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I ask because I am currently being bullied at work by an Indian male coworker (I'm a white female). It's so blatant and bad that other people have gone to my boss (without me asking them to) and have expressed concern about how he treats me. It's awful. I have never seen anything quite this bad, though I've had to deal with condescending and dismissive male coworkers in the past. 9 out of 10 times, they are Indian.
That's not to say all Indian men are like this. They aren't. But enough of them are to make things difficult.
I'd be interested to hear from other women in technology to see how widespread the problem is.
In my case, I did share my concerns with my boss on several occasions. He pulled the guy into his office today for a closed door meeting, and told me about it later. He told the guy basically "stop it or resign."
Let's hope it stops. And thank god my boss has my back. Even more amazing since I'm a contractor and my bully is full time.
I don't think it's just me either, since there is only one other female in the group and he's the same way with her.
However, she has a sweet but extremely irritating personality so I think prior to him bullying me, they probably blamed HER for how he treats her. Sad.
I'm in tech and nobody's bothering me. I'm a black female, and my team consists of a white guy, Filipino guy, Vietnamese guy, and 2 Mexican guys. We are the happy rainbow yeaaah LOL. We've been working together for about 8 years.
I do have to say that my sister, who is a lab supervisor in a hospital in Philly, had the EXACT SAME ISSUE with an Indian man at her job. She had to push the issue up the chain to get resolution.....they even got into an argument once at work the guy ended up leaving though.
I'm in tech and nobody's bothering me. I'm a black female, and my team consists of a white guy, Filipino guy, Vietnamese guy, and 2 Mexican guys. We are the happy rainbow yeaaah LOL. We've been working together for about 8 years.
I do have to say that my sister, who is a lab supervisor in a hospital in Philly, had the EXACT SAME ISSUE with an Indian man at her job. She had to push the issue up the chain to get resolution.....they even got into an argument once at work the guy ended up leaving though.
I'm relieved to hear I'm not the only one. I'm glad your sister's bully left!
I will also add that I have been bullied only once by a man who wasn't Indian.
In my last job I would hear the head of I.T. barking at one of the women in his department from time to time and she always remained calm and would say things like, "Excuse me? I'll answer your question when you speak to me in a respectful manner" or "I don't respond to that tone". And I'd hear him ask again in a nicer way. She was feisty and wasn't having it.
Of course, being contracted you might not feel comfortable doing that, but nobody should have to put up with that nonsense.
I've dealt with it before. Thankfully, I'm not being bullied currently although I do face a certain amount of sexism & discrimination on a regular basis.
Glad your boss has your back. Hoping things get better & the behavior stops!
A good friend of mine (white female) experienced the same thing in Dallas. She was in IT and worked for 12 years at a great company. Always had great reviews, but when she got the new boss (Indian male), everything changed.
She was told that her job was being eliminated, but the boss ended up replacing her and other fired colleagues with other male Indians.
I had a hard time believing her story until I recently had coffee with a networking contact (black female in IT). She started talking about the same thing and that is when I shared my friend's experience with her.
Not sure what is going on, but I am glad I do not work in IT.
I work in tech, but I do not work in a technical role.
I have had one real bully in my career. I hadn't worked with him for long (he is a white guy) and he had technical difficulties, and didn't get the update for an internal meeting (where I was presenting) that had changed so he missed half. He entered the meeting POed, yelling and disruptive.
I used my typical conflict resolution process and it didn't work. I gave him space to vent. I offered to start over so he could catch up. But h still had an endless stream of yelling and cursing. After a couple of minutes of making no progress I said "this isn't productive and I am not wasting my time. If you want to see my presentation, pick a time to schedule the meeting later. You can continue this unproductive meeting, but I have better stuff to do so I am out." And I left.
After that the bullying quit, for me at least and he became a fan of mine. Praising me to everyone at the company. Unfortunately this guy was awful, and he bullied everyone who was peer-level or junior to him, causing tears and worse. This eventually lead to his dismissal. But it took a year for that to happen; unfortunately I did not realize he treated everyone poorly or I would have escalated it up to HR. I only heard about the widespread poor behavior months after he was gone.
I happened to run into him this week at an event. He is a super fan and complimented me in front of his colleagues, but I have zero trust in him. I mentioned this to another former colleague I saw this week, and she thinks he is brown nosing because I am now an "influencer."
I had a CEO (who I reported to) that had bully-tendencies. But fairly early on in our working relationship, the CEO was aware that I am not intimidated by title or pedigrees, so bullying would not be effective. He treated me more like a peer early on.
I have a really mean approach with all bullies. I put them in their place. It is very very effective for me, as my work persona is "super nice, easy going and likable." Which essentially means no one believe I can be mean. And the bully is so shocked I am not a pushover, the only way they can react is with respect.
Personally, I find, as a black woman, particularly in tech, confidence is very very critical. People are going to underestimate you often. You need to believe that you are the most qualified (or most valuable) person in the room and act like it. That's how I deal with men who believe in machismo or their variants at work. I have an almost irrational sense of confidence (family trait) and it serves me well.
It is also a tricky political game dealing with bullies. You need to find out if the bullying is widespread. As someone who has worked at small companies for most of my career, there hasn't been real HR or any sort of anonymous way to report poor behavior without consequences. So you do want to tread appropriately based on your work environment.
But as for bullies where the bullying is sexist in nature, I find that essentially, being a B**** goes a long way towards ending the bullying. I know women are supposed to be nice at work, but I don't have time to deal with sexist a-holes. At the end of the day "ain't nobody got time for that!"
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the guy ended up leaving though.
