Let’s say you are a victim of bullying. A fraction of your work place or school decides that they will feel better if they make you feel lower.
You go there every day. What fraction of people would it need to have a bad experience?
Let’s say you interact with 30 people there on average on a day. If you have a bad interaction, you will feel bad on that day and you will feel anxious the next day. So it only takes 1 in 60 people who treat you like crap, to feel like crap every single day. 98% of the people can be neutral and you will experience that place as a hostile environment.
People are cautious that they will be punished for one-off bad behaviour. Everyone makes mistakes in social interactions. That’s easy to fix! Just follow up and say something like “Hey, just wanted to make sure you are okay. I think that situation was weird. I could have handled it better.” Or say something positive and encouraging.
The psychological damage is regular behaviour that goes unaddressed. No one steps in. Bullies get positive feedback. Be a peer that does something good, even if it is just to say into the space “What happened just now is not okay.”.
Don’t be content in your life just to do no wrong, be prepared every day to try and do some good. — Sir Nicholas Winton
Leave a Reply