Say No to Bullying

It was a team awayday before Christmas. A sharing of stories about how life made us who we are. Permission to feel vulnerable without overstepping boundaries in bringing ourselves to work. An in-person experience to be more than names on a badge and a face on a screen.

When preparing for my five-minute slot I thought I would breeze through my lived experience of bullying and ridicule without missing a beat. But then I started talking and my voice sounded funny. I fiddled with the Christmas tree decoration in my hands as if my life depended on it. I could sense the atmosphere in the room change. I wanted to stop talking but couldn’t. My colleagues were listening. I needed to let it out.

‘It was more like being hunted than bullied,’ I said as I recounted the two weeks in Year 9 that almost broke me but ending up making me. It was like Lord of the Flies with record bags, curtain haircuts, bomber jackets and zits. I was lured to a basketball game in the sports hall where balls were thrown at me. I played dodge the tennis balls in the playground but more hit than missed. The verbal intimidation was not conducive to learning. A bully desperate to rise up the hierarchy knocked my can of drink out of my hand.

He thought he got away with it. One of the orchestrators must have been feeling guilty after flushing our friendship down the toilet, because he encouraged me to fight back. I walked over to the bully grabbed his long hair and punched him in the face.

‘Fight, fight, fight,’ the classic playground chant in my ears with him the crowd favourite while I could count my fans on my knuckles that made contact with his face again and again. The longest 30 seconds of my life. The lunch bell rang and everyone formed into their form queues. His status was on the ropes and he stormed over and punched me on the nose. We grappled and I kneed him in the face before it was over.

When you’re in secondary school, reputations don’t win fights; punches and kicks do. But even when you win, you kind of lose. ‘Mungo, mungo,’ everyone shouted to call me by unwanted nickname to subconsciously keep me in my place. In films, when the bullied kid fights back he transforms like George McFly after biffing Biff to get the girl. I just received a round of applause on the day and continued to be me, having two more rumbles to stand my ground.

After this recounting of my past I came back to the future to rejoin my colleagues in the beige meeting room to tell them that being bullied at school and dealing with a different kind of bullying at college and university made me who I am today. I loved my sixth-form years and all the friends I made, but adolescence is fuelled by toxicity with differences and insecurities fuelling banter and the box ticking of achievements has winners and losers.

From Mungo at school to Gumbo at university, I guess I had one of those faces asking for nicknames and idiosyncrasies that made me stand out from the norm. The first year of university in halls is like being in a rites-of-passage drama but shutting your door to escape from it doesn’t work because it is outside waiting for you. Sooner or later you have to open the door and face the world, to let everyone know you are proud of who you are.

I always said the safest place to have a fight is school, because you don’t really want to hurt each other. You just want peace. But what happens when you are growing up can affect you as an adult. The economist David Blanchflower who studied people from childhood into their 60s wrote: “A child who is bullied appears to carry permanent scars.”

The actor James McAvoy recently shared he was bullied by an unnamed co-star on his first day of the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. His first day as a professional actor. His first day on set. This bully and his actor buddies pretending to be soldiers pointed at the young actor and humiliated him for three minutes. If this bully actor can pretend to be a heroic soldier, the least he can do is raise his thespian hand and admit it was him.

Kate Winslet has frequently spoken about being bullied at school. She recalled being called "Blubber" and being mocked for wanting to be an actress. She has said these experiences affected her self-esteem for years. It can happen to anyone and can weigh on your shoulders, but it should never destroy you.

My Co-pilot research found that many adults who were bullied report workplace experiences such as:

· Avoiding conflict even when they should challenge poor behaviour.

· Overworking to prove their worth.

· Feeling like an impostor despite being competent.

· Becoming unusually anxious about feedback from managers.

· Interpreting office politics through the lens of earlier experiences of exclusion.

· A quote that resonates in workplace discussions

I have experienced bullying at work, but not for a long time. I don’t want to speak their names because it would be a waste of oxygen. I would rather pay tribute to this line from The Wire’s Marlo Stanfield – “My name was on the street... go down in them corners, let them people know word did not get back to me. Let them know Marlo stepped to any motherfucker... my name is my name."

While I have never been on the street and am nothing like Marlo, my name is my name and I will step to anyone who wants to bully me or anyone else. Bad things happen when good people do nothing. So, hey you guys, I am standing tall against bullying. It’s time to turn the tables on bullies. They can understand us instead of expecting us to understand them.

Finally, I am not a perfect human being. I am sorry if I ever upset anyone or made them feel small. That is on me, not you.

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