The clinic It is renewed for the end of winter. After such a hot and suffocating summer, we decided to give it a refresh so that corporate patients feel comfortable, as if they were in the company, where they no longer go as often due to hybrid work. We invested in plants to give a nursery-like feel to the entrance hall: all cacti so that the executives feel the work thorns. But once inside our cozy abode, peace and the old corporate life are felt on the surface, since we went to an antique shop in San Telmo and bought disused objects from companies that were melted down in some crisis in the country: a typewriter Remington, a cash register, a file, feather pens, letter opener, paperweight, a globe and a rubber stamp with ink and pad.
The doorbell rang and at the door we met Rubén, who was sweaty from having come on his folding bicycle. Rubén greeted and stood paralyzed in the entrance hall looking at the variety of cacti. From the rictus on his face, it seems that it is not a plant he likes. Once in the office, he looked carefully at the typewriter and asked: “What is this?”
We invited him to lie down on the couch and, before he could ask anything, he shot:
–Look doctor, I already know a lot about psychoanalysis. In fact, I have been psychoanalyzing myself since I was 18, since my mother told me that the poem she had written was horrible and that I would never be a writer. I come because I’m in a job dilemma and they told me that you have corporate experience, so let’s get to the point and don’t ask me how I felt in my mother’s belly.
–I wasn’t going to ask you that, Rubén. Tell me what’s happening to you.
-I do not know where to start. If I had to title this talk I would say that my boss is a bully and I am an idiot, because I don’t do anything, or I don’t know how to do anything. He is very good at what he does, he gets results, he is very efficient and he leaves us all exposed as if we were stupid. And the truth is that he may be right and that we are all idiots as he says in work meetings.
–Calm down and don’t beat yourself up. I ask you to tell me about a situation where you have felt bullying.
–Well, what can I say… there is no time that I am giving a presentation and I don’t interrupt it and make ruthless criticism. The last time she interrupted me and said “you’re not getting to the point and we’re wasting time with this.” Another time he told me “these visions of young people… we need more polenta, Rubén.” Imagine, at that moment I get blocked and my presentation and my soul fall to the floor. The worst thing is that when I analyze what he brutally told me, he is right, I should have presented it differently. But I’m blocked. I started taking medication before going to shows, but it didn’t work for me. When I took Clonazepam my tongue got stuck and, instead of words falling out, I drooled.
–What other situation can you tell me?
–Let me think… I wouldn’t know how to be precise. But, for example, in meetings with the team, in addition to interrupting and ignoring us, he often hits the table and we all jump out of our chairs as if they were pricking our tails. He never insults us personally, but uses awful words like “this job is going nowhere” or “this is useless” or “this presentation is wasting our time and focus.” And one is human doctor. Emotionally we were devastated.
–Rubén, he is very quiet. What is he thinking about?
–Nothing, all this saddens me.
Rubén took the seal, the pad and the ink and stained the shirt he was wearing:
–What strange objects you have here, doctor. I don’t understand what these things are for.
–What do you plan to do now, Rubén?
–I am facing an interesting job search. I am looking for a good, calm, respectful environment. I’m willing to go for the same amount I earn today or less, and look, with the inflation that exists, that can seem suicidal. But I can’t take it anymore.
–And if he leaves, how would he resign? Is she going to address the bullying issue?
–I tell you the truth, I dream of that moment. If this new job is given to me, I’m going to go to my boss’s office, I’m going to bring him tea with a very powerful diuretic and I’m going to tell him that I’m leaving, that I really can’t take it anymore. I don’t think what I tell him will affect him, but the diuretic will keep him entertained for a while.
Rubén got up, I noticed he was lighter. He approached the exit door of the office, paid, looked at me and said:
–Thank you doctor, I had a good catharsis. Just one recommendation: the cacti are terrifying and the decorative objects are incomprehensible. Add some lavenders, jasmine, something aromatic. All this stresses me out. She packed up her folding bike and went for a drink. latte to a bar in Palermo, to assimilate everything he had thought.
Bullying is incremental: stress accumulates, anxiety gives rise to despair and panic attacks, and the toxic atmosphere invades us all. If people consider you to be a bad boss, you are a bad boss. If employees try to avoid you, talented people will avoid working with you. Bullies in organizations have no justification. Only good results and corporate cultures corroded by values impregnated with the smell of sewage allow them to resist in their jobs. The best thing that can happen to Rubén’s company is to realize that that boss is trash and that the few values that that company has left are at the mercy of organizational beasts like that toxic and abrasive boss.
And for Rubén to be happier, the best thing he can do is leave that area or the company. But I hope that, before doing so, his anger and anguish will be felt so that, after his departure, they will drive out the beast from his boss.
