Bully's

[davislove 0]

Real talk.

 

I have a young kid working for me, he just turned 21. We give him a hard time with the teasing, nothing harsh or threatening. I treat him well, buy his lunch and make sure he has what he needs.

 

After teasing him this week i threw my arm around him and said "you know we're just having fun with you". He said he knows that, and that he was bullied in high school so this is nothing new.

 

Is that being a bully? I have always thought of bullying being physical. He was never upset with our kidding around and again never went out of bounds.

 

I get into my fair share of spats on this board, does it ever cross into bullying? I don't do much social media and never understood cyber bullying. Outside of physical bullying, i don't know where the line is.

[jbrown_9999 1,020]

Real talk.

 

I have a young kid working for me, he just turned 21. We give him a hard time with the teasing, nothing harsh or threatening. I treat him well, buy his lunch and make sure he has what he needs.

 

After teasing him this week i threw my arm around him and said "you know we're just having fun with you". He said he knows that, and that he was bullied in high school so this is nothing new.

 

Is that being a bully? I have always thought of bullying being physical. He was never upset with our kidding around and again never went out of bounds.

 

I get into my fair share of spats on this board, does it ever cross into bullying? I don't do much social media and never understood cyber bullying. Outside of physical bullying, i don't know where the line is.

 

I would guess that most bullying is probably verbal vs. physical. Also, the line is different for each person. I'm probably too politically correct but I try to make fun of myself versus others since I figure that is safe territory.

Edited June 21, 2018 by jbrown_9999

[EddieAngel 508]

Real talk.

 

I have a young kid working for me, he just turned 21. We give him a hard time with the teasing, nothing harsh or threatening. I treat him well, buy his lunch and make sure he has what he needs.

 

After teasing him this week i threw my arm around him and said "you know we're just having fun with you". He said he knows that, and that he was bullied in high school so this is nothing new.

 

Is that being a bully? I have always thought of bullying being physical. He was never upset with our kidding around and again never went out of bounds.

 

I get into my fair share of spats on this board, does it ever cross into bullying? I don't do much social media and never understood cyber bullying. Outside of physical bullying, i don't know where the line is.

 

I wouldn't say you are a bully on the board, you have your opinions and that is that.

 

As far as bullying goes, I think that most people unconsciously end up gaslighting as a form of bullying. It is a kind of psychological terrorism when a person comes to work and doesn't know what to expect one day to the next. I know from my experiences working with so many people that if you are going to be in the practice of messing around with people, it is important not to make anyone feel singled out, make sure everyone gets a fair share. It is also important that if you pick on the new guy you eventually promote that person out of the new guy circle into the old boys club. No one likes to feel singled out. No one likes to be picked on.

 

There are a couple of quotes from John Wayne I love:

 

"I’ve always followed my father’s advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be goddamn sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble."

 

"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them."

 

What I take away from the great people I have known and studied is the two basic ideas from these two quotes: 1. Know your audience and be careful about how you may unintentionally insult or hurt people without malice and 2. Treat other people like you want to be treated.

 

I am not a big fan of snowflake culture, but I have kids and bullies are probably my biggest pet peeve. One of the first thing I told my kids when they were old enough to understand playing with and being around other people is this: "In our family, we don't like bullies. Don't tolerate being bullied and don't let other people be bullies in front of you."

[jessemoore97 1,278]

Eddie, your post is pretty spot on!

 

I try and live by the tenent that you should never take yourself too seriously. I swear I laugh harder than anyone when someone gets a good jab or prank on me. With regard to the new guy or girl at work or in the group, I definitely agree that was past practice. However I think we are going the opposite way as a society nowadays. How many of us have to go through workplace harassment, bias training, anti-bullying, and every other kumbaya BS that someone can think of. It's getting to the point that no one wants to talk to each other, without everyone getting butt hurt all the time then get reported for something or another then losing a job etc etc. Or even worse laws passed where someone can be jailed or fined.

 

I'll make no bones about it that I like to goof on people, and no one is a sacred cow. There is definite intent to it, like John Wayne's quote. Once upon a time breaking balls was part of an indoctrination into a group, and there are valid social paradigms to the practice. Now everyone is afraid to say the wrong thing or whatever that may offend someone to the point they'll get in trouble.

 

By the same token, society nowadays seems to reward victim culture as virtuous. Victimhood is not a virtue. We've gotten to the point where people can't just settle things themselves, either by getting thicker skin so to speak and shrugging/laughing off things or addressing the issue mano e mano, or whatever. A boss, a teacher, the government in some form or another has to be interjected in ways to solve everyone's problems. And before I get jumped on for not saying some situations may require that type of intermediary, most of the time it does not. I say that as a father and LEO who deals with this stuff ALL the time, and one of the first things I ask people is have you tried to talk this out or handle this yourselves. And 95% of the time its.....nope, or some half assed well umm I tried but...yadda yada. When usually they didn't actually put any effort into resolving their own issues, just been told someone in "authority" has run their life for them.

 

Wow sorry for the rant lol!

[jessemoore97 1,278]

Real talk.

 

I have a young kid working for me, he just turned 21. We give him a hard time with the teasing, nothing harsh or threatening. I treat him well, buy his lunch and make sure he has what he needs.

 

After teasing him this week i threw my arm around him and said "you know we're just having fun with you". He said he knows that, and that he was bullied in high school so this is nothing new.

 

Is that being a bully? I have always thought of bullying being physical. He was never upset with our kidding around and again never went out of bounds.

 

I get into my fair share of spats on this board, does it ever cross into bullying? I don't do much social media and never understood cyber bullying. Outside of physical bullying, i don't know where the line is.

 

Davis, I can say unequivocally that I have never considered you or for that matter anyone a bully on this board. We may disagree on topics but it's pretty civil, heated at times, but civil. I sometimes share a similar view of bullying, no blood no foul so to speak or the classic sticks and stones... I do know that there certainly are other levels of bullying.

[EddieAngel 508]

However I think we are going the opposite way as a society nowadays. How many of us have to go through workplace harassment, bias training, anti-bullying, and every other kumbaya BS that someone can think of. It's getting to the point that no one wants to talk to each other, without everyone getting butt hurt all the time then get reported for something or another then losing a job etc etc. Or even worse laws passed where someone can be jailed or fined.

 

Funny story, back in 1999 I was fresh out of the Army and got a job in San Francisco working for a .com company. It was a fairly large company and we had a lot of eastern European workers, the language barrier was huge. We had three people from Russia on our team of 6 and in addition to the language barrier they were just not that good. I got frustrated quite a bit and I guess I was a little bit caustic because on more than one occasion the two female Russian folks walked away crying. I still think they were being sensitive.

 

Nevertheless, it landed me in hot water, I had to go to two weeks of "sensitivity training". That was 1999, so the world has been going that way a lot longer than we think.

 

Upside? When I completed my sensitivity training my manager gave me a red swingline stapler as a gift.

 

[jessemoore97 1,278]

Funny story, back in 1999 I was fresh out of the Army and got a job in San Francisco working for a .com company. It was a fairly large company and we had a lot of eastern European workers, the language barrier was huge. We had three people from Russia on our team of 6 and in addition to the language barrier they were just not that good. I got frustrated quite a bit and I guess I was a little bit caustic because on more than one occasion the two female Russian folks walked away crying. I still think they were being sensitive.

 

Nevertheless, it landed me in hot water, I had to go to two weeks of "sensitivity training". That was 1999, so the world has been going that way a lot longer than we think.

 

Upside? When I completed my sensitivity training my manager gave me a red swingline stapler as a gift.

 

 

Oh I remember some of my first training in '98, right out of college and in the academy. Back then it was more sexual harassment type training for about an hour or two. Which for me was no biggie because a) I decided not to **** where I eat regarding workplace romances, and b) my training officers passed on the valuable phrase "the badge will get you p***y, but p***y will get your badge."

 

Anyhow, since then the plethora of these trainings has increased tenfold. If I knew then what I know now, I would have jumped on the sensitivity scam and made a pretty penny going around telling businesses and government agencies this garbage.

[Kelly Gruene 26]

It is my sense that when a person has to explain himself, he recognizes he has either already crossed a line or has been tip-toeing the line for a long time. When a person feels compelled to explain himself, as in, "You know we're just messing with you", I think that person has already recognized either some reaction by the recipient or some high level of continuing comments directed to the recipient.

When one of my sons was in 7th grade he used to receive a lot of comments from classmates for the better part of one academic year. They would all say he needed a hug and would come up an hug him. Many kids, for a year. One of his fathers even commented to me, saying, "You know they like him and are just messing with him". My son has a big but sensitive heart and he took the comments to that big heart. We at home heard about it for the better part of an entire academic year. My son in his own way asked the perpetrators (and there were many) to stop, but they didn't. It finally stopped when we brought it up to the school administration, and after I commented to that father that it really isn't 'good fun'.

I think that if it is recognized as being too close to or over the line, it is and it should end.

I love 'goofing' with people, but repeatedly hitting the same person with the same or similar jokes on an on-going basis is I think too much.

[jessemoore97 1,278]

It is my sense that when a person has to explain himself, he recognizes he has either already crossed a line or has been tip-toeing the line for a long time. When a person feels compelled to explain himself, as in, "You know we're just messing with you", I think that person has already recognized either some reaction by the recipient or some high level of continuing comments directed to the recipient.

When one of my sons was in 7th grade he used to receive a lot of comments from classmates for the better part of one academic year. They would all say he needed a hug and would come up an hug him. Many kids, for a year. One of his fathers even commented to me, saying, "You know they like him and are just messing with him". My son has a big but sensitive heart and he took the comments to that big heart. We at home heard about it for the better part of an entire academic year. My son in his own way asked the perpetrators (and there were many) to stop, but they didn't. It finally stopped when we brought it up to the school administration, and after I commented to that father that it really isn't 'good fun'.

I think that if it is recognized as being too close to or over the line, it is and it should end.

I love 'goofing' with people, but repeatedly hitting the same person with the same or similar jokes on an on-going basis is I think too much.

 

Agree. Getting the same person all the time singles them out, share he wealth. And for gosh sake get some new material to keep it fun.....unoriginal bastards. It's like constantly calling someone four eyes who wears glasses or calling someone fat who's bigger, pretty low hanging fruit. Of course I usually redirect it back at the person and say something like, "I really admire your grasp of the obvious." Usually if they have half a brain they understand they got slammed and need to be a little more creative next time lol.

[jbrown_9999 1,020]

Agree. Getting the same person all the time singles them out, share he wealth. And for gosh sake get some new material to keep it fun.....unoriginal bastards. It's like constantly calling someone four eyes who wears glasses or calling someone fat who's bigger, pretty low hanging fruit. Of course I usually redirect it back at the person and say something like, "I really admire your grasp of the obvious." Usually if they have half a brain they understand they got slammed and need to be a little more creative next time lol.

 

Along those lines of keeping it original, the scene from Roxanne in response to the "Big Nose" insult.

 

[Jim2Dokes 3]

I think giving people **** for fun for an action they did, like an embarrassing moment is fine. As long as you don’t do it to offend then and do it often. But commenting on appearance ect is not cool. I would say if he made the comment that’s it’s fine because he was bullied in hs, it seems like it’s not cool and may be time to give it a rest.

[jessemoore97 1,278]

Along those lines of keeping it original, the scene from Roxanne in response to the "Big Nose" insult.

 

 

That's exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote the post. Saw that in Jr High I think, and that scene made an impression. Love Steve Martin stuff.

[Rocketsan 768]

Delicate lime these days between ball busting and being perceived as being cruel...

[Irish_Convert 1]

I was bullied verbally when I was a teenager but it didn't affect me down the road at all stunk at the time though.

 

As an adult, I can take being made fun of and engage in some self-deprecating humor now and again. I don't condone kids doing it though because most in their younger years are usually emotionally immature and some people turn into bullies themselves. Some big kids pick on smaller kids and in turn, smaller kids pick on kids even smaller than themselves.

 

That's not always the case but I've seen it happen.

[jessemoore97 1,278]

Delicate lime these days between ball busting and being perceived as being cruel...

 

You ain't kidding. It's not even ball busting and goofing with people, but just the ability to have conversations with anyone who may or may not agree with you. Everything is off limits. PC culture run amok. It's complete and utter bullshit!

[davislove 0]

Thanks for the replies. I do want to say everybody gets their share including me. We can't make one person-- especially the new guy who is younger then everyone else take most of the heat. We tease him mostly about his taste in music and movies. I don't think that crosses any lines but if I'm posting about it, i should probably chill out.

[davislove 0]

You ain't kidding. It's not even ball busting and goofing with people, but just the ability to have conversations with anyone who may or may not agree with you. Everything is off limits. PC culture run amok. It's complete and utter bullshit!

 

I don't know. I see a lot of people say purposely offensive things and then blame it on PC. There are things i will say to friends that i would not say around folks i don't know well. Not because they are too PC, but it's just not appropriate. I think too often in our society we don't discuss hot button topics until something happens. Then emotions are running high and people aren't hearing each other.

[jessemoore97 1,278]

I don't know. I see a lot of people say purposely offensive things and then blame it on PC. There are things i will say to friends that i would not say around folks i don't know well. Not because they are too PC, but it's just not appropriate. I think too often in our society we don't discuss hot button topics until something happens. Then emotions are running high and people aren't hearing each other.

 

Oh there are lots of people willing to discuss hot button topics, unfortunately bringing those conversations up is considered purposely offensive in some circles. Possible outcomes include getting sent to HR for "training", loss of a job, and public shaming as some sort of "-ist" or "-phobe."

[davislove 0]

Oh there are lots of people willing to discuss hot button topics, unfortunately bringing those conversations up is considered purposely offensive in some circles. Possible outcomes include getting sent to HR for "training", loss of a job, and public shaming as some sort of "-ist" or "-phobe."

 

Give me an example because i don't think we are talking about the same thing.

 

Like people don't discuss race until some racial issue makes national news. Then networks want to have townhall meeting which is great for drama and ratings but people are angry and nothing positive can come from it.

 

My best friend is black and we have had many deep talks but i wouldn't start those conversations with a black person i don't know. Wouldn't be appropriate. You could get mad at your son and call him a name but if i called him that, I'm waking up 2 hours later. It's not PC to me, it's just knowiing the situation and environment you're in.

[jessemoore97 1,278]

Give me an example because i don't think we are talking about the same thing.

 

Like people don't discuss race until some racial issue makes national news. Then networks want to have townhall meeting which is great for drama and ratings but people are angry and nothing positive can come from it.

 

My best friend is black and we have had many deep talks but i wouldn't start those conversations with a black person i don't know. Wouldn't be appropriate. You could get mad at your son and call him a name but if i called him that, I'm waking up 2 hours later. It's not PC to me, it's just knowiing the situation and environment you're in.

 

I'd talk to anyone about anything, stranger or not. If I introduce my view and am called a name for having said view then the conversation turns toxic right away. I don't wait around for something to break in the news to have an informed opinion about something that could be discussed in a civil manner. Immigration is the new hottie tottie now, but it's been an ongoing issue as far back as I can remember. Drug war, abortion, human rights, the environment, and so forth.

 

I wouldn't have a problem discussing race with someone. The free exchange of ideas and concepts should be embraced and encouraged, not abruptly halted because something may be uncomfortable because some different than you is in the room. It's when one or both sides devolve it into a sh*t fight by name calling, because either they are ignorant and can't formulate cohesive points or thinks the other side is subhuman because their view is different and uncaring.

 

For abortion, I'm pro life. I view all human life as a blessing. Same for capital punishment, despite times of wanting to remove certain people from the world. Yet just saying human life is precious will unleash vitriol against me, without any expansion of my basic premise.