Workplace Bullies

I am saddened by the murder of Annie Le at Yale University. Facts in the case are still being determined and I know nothing other than what I see on the news and read in the paper. Even then, this crime makes me feel nauseated. Not for the reasons you might assume - creme de la creme taken down in their prime, talented woman's life and career cut short, all those things you hear when an innocent person of merit is cut down.

Again, I don't know what happened. But it seems to me that this is another case of workplace violence, caused by a man, with the victim being a woman. It seems like the alleged perpetrator was a control freak who enjoyed telling the professors and their grad students what was what. It looks to me like he was a bully. And given how he reacted to Ms. Le, he probably wasn't the charming, eccentric type of bully. He was/is dangerous.

What scares me is that I'll bet that all the signs were there. Academics is filled with "odd" people, and there is a wide tolerance of behavior outside the norm. However, there is also the ability to look askance at real, dysfunctional behavior. The fact that he was allowed to run roughshod points to a lack of enlightened supervision.

That's what scares me. This situation exists all over the world, and is rampant in the US.

Many dinosaurs (and baby dinosaurs) are out there that expect their will to be done, and their ego protected, because that's how it was 30 years ago. And since they are often in positions of authority, they can use their bully nature to make it so.

I'm sure there are plenty of women bullies out there. But I'll bet they are outnumbered 10-1 by male bullies in positions of authority who have no compunctions about using their bullying habits to get what they want, whether or not it is in the best interests of the entity they are representing. Here we had a baby dinosaur.

More later. Thanks for reading.