Let me criticize you
The world is changing and it may seem that today we live and work in a world of hypersensitive people who are ready to be mortally offended by any reasonable remark - the document was executed inappropriately or the application deadlines were not met.
Not all corporate disputes can be a manifestation of rudeness, because rudeness does not equal criticism. When an employee is told in a complicated way that he is not a professional, is this rudeness? Sometimes it may not even be counted as a slight insult. Every person has the right to an opinion, but not everyone has a sufficient supply of psycho-emotional energy and patience to express it politely (“let me criticize you”). And sometimes they can tell you straight up: “You are unprofessional” and be 100% right. If the remark that you hear can be defined as criticism, which has a factual basis, then it cannot be prohibited; your interlocutor has the right to do so. You can only ask to criticize in a more polite manner. With rudeness everything is much simpler. Before storming the premises, special forces use a flash-noise grenade. The task of the grenade is to unbalance all the sensory systems of the enemy located there: he must go blind, deaf and lost in space. And rudeness in the corporate space is the same grenade that does not hurt, but disorients.
If insults have become a regular practice
It is important to understand that insults do not indicate the professionalism of the boss and do not increase the employee’s productivity, but they are quite capable of becoming the basis for bringing to administrative responsibility.
There is a possibility that the situation can be transferred to a peaceful plane, having settled the conflict. If negotiations do not help, you must turn to the protection of the law. Rudeness is a direct attack on human rights specified in the Constitution. The Basic Law of our state does not allow the humiliation of the honor and dignity of an individual. Insult is a direct humiliation of honor and dignity.
Sometimes the situation can be resolved by appealing to higher management, over the head of the direct one. Sometimes this solves the problem. In the absence of such a manager or his response, it is necessary to consider the possibility of contacting one of the following authorities:
- Labour Inspectorate;
- police;
- prosecutor's office;
- court.
After the appeal, the authenticity of the facts indicated by him will be verified and if they are confirmed, the issue of bringing the guilty party to justice will be considered. The court does not conduct an inspection, it considers the claim, but it needs to provide compelling arguments in order for the decision to be made in favor of the plaintiff.
Is it necessary to respond to rudeness?
A common situation at a corporate meeting. You hear the phrase addressed to you: “You’re an idiot, you don’t understand anything about this, you’re nothing at all. How could you even say/do/think that!” Do you need to answer this, given that you are in a corporate field where your colleagues and perhaps even your superiors are present?
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There are several possible answers.
- Calmly remain silent with awareness of your strength
Let's remember the Japanese parable. One day, an old teacher and sword master was sitting and drinking tea, while his student was doing housework nearby. And suddenly a samurai burst into the house, who wanted to challenge the sword master to a duel, insulting him, but not attacking him first - in Japan there were quite strict rules prohibiting raising a sword against an equal if there was no formal reason for the fight. The samurai continued to say unpleasant words, and the sword master continued to drink tea. When the samurai exhausted his supply of curses and left, because there was no reason to draw his sword, the shocked student asked the teacher why he remained silent? To which the master replied: “Tell me, if a person comes to you and brings you a gift that you don’t need, and you don’t take it, who will have the gift?” The student answered: “To the one who gave.”
What is important in this rule is how you remain silent. Silence with an awareness of confidence and strength “sounds” and is perceived differently than silence resulting from weakness. Imagine that a small dog “no bigger than a thimble” runs up to you and starts barking at foot level. You probably won't pay attention to it and it won't affect your self-esteem.
But if you remain silent from the position of the weak, then you admit that the boor insulting you is your equal or older, because he has the right to insult you.
- Say the word "stop"
We all forget the beautiful phrase: “Stop talking to me like that” and its more polite version: “I ask you in front of everyone to stop talking to me in such a disrespectful tone.”
Boors attack only when they consider the battle to be won in advance
The problem with human relationships is that we are brought up more on movies than on standard life situations. Someone made an offensive comment, the hero gets up and delivers a spectacular blow from the side, the defeated offender falls, drops of blood scatter across the white walls, and the women freeze in delight. The most effective methods of struggle, oddly enough, are the simplest. You don’t need to learn humor, you don’t need to know martial arts, or have a black belt. Simply saying, “Stop it” is enough. As practice shows, the enemy fades away - any boors attack only when they consider the battle to be won in advance. If they continue to be rude to you, then you can put an end to it and finally finish off the offender: “I’m very sorry that you showed everyone that you are a *** (an extremely ill-mannered person).” That's it, the end of the game, because the person was asked politely in front of witnesses, and he turned out to be a rude person.
- Ask for help
The first thing you can do is ask for help. Come to your manager and ask him to stop the rudeness towards you, because he is your manager. We constantly decide for others and don’t ask for anything. But we forget that a person (in this case, your boss) will be pleased to show his strength and generosity, and this must be used to stop the corporate boor.
In addition, no one is obliged to think for you, to “read” your feelings and reactions. Your boss may not even notice that the situation is out of control, or may believe that this is the norm for you. Until a request for help is made, the problem remains in the realm of guesswork.
Third, testing your environment for crisis behavior is something any reasonable person should do in the background. If you are denied the help you need, this is a reason to think about whether you need such a boss and such a job. You can compare testing the environment to walking along a path through a swamp: if the stick with which you are testing the ground for the next step goes under water, it is clear that you should not step there. Likewise in the corporate world, you gain knowledge of who you can approach and with what questions. Knowing who you can rely on and who you can't is worth gold.
How to put your boss in his place during a dialogue:
Reception. Ignoring.
This method is suitable for such types of bosses as “creepy”, “mother-director” and “slob”. Often their aggressive behavior is explained by some reason. Their anger shows that they have weakness and fear.
For example, the increased responsibility and love for the team of the father-boss forces him to interrupt the idyll and use rudeness.
The slob feels fear after the failure of the established actions.
And the reptile lashes out at his subordinates after a reprimand from his superiors.
During periods of aggression, it is recommended to focus on the assigned tasks and not pay attention to what is happening.
Reception. Nonverbal influence.
For a dictator boss, verbal influence is useless. You can reach him only with gestures, facial expressions and emotions. By showing dissatisfaction in this way, conflict situations can be avoided. The method is suitable for those who value and worry about their position.
Rudeness from management
Rudeness is the most accessible way to establish yourself against another person. Therefore, if your manager is rude to you in the presence of everyone, then there is no other way to deal with it except to change the manager. In Russian corporate culture, it is absolutely useless and futile to get into an argument with a person who was initially appointed as a “commander”.
If you believe that your boss's actions have caused you moral harm, you can file a complaint with the ethics committee (if there is one) and put your resignation on the table. Or - send a statement to higher management about the inappropriate behavior of your boss, and again put your resignation letter on the table. Unfortunately, there are no other methods of protecting against this.
What if your boss is regularly rude to you, but continues to pay you good (in your opinion) money? Within the Russian system of checks and balances, money balances out rudeness. It would be too good if the salary was excellent and the boss was an ideal copied from management books, but more often than not, everything is always wrong. Therefore, if the system is equilibrium, then nothing needs to be done. And if it is unbalanced, then a resignation letter and a complaint to management should not bother you at all.
Although in my practice I have never seen a person who is humiliated be paid what he deserves. Such a situation is only permissible at the beginning of a corporate game, when you are given a conditional 100 rubles, and then they begin to test your strength and resistance to stress. If this happens on a regular basis, then you may find yourself in the position of a person who has neither bonuses nor days off.
If you find yourself drawn into these corporate movements, then you need to solve the following questions for yourself:
1) What are your personal feelings?
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2) What is the meaning of the ongoing corporate struggle?
3) What do you personally need? Are you adding value or are you bored and want to do some tinkering under your desk?
Too active self-affirmation in the workplace is also a signal that the company’s team has lost the main goal of any joint activity - to create added value.
How to prove the fact of insult
But in order for the inspection to be completed successfully, along with the application it is necessary to provide evidence of the manager’s unlawful behavior, the presence of insults expressed in an indecent form or containing a threat to life and health. They could be:
- audio recordings;
- video recordings;
- documentation;
- witness's testimonies.
You can record insults on a tape recorder, you can print out email correspondence or copy written documents, you can invite witnesses and invite them to document their testimony in writing.
When making applications, you need to indicate not only information about the company and yourself, but also provide the authorities that will conduct the inspection with the contact information of the manager.
Big game element
Rudeness can also be an element of a big game within a team - the “human pack”. When a cheerful and toothy employee constantly fights for his status, his boss may ask: “He is very playful and greyhound. Can he claim my place? Such behavior always causes more fear than desire to admire. The boss will even be glad if the subordinate stumbles a little in this struggle. It is beneficial for him to deplete the moral resources of a potential rival. And he won't defend him for the same reason. He is guided by a very simple motive: for any corporate friction to truly affect the quality of work and the creation of added value, real bullying must flare up. Therefore, any boss is ready to allow insignificant “showdowns” and minor conflicts that do not lead to a decrease in labor productivity: it is beneficial for him if a greyhound employee “breaks his teeth” on someone: he cries, screams, hysterics. He will lose part of his moral and volitional core temporarily and will cease to be a competitor.
Responsibility under the law
The goal of a person reporting to these authorities is to both end the conflict and bring the offender to justice. It must be remembered that for humiliating the honor and dignity of another person, expressed in an indecent form, the boss may be held administratively liable for insulting an employee.
According to Article 5.61 of the Administrative Code, the official will pay a fine in the amount of 10 to 30 thousand rubles.
The time frame for consideration of the application is provided for by regulations governing the activities of the police, prosecutor's office, labor inspectorate and civil procedure code, if the application is submitted to a magistrate. The Criminal Code contains articles that provide for liability for threats of violence, causing harm to life and health, and the court can satisfy the demand for compensation for moral damage. If such threats are recorded, you need to file a statement with the police, asking them to take action and hold the employer’s representative accountable. Depending on the complexity of the situation, inspections or consideration of the case in court may take a long time.
There has already been a successful practice of holding superiors accountable for insulting a subordinate. The cases are still isolated, but they confirm that the law is completely on the side of the citizen who is forced to endure insult and rudeness at work.
