Menace Of Bullies: Why This Woman Resigned From Her 6-Figure Job

BENICIA, CA — Linda Bryant had a job — and a good one at that. She quickly moved up at the San Francisco office of the largest international insurance brokerage firm in the United States. But, Bryant says, while she was on medical leave for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder she developed as a result of her work environment, she felt forced to resign from her six-figure position of assistant vice president.

The 47-year-old mother of two from Benicia, California, says she became increasingly afraid to go to work because she never knew what to expect from her volatile boss, whom she suspected was using drugs. Would he yell and point his finger at her again, as he had done at one meeting? Would he demean and taunt her in another email? Was he really contagious with a flesh-eating disease as he threatened he was?

He was the nephew of a company executive, and she felt as if her complaints to human resources fell on deaf ears.

“At this point, it is creating an undue burden on the company to continue to keep your position open,” Human Resources told her in an email.

Those and other allegations are included in a lawsuit she filed against her former employer, AmWINS Group, a specialty wholesale insurance brokerage that employs nearly 5,000 people internationally. Bryant also names her former supervisor in the lawsuit.

Patch tried reaching an AmWINS spokesperson multiple times but did not receive a response. Patch also reached out to the law firm representing her former employer and the law firm representing her former supervisor. Neither responded.

Bryant feels abused not just by her former boss, but by the system in general.

“There is public trust that schools and the workplace are hostile-free environments,” Bryant told Patch as part of our national reporting project on bullying. “Employers and school administrators have a legal, fiduciary, ethical and moral responsibility and duty to protect the health and safety of their employees and students.”

Bryant said in her lawsuit that on numerous occasions over a period of approximately six months, her boss would send emotionally charged, harassing, demeaning and taunting email correspondences directed toward her, her co-workers and their clients.

“He took pleasure in embarrassing and humiliating her in many of those emails,” the suit states.

When her boss began dating his assistant and giving her preferential treatment, Bryant brought it to the attention of HR, according to the lawsuit.

“Instead of investigating her complaints, Bryant was retaliated against and harassed,” the lawsuit states. “While on medical leave and psychiatric care, she received harassing phone calls and text messages from an assistant vice president … Her boss also reduced her mid-year bonus.”

30 Million Americans Bullied On The Job

A growing body of research suggests Bryant isn’t alone. A study from the University of Louisville in Kentucky says more than 30 million American workers are bullied in the workplace.

Not all workers resign, as Bryant did, according to a new study from Portland State University that suggests that bullied workers may come in late, take longer-than-allowed breaks, perform tasks incorrectly or completely shut down and withhold all effort. All of that affects not only bullied workers, but also their teams and the company..

The study, based on 427 studies and published in the Journal of Management, looked at how bullying bosses can decrease the employee’s willingness to volunteer for responsibilities that aren’t part of their jobs and increase “counterproductive work behavior.”

The researchers found that fairness, or the lack of it, accounted more for the link between abusive supervision and “organizational citizenship behavior,” while work stress led to more counterproductive work behavior.

“Stress is sometimes uncontrollable. You don't sleep well, so you come in late or take a longer break, lash out at your coworkers or disobey instructions," Liu-Qin Yang, the study's co-author and an associate professor of industrial-organizational psychology in PSU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said in a news release. “But justice is more rational. Something isn't fair, so you're purposely not going to help other people or when the boss asks if anyone can come in on a Saturday to work, you don't volunteer.”

Yang and her co-authors said employers should hold regular training programs to help supervisors learn better interpersonal and management skills when interacting with their employees; implement fair policies and procedures to reduce workers’ perceptions of injustice; and make sure employees have the resources they need to perform their jobs, including stress management training.

Motivated By Bullied 12-Year-Old

Although she was not bullied as a youngster in school, Bryant said her experience of being bullied in the workplace has given her an understanding of what bullied children go through.

“It is heartbreaking to see our children committing suicide,” Bryant said. “When I see one, I kind of feel like I have blood on my hands. Someone has to step up and talk.”

Bryant said one young girl’s plight struck her to the core: Mallory Grossman, a 12-year-old Rockaway, New Jersey, girl who took her own life.

Following her 2017 death, Mallory’s parents filed a lawsuit against their local school district alleging appropriate actions were not taken when they reported their daughter was being bullied by four classmates — not only at school but relentlessly on social media.

In February, two New Jersey senators introduced “Mallory’s Law,” which if passed would add on to New Jersey's "Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights” — widely considered to be one of the strongest anti-bullying laws in the country. The bill is currently in committee.

Lobbying For Change

Lobbying for such laws is something the founder of Workplace Bullying Institute knows all too well. Some 22 years ago, in 1997, after Gary Namie’s wife was the target of bullying at her job in the North Bay Area, the couple launched what would become the Workplace Bullying Institute.

“The point is, bullying is much more common than sexual harassment but only one of them is illegal,” Namie said.

In the beginning, Namie and his wife ran a nonprofit organization with staff and took calls from some 12,000 bullying targets on a toll-free line. They also posted hundreds of YouTube videos on the topic.

The couple have since written a book on the subject, done consulting for employers through their Workplace Bullying University, and spent countless hours, days, weeks and years lobbying for legislation — any legislation.

“Now we just focus on ‘What are we going to do to get American employers to want to fix this?’ ” Namie said. “It is a health hazard but for some reason, we are ignoring it.”

Namie said proposed legislation he helped craft, the Healthy Workplace Bill, is again being presented to legislators in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.

The bill states in part:

• At least a third of all employees will directly experience health-endangering workplace bullying, abuse and harassment during their working lives, and this form of mistreatment is approximately four times more prevalent than sexual harassment alone;
• Workplace bullying, mobbing and harassment can inflict serious harm upon targeted employees, including feelings of shame and humiliation, severe anxiety, depression, suicidal tendencies, impaired immune systems, hypertension, increased risk of cardiovascular disease and symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder;
• Abusive work environments can have serious consequences for employers, including reduced employee productivity and morale, higher turnover and absenteeism rates, and increases in medical and workers’ compensation claims;
• If mistreated employees who have been subjected to abusive treatment at work cannot establish that the behavior was motivated by race, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, or age, they are unlikely to be protected by the law against such mistreatment.”

Like Bryant, Namie’s wife also suffered from PTSD because of what happened in the workplace, he said. That spawned their research into the negative health effects suffered by the targets of bullies.

Stress-related physical health complications from bullying can include neurological deficits, high blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks and chronic kidney disease, he said.

“Prolonged exposure to trauma will do that,” Namie said. “Next is the immune system … It is killing people.”

As for Bryant, she now does speaking engagements about bullying and mental health in youth and in corporate America. She has spoken at her local teen center and in October 2018, at the B-Against Bullying Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

“I have had children come up and talk to me, and I can come down to their level and say ‘I understand,’ ” Bryant said. “Because as an adult I was embarrassed about being bullied, I wanted there to be someone to say, ‘I understand. Let’s help you.’ I want them to know I am lobbying for laws.”

In the near future, Bryant plans to launch a nonprofit under the name Silent Voices Speak. Although she has already lobbied elected officials for laws concerning bullying in the workplace and in schools, her goal is to use the nonprofit to further her lobbying efforts.

“Legislation is mandatory for deterrence, awareness, education and prevention to ensure the schools and workplace are safe,” she said. “The voice of accountability commences with the American government. Unalienable rights can no longer be sacrificed. Unalienable rights are a protected class. People cannot be deprived of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The Menace Of Bullies: A Patch Series

As part of a national reporting project, Patch has been looking at society's roles and responsibilities in bullying and a child's unthinkable decision to end their own life in hopes we might offer solutions that save lives.

Do you have a story to tell? Are you concerned about how your local schools handle bullies and their victims?

Email us at [email protected] and share your views in the comments.

Earlier In This Series

• Bullied To Death: When Kids Kill With Words
• America's Shameful Truth About School Shooters And Bullying
• Girl-To-Girl Bullying: Why It’s Different, Difficult To Confront
• Bully Upstander: Whatever He Said Caused Bullies To Back Down
• Menace Of Bullies: Most U.S. States Take On Cyberbullying In Laws
• Bullying Caused 11-Year-Old To Attempt Suicide, Mother Says
• Bullied 10-Year-Old's Suicide 8th In School District This Year
• 13-Year-Old Hangs Herself, But Bullying Killed Her
• Teen Tells Bullies In Video: 'Every Day, I Wear Your Words'
• 'The Hero Myth': Why Expecting Kids To Fight Bullies Is Harmful
• 'Mr. Anti-Bully': Reformed Bully, 12, Sets Mistake Right
• Mallory Grossman Bullying Detailed In Wrongful Death Suit
• Malden Schools Were Non-Compliant Through Bullying Saga: DOE
• 'They All Failed And Changed A Child': Malden Bullying Detailed
• Mom Speaks About Bullying Heartbreak: 'I Feel I Failed Him'
• Why These Kindergartners Start Each Day With A Handshake
• The Bully Menace: 'The Hurt Never Goes Away'
• Bullies And Their Targets The Same: Digital Self-Harm Rising
• Boy, 6, Overcomes Bullying, Heart Condition To Spread Kindness
• Williamsburg Poetry Teacher Helps Bullied Kids Open Tortured Minds
• Bullying Tougher To Confront When It's Bias-Based: Researchers
• Bullied New Hampshire 5th Grader Makes Tearful Plea
• The Bully Menace: 13 Age-Appropriate Reads
• Teen's 'I Wear Your Words' Video Inspires Nashville Songwriters

From The Experts

• 'The Anti-Bully': Talk And, Especially, Listen To Your Kids
• The Bully Menace: Patch Experts Offer Tips To Parents
• Anti-Bully Experts Offer Tips On Sometimes Deadly Encounters
• Understanding The Bully: They're Often Victims, Too, Experts Say

What We've Learned

• The Bully Menace: What Patch Has Learned About Childhood Torture