How Mobsters Captured their Target

Like any abusive relationship, a mob cannot manipulate others without first earning their trust. Trust is earned when others perceive the person is safe. The bully must, therefore, present the image that they possess trustworthy character traits like being compassionate, honest, empathic, forgiving, selfless, humble, and forthcoming with mistakes. They may speak out against bullying. They may present the image that they care about the person they are mobbing (i.e. buy them coffee in the morning, suggest a person go and talk to the target for them, or give them compliments at a team meeting). This is meant to intimidate the employee being mobbed so they question their sanity or realize no one will believe them as the mobster has projected an image of being “kind” and “hospitable.” In other words, their deception makes their victims trust them and later disempowers them from coming forward once they recognize they are being mobbed.

In my narrative, my principal regularly and convincingly presented the image that he was trustworthy. At the start of every school year, he gave each teacher a miniature brick that encouraged us to break down the walls before us. Ahead of passing out these bricks, he gave a speech that emphasized he would support us as we tried to overcome the obstacles in the school year ahead of us. At the start of the 2014 school year, he gave us red wagon pins, telling us we could come to him if our burden was too heavy to pull alone. He regularly emphasized being selfless as well. This message was sent during our back to the school pep talks, during award ceremonies, and during messages to our parents. 

At the start of one school year, my principal played a video for the entire staff that encouraged staff not to give up on their dream, even if no one else saw it. The video also said we should get the losers out of our life who held us back from our dreams. The timing of this video could not have been more appropriate as my bully had just transferred out of my building. Before she left, one of her disgruntle friends suggested I had done something to make her leave. I reported this to my principal via an email. Now he needed to make a “deposit” in the trust bank in a major way. And he did. He called her a loser in front of everyone, and now he was gas lighting me to move on and work hard to achieve my dreams. 

There is no doubt in my mind that I trusted my principal’s encouraging words. I thought he was sincere and perceived he practiced servant leadership. Once I knew my perpetrator’s allies were angry with me, I told my principal I would no longer praise him publicly. This seemed selfless and like servanthood leadership in my mind, traits he had encouraged us to practice in his annual pep talks. I wrote him this message in a private thank you card in the spring of 2015. By March of 2015, my principal granted me the honors social studies position. I knew my new esteem position and his recognition of me could somehow divide the staff (i.e. my mobsters and his allies). He appreciated my note and came to door the next morning while students arrived. I told him I meant what I said in the card. He said he really appreciated what I wrote. And besides telling one teacher immediately after I got his acceptance email, I kept silent about my new esteemed position. I never told another soul in my building that I knew 1 1/2 years ahead of time that I was the honors social studies teacher. I was selfless and tried to follow what I thought he modeled. 

I was serious about not publicly praising him, even when I noticed a double standard. A week later in March of 2015, our librarian sent out an email saying she wanted to organize a 60thbirthday party gift for our principal. She collected words of affirmation about him and then hosted a celebration of gifts and cake. Fast forward to the end of 2016, another teacher publicly praised him by reading emails she collected from the entire staff. Each time I attended these events, I reasoned I had to be selfless and stay silent as not to divide the staff.  These two teachers could praise him publicly as they did not have the negative staff interactions that I did. I did and consequently needed to be a team player who selflessly served. This pleased my principal, and kept me safe, at least that is what I foolishly reasoned and was allowed to practice.  

Looking back, I realize he broke his promise to help me carry my heavy burdens. To date, I have no proof my principal ever protected me from the bullying, harassment, or retaliation I encountered and reported. He may have, but he never told me about it. I do, however, have proof that I was bullied, that administration was made aware of it, and the district did nothing.

1. I asked a question to one of my building secretaries who then hit “reply all” and shamed me publicly for questioning her decision-making abilities. My principal never asked my secretary to apologize. He never followed up with me to see if I was okay. Had he, I would have told him I thought the email thread was inappropriate. He never spoke up himself, acknowledging in an all-staff email that he, as our supervisor, thought what the secretary did was wrong. He never told the rest of the staff that sending a building wide email thread that scolded and mocked an employee was a form of bullying. He did not use the moment as an opportunity to establish a staff culture where asking questions was okay or use the event to teach staff how to handle professionally a conflict. While he could have used my experience as a moment to build staff norms, he remained silent. 

2. In 2011, I came forward with a sexual harassment charge, and the district has no paperwork documenting my informal allegation. I stated I wanted to go off record and they (conveniently) let me.  They never communicated to me in 2011 any outcome of an investigation they did, which I could have appealed while the circumstances were still recent in witness’ minds and email documentation was still in the system.  My principal never told me in our 2011 conversation that I could file a report with the EEOC and that the district took retaliation seriously.

3. In 2011, fawning, I tried to nominate my perpetrator for Teacher of the Year. My principal told me no but never explained why. He could have clarified to me the findings of an investigation he did following our conversation, that he had deemed it sexual misconduct or an unsubstantiated sexual harassment charge. This work was done within the 180 of filing my informal sexual harassment charge, meaning had he told me I would have still been empowered legally to go on record as a survivor. Instead, he sat there and left me in the dark as to why it was inappropriate. Knowing I had charged my perpetrator with sexual harassment and left with the impression it was not otherwise, I concluded my principal could not discuss the matter with me because of my perpetrator’s privacy rights. Consequently, I did not pursue the matter. I told the one staff member who I had asked for a letter of recommendation (who later participated in the group that mobbed me) that I was no longer pursuing a nomination of my perpetrator. 

4. In the fall of 2015, I asked my principal if I could organize a collection of decorations for two parent celebrations we had each year. He ignored multiple emails that I sent. I then went to his office and said he could tell me no as I knew “people did not like me in the building.” He told me I was wrong and people did like me. He asked for no information from me on why I thought people did not like me. He never checked in with me to ensure I was safe and was not being bullied. He simply dismissed me and said, “people do like you.” This was classic gas lighting. Now I was the overly sensitive one who had misperceived situations. Consequently, I emailed him an apology for assuming people did not like me.

5. When my car windshield was broken in December of 2015, both of my principals suggested the glass broke on its own. They told me this while I was still inspecting my vehicle and processing what happened. Both of them did not tell me during my inspection that I could file a police report or offer to contact our school’s police officer should I want more information regarding this process (i.e. could I report my workplace bullying to the officer so they could interview them as suspects). My principal knew I went off record with a sexual harassment complaint and that less than four months previously had told him I felt like people did not like me. Yet there he was telling me the window broke on its own. 

6. In late winter of 2016, one of my perceived mobsters (the one who criticized my reading curriculum) said as I walked into a room to pick up a printout, “There she is. The girl who has so much power in this school.” I ignored his comment about running the school, picked up my printouts, and left. I mentioned his comment to my principal. He just rolled his eyes. He never told me he would look into it or that he knew the origins of my mobster’s feelings. He just signaled empathetically he was on my side.

7. When this same perceived mobster symbolically flipped off someone (or a group) during an award acceptance speech in the spring of 2017, my principal laughed and we moved on. He never told us the teacher’s behavior was inappropriate. Whomever “the bird” was meant for was publicly harassed and never defended publicly. My principal’s only response was to later suggest (during another staff meeting) that he started the award as a joke. In other words, he tried to gas light whomever “the bird” was meant for, telling us “oh this was no big deal.” The problem is I thought his “bird” was directed at me. He had criticized me for advocating stronger social studies curriculum in front of administration. He had months prior expressed his opinion that I had power in the school, something my principal knew about and knew I was uncomfortable with. And I had learned through the rumor mill that this mobster was angry because he was retiring and had been denied a request to be rehired by the district. 

This event, along with the broken windshield, became the events that woke me from my administration’s brainwashing gas lighting. I believed my supervisors were trustworthy and would protect me when I was weak. This explains why, at times, I did not advocate for my rights. I thought they were taking care of it. They knew about my retaliation and had told me to serve the unlovable. They were taking care of it behind the scenes. They had to as they had admirably said they were selfless and were willing to help us carry our burdens. They had to as they had been trained as principals in student trauma and had pledge to end discrimination and bullying. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and justified their silence as an inability to be transparent due to privacy laws or as an ethical strategy to patch things up morale wise after they held my perpetrator accountable. That was admirable. (At least I thought so then.) 

And if I kept the conversation between me and them, I satisfied the direct command of my principal to be selfless and serve the unlovable. Yet my fawning response changed once my windshield broke. I was angry and needed someone held accountable for my workplace mobbing and retaliation. I perceived the possibility that the district may have been holding one of my perpetrator’s allies accountable by not rehiring him, but later recognized this was wrong. He flipped someone off, and my principal entirely dismissed it. I finally recognized he was just playing me so I stayed a silent, cooperative fawn. I reported these frustrations to a teacher who later mobbed me through gas lighting. And that is when I started to experience a downward mobbing plot that was extreme in its organization and psychological terror.