All in one Applicant Tracking Software & Hiring platform

Women bully other women because of pathological envy and internalized misogyny. This is rampant in HR, as I have unfortunately had no choice but to work alongside HR my entire career. Many of the mediocre and low performers in HR tend to be the worst bullies yet they rise through the ranks. When someone has targeted you at work and they are bullying you: what they are really doing is disowning the bad parts of themselves and assigning them to you. Bullies burn themselves in effigy. Best to leave asap not all companies tolerate abuse.

Pathological envy and internalized misogyny - each of these deserve their own articles. I've heard about HR being one of the most toxic depts in organisations and are almost exclusively run by women. It reminds me of what I've heard about nursing culture. Scapegoating is one of the strategies used to deny the bully's role in abuse and distract from their conduct. And it sadly is a successful strategy. Thank you so much for weighing in Christy!

Many years ago I watched two (extremely intelligent and capable) women compete with one another for the attention of a Director. It was horrid to watch, and, I felt, embarrassing for both of them. In hindsight, I realise that the Director deliberately pitted them against one another as a means of controlling them both. Just as men will often side with power, so too will women. If forced to compete with another woman for recognition, opportunities, rewards … they will compete, and bully, laterally. It is less about gender, and more about power. It just so happens that men hold the majority of powerful positions (in both male and female-dominated industries).

I had a previous boss who would ask for data analysis reports in PowerPoint. I’d ask if there were specific things she’d like highlighted and she would never give me any idea of what she wanted to see in graphs, etc. I would spend an entire weekend putting together a PowerPoint for the team invariably. She was shit all over it, stating that nothing she wanted to see was included. She would then tell me what she wanted to see, and I would redo the charts and graphs. When it would come time for the meeting, she would complain to everyone that I didn’t have the information she requested, but that we would include it in a later email. She would do this to everyone. I was not special. She turned throwing people under the bus into an art form.

When I finally left, it was due to my position being eliminated in our org chart. I wasn’t aware of this at all. She put my termination through a day early because she was going out of town. I discovered my position was being eliminated from the standard email about returning equipment and benefits extensions. When I asked HR why I was notified in this way, they said that she’s horrible and this isn’t uncommon with her. As far as I know, she still works there. Not sure how someone like that keeps their job for so many years.

When I started working for my current boss, I realized that I was like an abused spouse. I was constantly waiting for my new boss to start backstabbing and she has never been anything but wonderful. 3 years of a great, supportive work environment. It’s been awesome!

One more thing about that horrid boss. The Friday before my position was eliminated, she has me fire 10 members of our recruiting team. It’s was horrible and I felt bad all weekend. And then on Tuesday, I got the term email.

Anonymous Woman #2 (AW2), a very confident and provocative HR Influencer, shared an account of her early career days with me. When working at a recruitment firm, she dealt with a bona fide female narcissist who lauded praise upon her then gradually undermined her self-confidence and professional reputation in the office. In the end, AW2's boss turned the entire floor of workers against her via a series of lies and gaslighting strategies. Whether through happenstance or providence, AW2 was sent a text intended for someone else and it revealed just how vile her boss' feelings were for her. AW2 was gobsmacked as, to her knowledge, she had done nothing to solicit such vile commentary. Over time, her co-workers detected the real woman behind the visage and anonymous woman #2 was vindicated. Years later, AW2 saw her old boss, and the old boss turned around and walked off to avoid confrontation. (Perhaps the old boss was intimidated by a stronger, more mature and certainly more outspoken version of AW2?)

Anonymous Woman #3 (AW3) gave me a gut wrenching account on how she was driven out of a high-paying job because of a queen bee. At the time of interview, AW3 discussed the parameters of the jobs with the queen bee and they came to an agreement on what would be expected. After AW3 was hired however, the parameters were changed and the queen bee held AW3 accountable to unrealistic goals. Despite the bait and switch, AW3 stuck it out and tried to bring about a positive outcome. Every attempt, however, was thwarted by the queen bee who blocked AW3's outreach to other stakeholders. After so many attempts, AW3 decided to take her talents elsewhere where her growth would not be stymied. One victory before departing was an exit interview with HR that she had to lobby for. Ironically, after reporting the queen bee to the global head of HR, the queen bee was promoted to the C-suite a few months later. When AW3 reflects on that time in her career, she is grateful that the experience did not destroy her confidence and prevent her from elevating her career to where it is today. That being said, AW3 was dissappointed by the queen bee's attitude during her tenure at the company. "Women should support other women and she was not one to do so," AW3 said.

My [Anonymus Woman #4 (AW4)] experience was with a company where the Recruiter I partnered with would gaslight me often. I was the Sourcer, and she was the Recruiter.

She frequently did not call my passive candidates I worked incredibly hard to attract because she was often doing something other than work and then would say they weren't "very good".

However, I would circumvent her and bring them directly to the boss without throwing her under the bus making some other explanation and get them submitted, almost all of them eventually got offers or hired.

I introduced all of the modern software and applications the company used, created the sourcing strategies, met with the clients, hand-held the candidates through the process, and many other things. At a point, I decided I just needed to become a full-cycle recruiter and presented this to my boss. He was completely on board and said he wanted to speak with her first. She somehow convinced him not to promote me but keep things as they were and her explanation to me was that I wouldn't Iike full-cycle recruiting (even though due to her lack of action, I was doing it already). She often undermined my work, had back-handed compliments, and insulting remarks. She was a gaslighting bully. I often suffered headaches, frustration, and tremendous stress on that job because she had the boss under her "spell". It was soooo frustrating!

Anyway, sorry for the novel.