Stepford Employee Rules

I've been struggling to leave my flat on Town Hall days.

Few and far between though these are, I find I always have something terribly pressing to do as I am on the point of walking out of the door. Checking my emails, picking bits of fluff off the carpet, and rearranging my knicker drawer are some of my favourite displacement activities...

But this morning, I feel calmer about the forthcoming visit than I have felt for months!

Connecting up through social networking with others who have experienced workplace bullying - particularly reading blog posts by Eva James, and her book "Bullied By The Boss" - has diminished my sense of isolation and the feeling that no-one else understands me. It has helped me not to take what has happened to me so personally. Because I now realise that almost every organisation out there would have responded in exactly the same way.

It doesn't make it right.
But it makes it a hell of a lot more predictable.

The first few minutes upon arrival at the Town Hall are spent in my usual sanctuary (Ladies Loo, Second Floor) which offers me a chance to gather my thoughts under pretext of brushing my hair. I am in the middle of this procedure when lo! the outer door opens and Private Colleague appears.

Private Colleague is intelligent, compassionate and sane.
How she ever made it through our department's recruitment procedures is a mystery.

We enjoy some minutes of amiable chat before I head off into our department's temporary offices. Another stroke of luck! Spiteful Colleague is on leave today. Sitting at his desk is not exactly my idea of fun (I swear that his very chair exudes malevolence), but it puts me on the same table as Private Colleague and Maternal Colleague so after performing some discreet exorcism rituals, I sit myself down and boot up. Life Coach Colleague gives me a wave, and Low Profile Colleague smiles at me.

And it all feels - OK.
And it all feels - quite safe.
And it all feels - comfortable and normal, and as if one day my relationship with work might actually be restored to an entente cordiale, instead of the strained truce under which it now labours.

But in the afternoon we have the team meeting (I employ the term "team" loosely, of course...) And suddenly I am in the company of Ex-Army Man and Remora - the two co-workers who supported Line Manager after I submitted a formal complaint about his bullying. I wouldn't mind, but Ex-Army Man has spent years slagging off Line Manager as lazy and inefficient; and Remora's preferred lunchtime discourse is regaling colleagues with tales about Line Manager stealing money from departees' leaving collections; and being so mean that after numerous pilferings of postage stamps from her personal supply, the one time she needed to obtain a stamp from him, he charged her for it.

Given their brutally unflattering opinions of Line Manager, one has to wonder exactly what their motives were in accompanying him to the hearing....

Ex-Army Man and Remora have now become a weirdly dissonant double act. Less Little and Large; more Shouty and Screech. Being in their company is extremely challenging.

So after what has been a fairly good day, when I have been interacting with colleagues quite easily, I revert to Stepford Employee Rules:

- Speak only when spoken to
- Smile politely when others are talking
- When feeling outraged, bored, disgusted or mad, look down.
- And never ever let the enemy see the whites of one's eyes.

Half way through the meeting, I sneak a look at my mobile phone which has remained on my lap throughout the meeting like a talisman. I read a Tweet by @bulliedbyboss. And suddenly it turns into a good day again...