Bullying huh? Staff at Downing Street are feeling bullied and phoning a helpline?

I'm going to try and keep this short..

For what seems like more years than I can count I worked in the Financial Services Sector. Latterly at a Big American Bank.

A big macho testosterone fuelled Global American Bank.
Edinburgh's director, Wee Sam was a short man on an even shorter fuse. Senior management and lesser minions were bawled out on an hourly basis. I don't know if collars were ever seized, but the abuse got seriously personal.
You could spot anyone on the receiving end of a phone call - they're the ones with the receiver six inches from their ear...
You could recognise anyone heading to his office - by the walk.. the slump of the doomed.

And the bullying trickled down.

Senior and middle managers congregated in the smoking areas to plan how to cover their backs and find fall guys for whatever new crisis has erupted. Because there was always a crisis, and there always had to be a fall guy in this environment.
The "best" managers were the ones who could quickly identify and deal with a culprit.
This is how bullying gets institutionalised.

And the bullying was condoned because the US directors were even more aggressive than Edinburgh's.
Ha! There goes our Wee Sam on his way to get a bollocking on his next conference call with the US. Look at his walk - the slump of the doomed.

Through September to November I worked ten weeks with no weekends. I have especially fond memories of the weekend where I worked alongside thirty others through till half one in the morning Friday and Saturday night.

Because we were scared to tell them where to go.

Notoriously I asked for flexitime to allow me visits to the hospice and chemo unit. Although I was warned not to by another manger.... And we know how that panned out

So. If anyone's getting yelled at in Downing Street, it's probably not very nice. But if you are helping run the country, you might want to wise up and contact ACAS rather than a helpline run out of a back office. Yeah, and while you're at it, you might want to try and raise awareness of institutionalised bullying which is rife throughout some of our "professions".
Just a thought.

Macy
xx