Why is an employee mobbed?

Workplace mobbing can be present in any industry or company. Horizontal workplace mobbing is caused by jealous employees who work in a toxic culture that permits bullying due to weak procedures and ineffective management. Upward workplace mobbing is motivated by employees who hope the psychological terror of bullying will force their perceived unsupportive supervisor to resign. Downward workplace mobbing is common in businesses that cannot easily remove “undesirable” employees. The survivor may be tenured. They may have filed a discrimination claim like sexual harassment. They may be a competent employee who challenges the status quo, is at the end of the pay scale, or has high health insurance costs. Whatever the survivor’s circumstances, the mob determines the target threatens their interests and consequently needs to be removed from the group. In my narrative, I believe I was targeted as a sexual harassment survivor and a bully survivor. I also had a history of being a renegade who argued for employee rights as well as company reform that benefited students. 

I started working for my company in the fall of 2006. My first week getting hired, I met with Human Resource officers and criticized the amount of money I had to pay for health insurance benefits. Once in my building, I said the expectations the school had for its students were much lower than what I saw in California where I had taught for three years. I even went so far as to predict its students would not be able to compete nationally with the students in my former district.  I was not intimidated to speak my mind, even if it meant going to the school board publicly. At the end of that school year, I added up my wages and realized the district did not pay me my full salary. When I went to Human Resources, they admitted my math was correct and agreed to pay me my back wages. I demanded they pay me interest for the delayed payments as well. This request was ignored multiple times via email. I then went to their office and asked them in person, at which point the director told me my request would require she go in front of the school board and admit the mistake. I did not even flinch at this information. I simply said okay and later that month had my check in hand.

My advocacy continued between 2007 and 2011 as well. When a human resource officer ignored a question I had about an open enrollment deadline, I went to their office to inquire about the date. When she told me it had closed, I immediately demanded they reopen the window and make an exception. The agent told me no, pointed out they had sent out information on the deadline, and stated it was my fault I missed the window. I then asserted that she had missed the email I sent her asking about the deadline while the window was still open. She responded with: “Do you know how many emails I get every day?” I bounced back immediately with: “Do you know how many emails I get every day? The window was subsequently reopened, and the benefits agent called me later that day. 

This advocacy was quick and thoughtless. There was no fear of retaliation or anxiety about being dismissed. I knew what I needed and I was unafraid advocating for it. There was no ruminating. No fear or fawning. Just me speaking my mind whether people liked or not.  I was even willing to challenge the superintendent publicly. When the district rewrote the teacher’s pay schedule, I learned I would have to wait eight years before I got paid for my college units beyond my BA. At a public meeting for this new schedule, I asked the superintendent how long the contract lasted. My superintendent responded with “eight years,” to which I immediately shot back with, “So I have to wait 8 years to get paid for my classes, at which point the contract is renegotiated?”  She replied, “If you do not trust us, find a new job.” I stayed and got paid for my masters eight years later. 

I remained threatening even after I filed my 2011 informal sexual harassment complaint. My extensive grant work created a passion to teach history as more than a memorization of dates, names, and events. I wanted to empower kids how to think, read, and write like a historian. This drive caused me to participate in my state’s Department of Education social studies standards revision committee. I also participated in a state Department of Education Native American curriculum committee. As the state moved towards a common core framework, I become one of its spokespersons in my district. And here is where I got into “trouble” as my perpetrator disagreed with the curriculum shift. So did his allies. And my district was unwilling to defend me against their attacks.

In April of 2015, all the social studies teachers met to review the new social studies standards. During the meeting, one of my perpetrator’s allies came up to me and demeaned my instruction. He told me that my students would not pass a citizenship test if the state required them to at high school graduation. My state legislators were considering this idea at the time, and my district curriculum coordinator did not publicly endorse or reject the idea. She was at this meeting and sat nearby observing his attack. She was the last to leave the room that day. When she left, I shrugged my shoulders, outstretched my hands, and shock my head in a manner that communicated “oy vey.”  She never responded to my grief. If she handled the matter privately, the district never told me. I put this harassment in my 2020 mobbing charge, which they completely ignored. I continue to believe she never came to my aid.

Once I strongly perceived I was being mobbed (a term I did not know until the summer of 2020 but a behavior pattern I recognized for certain by the fall of 2017), I looked back and understood how much of a “problematic” employee I was in the district’s eyes. I advocate for employee rights, equitable curriculum, and more intense reading instruction. I showed a willingness and sharp, fearless ability to criticize company policy. Other staff members resented my ambitions, saw me promoted to a prestigious teaching position, and felt threatened by my calls for reform. I also never stopped advocating for my right to feel safe at work. Yes, I never formally reported the bullying I encountered before 2020, but I did informally report it to my principal each school year I endured it. I recognized, looking back, the company had to find some way to avoid being liable for their negligence, especially their knowledge that they allowed me to go off record with a sexual harassment complaint in 2011. I was, as google defined, “a dangerous perpetrator that threatened the company’s survival.”  And a mob had to be organized to fend me away so the organism itself (i.e. the company) survived.