Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing Quotes

“Gandhi said that forgiving enemies was a sign of strength and Oscar Wilde, in a different vein, noted that it was the best way to piss them off.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” Gloria Steinem”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“A cat once bitten by a snake fears the rope” Sufi proverb”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“In simple terms this evolutionary heritage is why our adrenal system leaps into high gear when the boss confronts and humiliates us in a meeting. Our bodies want to jump up and either run away or attack but we have to sit there and take it. It is unhealthy and excruciating.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“While social agencies all have harassment policies few have any idea of the extent to which their clients are affected by mobbing. They don’t know the questions to ask or recognize mobbing when they see it. Prior to widespread understanding of spousal assault, abused women were counseled for marital problems and neurotic behavior. Unless the nature of abuse is spelled out and the dynamics widely dispersed and understood it is simply not recognized, no matter how obvious it appears in retrospect”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“We need a sense of our ability to influence events around us. Without this we deteriorate. One of the keys to understanding this concept is that we never have complete control of anything in this world but we need the capacity to influence events.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“If there is ever a big meeting of targets there should be a workshop called: did you lose or gain 15 pounds? Chances are you did one or the other. We don’t eat normally when we are messed up.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“Once I decided that a job wasn’t worth dying for, the rest was easy.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“People I see are more like abuse victims than people who have lost a loved one to cancer or a car accident. The mobbing target has had a look into the dark side of human nature. The fact that it happened in a brightly lit office or meeting room only makes it more disturbing,”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“People who have been abused in the workplace have usually suffered multiple losses. They may have lost their confidence, well being or sense of safety. Concretely, they may have lost their livelihood, savings, home, career, friends, or health. And their process of recovery resembles grief. To lose a job is difficult; to lose it after fighting a mob is worse, leaving a gaping hole in your life. Your friends at work may have turned on you. You may have left clients, patients, or students without saying goodbye. You probably loved your job, and the people there. You hoped that your departure might be for a better job or retirement, involving hugs and warm goodbyes.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“The message to bystanders, attached to their job security and pensions is unmistakeable. Don’t talk about it, shut down your feelings and don’t stick your neck out or you are next. This is particularly cruel on bystanders who have spent their careers helping others; they may resort to denial or mental contortions to help them believe that the target somehow deserved their fate.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“These organizations neither recognize nor reward excellence. In fact, excellence in a stable environment can be viewed as a threat.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“job security is one key; it simply isn’t easy to get rid of anyone, let alone a well liked and competent employee. To evict someone from the workplace the organization has to resort to subterfuge and escalating emotional abuse.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“Workplace mobbing can happen anywhere but it is no accident that the top three professions to call the now defunct National Hotline on Workplace Mobbing in Britain were nursing, teaching and social work.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“As the abuse progresses people may feel paranoia; a loss of ability to reality check and emotions that can’t be controlled, particularly intense fear, rage and suicidal ideation.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“In the end mobbing thrives in places where it is allowed to thrive.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“Culture eats policy for lunch every day of the week.” Peter Drucker”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“Once the target is eliminated there is significant likelihood that someone else will be targeted.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“This is an overlooked dynamic of mobbing; trying to relate their experiences targets can end up sounding petty, even to people who care about them. This is frustrating to people who cannot find the words for the nightmare they are living.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“Leymann first began to describe the phenomenon of mobbing while investigating the suicides of nurses.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“Organization policies to address “harassment” are widely recognized by targets and advocates as worse than useless.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“Mobbing can happen anywhere but Universities, Schools, Social and Volunteer Agencies, Hospitals and Civil Service offices are hotbeds.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“Women are abused in the workplace approximately twice as often as men. Call me simple but to me a woman being abused is an abused woman. Yet mobbing is rarely identified as a woman’s issue like other forms of abuse. I believe this is to a great extent because - unlike any other form of woman abuse - at least half of the abusers are other women and at least a third of the targets are men.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“You need to understand that despite the horrific things going on at work the world is full of good people.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“Advice to confront aggressive people, remain locked in anger and use HR processes will usually make things worse.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“Your body is going to remain in “fight or flight” mode, which is characterized by a high state of emotional and physiological arousal. Good sleep, good food, lots of exercise, hydration, avoidance of drugs (including excess caffeine, alcohol, prescription drugs) are critical.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports

“Take care of your physical health. People who are mobbed frequently suffer from sleeplessness, stomach problems, dizziness, nausea and headaches. They really are sick. Over time, they may become very sick as serious illness emerges from the chronic stress.”
― Richard Schwindt, Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports