let it go.

It is hard to imagine that the new girl's not talking to your mother is making any difference to how other people (people she has worked with for years) in the office communicate with your mother. So all she has to do is work round the girl and only communicate with her on strictly office business as necessary.

elvis_lives

looksee wrote: »

This is absolutely not your business, except to offer a bit of moral support if your mother is looking for a sympathetic ear. If she does not bring the subject up you should let it go. Drop the subject, do not try and do any 'persuading' of your mother, she has attempted to deal with it and been rebuffed, you need to let it go.

It is hard to imagine that the new girl's not talking to your mother is making any difference to how other people (people she has worked with for years) in the office communicate with your mother. So all she has to do is work round the girl and only communicate with her on strictly office business as necessary.

That is true. I didn't think of how she feels when I talk about it. This is what I love about boards. there is always different angles you might not think off.

I will not 100% go near her manager. I just thought it might be a good idea but now I see its 100% not and undermining her.

Thanks again

LegacyUser

It is very hard to work with somebody who is obviously ignoring you, even if everybody else is behaving normally.

The next time your mother talks about it tell her to approach the girl again to try to resolve it, and if she won't listen, to go to her manager about it. This girl needs to be brought up on this matter as it is unacceptable (and it is a form of bullying). Maybe a discreet word from the manager at this stage will put it to bed before it escalates.

Mrs OBumble

xxxxxxxxxx wrote: »

... it is unacceptable (and it is a form of bullying). Maybe a discreet word from the manager at this stage will put it to bed before it escalates.

IMHO, if woman B (the OP's mother) has a problem, she should be going to the manager.

Not engaging in idle chit-chat in someone's presence is not rude. If anything, the non-work conversations shouldn't be happenig there at all. Whereas not talking about work-issues to someone who you have to interact with is both rude and mis-conduct.

The manager is the only one who can determine if the behaviour from woman A (the alleged "girl") is unacceptable or not in the context.



Either way ... the OP should not get involved (unless he is a solicitor who has been engaged by woman .

the_syco

Fight fire with fire. Tell your mom to inform her boss (and/or HR) that the girl has been ignoring your mom since the girls mess up (to cover her own ass in the future), and then just be pally with her other co-workers,

Ray Palmer

As an employee you can choose not to talk to a person or not. I was surprised but according to a number of HR people I have spoken about this with assured me that is the case.
It is amazingly common in older organisation. Hence I spoke to many HR people about it. It wasn't me being ignored but I asked what the deal was with certain people.

The pattern seems to be somebody takes slight refuses to talk to one person and then as time goes on the people they aren't talking to increases until they are completely isolated. Then they just sit there not talking to anybody and doing their job in the most basic way.

Essentially an employee does not have to engage with a person if they make them uncomfortable. That is once they do their job.