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Stop Bullies at Work: “Energy Vampires”
By Ben | September 4, 2009
“Energy Vampires” are bullies at work. They’ll suck your motivation and drive, and destroy morale and productivity. But because they’re usually not recognized and labeled as bullies, they’re allowed to flourish.
Rather than give a wordy description, let’s identify and label some common examples of their bullying:
Rather than give a wordy description, let’s identify and label some common examples of their bullying:
- The Know-It-All. He’s right about everything – what the president should do to solve everything, why our sports teams lose, why kids are worse today, what’s wrong with our education, health, and legal system, why the ocean is blue. Arguing with him is a waste of time and most people have stopped trying. But just hearing his voice gets you too frustrated and angry to get back to work.
- The Angry Victim. Her life stinks because everyone picks on her or “the system” is a mess and doesn’t adjust itself to her needs. She’s indignant if you dare to disagree or if you’re not sympathetic or helpful enough. If you don’t give her all the credit she wants, you’ll pay. Since she goes on and on about co-workers and bosses who are jerks, you know she’ll run you down to everyone if you don’t please her. There’s no reasoning with her; she’s too angry to see anyone else’s side of things. So you try to be invisible or walk on eggshells. Of course, you’re too scared to be productive or creative.
- The Blackmailer. He won’t give you the reports or data he’s supposed to unless you listen to him babble for an hour. You’d better listen or he’ll bad-mouth you publically as unfriendly and not-a-team-player. He won’t send things electronically; he insists on lengthy personal contact. By the time you’ve told four friends his latest antics, you’ve wasted half a day.
- The Mousy Victim. She’s hurt and weepy, but tries to put on a brave face. Everything anyone says or does hurts her feelings; she’s a genius at taking things the wrong way. Her hyper-sensitivity has rallied everyone to come to her defense and cater to her every whim. She creates a continual soap opera revolving around her hurt feelings. Everyone must take their precious time and energy to salve her feelings and bring her identified persecutor into line. The result is another day focused on melodrama instead of work.
- The Loud-Mouthed Bigot. He frequently makes sexist, racist and other intolerant and vicious remarks about co-workers and anyone else who attracts his attention. He’s more interested in broadcasting his opinions and winning arguments than in getting work done. If you engage him, you’ll come away too drained and angry to get back to work.
- The Bore who’s Fascinated With Her Life. She’s so wonderful and important that you must listen to all the excruciating details of her life – especially the very personal ones about her bodily functions or love-life. You want to close your door and hide. In order to appear caring, you almost feel compelled to tell her similar details of your life. She counts on your politeness not to throw her out. In this case you feel more slimed than drained, but you’re still too upset to get back to work.
- The Whining Slacker. He’s lazy and won’t lift a finger to meet deadlines; he’s a no-show at crunch time. He whines, complains and wants sympathy and help. Everyone has to pitch in and do his job or the team looks bad. He’s never grateful and doesn’t return the effort to help others. Since they keep paying him for slacking, you grit your teeth and feel like slacking also. Slacking is a communicable disease.
These energy vampires control the turf and productivity plummets. They leave a wake of frustration and anger; co-workers and managers feel drained by every interaction, like someone took a quart of blood. And then we go home and drain our families, either by repeating the details of what happened or by taking out our frustration and stress on our loved ones.
These vampires go from team to team, leaving a wake of corpses, but hiding their harassment and abuse behind good-sounding excuses and justifications. It’s always someone else’s fault and everyone’s against them.
You can’t change a vampire by begging, bribery or appeasement. The first step in stopping these workplace bullies is to recognize and label them. You must maintain your individual boundaries, protect yourself from getting emotionally drained or enraged, and get back to work.
Energy vampires can be purged by a concerted effort of managers and their teams. If you aren’t willing to do that difficult work, you must start looking to work in another department of your company or for a new company. But wait; there’ll be vampires there too!
Topics: Coaching, Consulting, Eliminate Low Attitudes CD, Hostile Workplace, Public Speaking, Stop Bullies Book | 14 Comments »
September 16th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Good afternoon, Ben.
I would prefer to remain anonymous, so I will not give my name or e-mail address. I’m too EMBARRASSED, for reasons I will explain in a minute.
The truth is, I am somewhat of an unusual case. You must get deluged with comments about people who have to deal with “energy vampires” all the time.
The problem is, once I read your article, that wasn’t my reaction, which is what makes me such an unusual case from the people who used to talk to you. The problem is, upon reading your article, I had the EXTREMELY unpleasant realization that I used to BE one!
At a non-paying internship job I used to work at (I no longer work there), one of my co-workers told me that because I tend to use a great deal of big words and intellectual language when I talk to people, I tend to offend people. I took her comment the wrong way and mistakenly thought that she was saying that intelligence and knowledge were a BAD thing (this after I’d worked my butt off to study for four years of college).
This made me very, very angry, but instead of telling my supervisor what had happened, I held it in and became very angry and resentful for several months! And because I mistakenly assumed I couldn’t tell anyone, I childishly decided to “get revenge.” I ended up deliberately slacking off for several months, doing less work than I was supposed to, because I thought “everyone was against me because I’m smart so they deserve it anyway,” just like some rotten combination of “The Angry Victim,” “The Mousy Victim,” and “The Whining Slacker.”
The trouble is, Ben, that I mostly got away with it. I eventually told my supervisor everything, but she simply shrugged it off and didn’t tell me anything that could have been learned on your blog, and besides, I was mostly an excellent worker anyway, and this was the only time during my entire stay at that job I’d ever done anything wrong.
I no longer work at that job, by the way, and they even held a party for me when I left for graduate school (which I am attending now) because since only my supervisor and my co-worker even knew that anything HAD made me angry, all they’ll remember is what a wonderful job I did for their organization.
And I’ve had other problems. I have recently realized, just as unpleasantly as the first example I gave, that several of my current thinking patterns are still that of the child I used to be. My parents sometimes behaved in a domineering manner when I was a child, refusing to listen to me when I said anything, refusing to demonstrate sympathy when I got picked on by lots and lots of bullies as a child (and sometimes they even punished me for coming home crying when my teachers sent me to the office for being bullied while the bullies got off scot-free!).
But the trouble is, my parents have CHANGED since then (they’ve become much more rational and reasonable), yet I STILL find myself blaming all my emotional problems on what they did in the past! I’m aware that it’s my own thinking that is to blame but I don’t know how to make it stop! Every time I’m even remotely upset, I find myself deluged in those unpleasant memories, and I even have nightmares about it sometimes. I know objectively and intellectually I should be “sucking it up,” but every time I get trapped in childish emotions, I can’t make it stop!
You have legions of advice for someone who has to deal with “energy vampires” or “bullies.” Well, I was never a bully myself, but I HAVE been acting like an “energy vampire” at times, especially given the categories you give in your article.
Do you have any advice for the person who USED TO BE the “energy vampire?” Like I said, at that job I completely got away with it before I left. Should I call my former supervisor and tell her that I was actually an energy vampire and didn’t realize it? What, in general, would you suggest I do?
September 21st, 2009 at 12:15 am
Thanks for reinforcing what I know. I guess I will keep applying to better jobs and/or try to transfer to another department. My supervisor is such a witch she gives her friends less work and I don’t want to kiss her you know what. And to make it all worse, she is the same culture as me and she acts like my mom. The coworkers seem to think they know more just because I am 30 so there’s a lot of age discrimination going on. I am going to school as well and everyone is probably threatened that I will be a lawyer (I work as a secretary in a predominantly women workplace). What do I do? I am trying to work in a different field or at least office for the next 2 years while I study law. Why are people not supportive towards people who improve? Why are they nasty? I will definitely buy a book from you on payday and subscribe to your itunes, even though I also need to get an ipod soon. You are very informative and I definitely am taking an interest with employment law! Thank you.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Hi Marissa,
Yes, many people are threatened by a go-getter and lash out and try to keep that eager person down.
Sounds like one important thing for you is to make sure you keep a spark alive of dedication, drive and hope in your heart while you prepare your future – no matter what they think or do. Don’t let them get you down. Go to school, get better jobs and don’t look back. Of course, you’ll find jerks everywhere. Even lawyers have been known to put other lawyers down and stab other lawyers in the back.
Deep in your heart you know that people like that may be part of the culture you were born into, but they won’t be part of the culture of your heart, the culture you choose – whatever race, religion, nationality, gender, etc.
The culture that matters is the culture of your heart, the culture of the future you create.
Thanks for buying books and keep reading the blogs. If you buy the whole BulliesBeGone System, you’ll get a bunch of free bonuses including monthly articles. I haven’t posted podcasts yet but they’ll be coming. I also coach by phone.
Thanks also for stimulating me; the next blog post may be on why bullies bully, which includes people who try to keep the go-getters down.
Best wishes,
Ben
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:08 pm
It seems very easy to be against bullies when you’re around, or very hard to be against you.
You’re a bully.
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:22 am
Hi Anonymous,
I’m glad that I make it easy to stand up against bullies. If you think standing up is bullying, then you’re stuck.
Good luck,
Ben
November 1st, 2009 at 11:05 am
I am dealing with a lot of hostility at work due to a co-worker who has stabbed me in the back. She has been spreading bad rumors about me due to her laziness, lack of motivation, and decreased productivity. She is trying to make me out to be the bad guy since she has been paired up with me on a project. She is trying to appear the victim ever since her decreasing productivity was brought to the surface by our boss. Within a month of that meeting, she turned in her resignation and has slacked off even more. I have been getting ugly looks from other co-workers and people have been glaring at me like it is my fault that she is leaving. How is it that I am now responsible for her lack of productivity?
November 4th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Hi Anonymous,
You’re in a tough situation.
You’re being in the right is good but not what affects your co-workers feelings and attitudes.
Stealth bullies are hard to stop. You must shine a light on the situation.
Reach out to each of your co-workers individually. Remind them of your good character and interactions with them before. Remind them of how little she did before you were paired up. Ask them to judge you on your good relations with them, not on her backstabbing.
You may not win them all but you should be able to bond with enough of them. If you can’t sell yourself on past relationships or present interactions, then you may have to look in a mirror.
See the case studies in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks.”
Best wishes,
Ben
January 21st, 2011 at 8:18 pm
I guess this can happen when you get bullied and let it burn inside you instead of facing the monster in a strong, productive way like you suggest on your site. But facing the angry monster takes smarts, energy, control and courage, sometimes difficult to muster when under constant attack. No easy feat but I guess you have to do it or turn into a whipping post or energy vampire or vampirette.
January 21st, 2011 at 8:20 pm
It would be great if you could put some typical bullying comments on the site and suggested responses in one spot. There is awesome advice on this site, thank you, but an addition like this would be great to get abused people’s defense plan up and running fast. thanks.
January 24th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
Hi Egg,
Thanks for the comments and praise.
From your email and your many comments I have some “hallucinations.”
Your problems with bullies seem pervasive.
One thing I notice is that you may think that if you’re nice and polite and quiet, bullies will stop harassing you and leave you alone. Usually, it’s just the opposite for real bullies.
Some quotes about this:
“If you are gentle, [bullies] will think you are afraid. They will never be able to understand the motives that prompt you to be gentle. They will think you are weak and unwilling to resist them.” The Mahabharata
“What will happen to a man with a noble and loving heart who knowingly places his head in the dragon’s mouth? Surely poison will destroy him, since this is the dragon’s nature?” Abolqasem Ferdowsi
Not everyone you befriend will return the compliment. In fact, some people will take your open hand as an invitation to feast on whatever you have.
You’ll find good ideas in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks,” available fastest from this web site. Also, even though the situation described in “Bullies Below the Radar: How to Wise Up, Stand Up and Stay Up” is very different from yours, you’ll find many relevant techniques for personal change.
Forget about the intent of bullies and think of them as you would predators – hyenas or jackals. Learn to recognize the Early Warning Signs of bullies – just like you would have learned to read the signs, tracks and smells of predators if you lived in the woods 300 years ago. Nothing has changed.
Also, learn how to defend yourself in a way that the predators will recognize your strength and skill, and go looking for an easier victim. In addition to the smarts, energy, control and courage that you mention, you’ll need determination, skill and perseverance. It can be kill-or-be-killed out there.
You can learn a lot from my books and CDs (buy them) but given what you’ve said in all your comments, you probably need expert coaching to design a plan that fits you and your situation.
From telephone coaching, a lot of people have gotten the courage and strength they need as well as a specific plan and skill so they can succeed.
The rest of your life is calling out to you to take the right action,
Ben
November 2nd, 2011 at 10:15 pm
[...] anyone did was ever good enough for Char. She could make everyone feel small and incompetent; much like when they were bludgeoned by their parents’ sarcasm and [...]
December 3rd, 2011 at 10:15 am
[...] manipulators, nitpicking control freaks, rule-floggers, gossips, passive-aggressive stalkers, energy vampires, meeting disruptors, demanders, meddlers, micromanagers, critics, conflict-avoidant managers, [...]
December 25th, 2011 at 10:15 pm
[...] addition to the pain caused by their harassment, abuse and bullying, external Dementors are like energy vampires who can suck our will and determination. They can make us see the world as a hateful place. At [...]
December 28th, 2011 at 5:17 pm
[...] Even worse, we tend to waste even more coworker time talking about the latest incident, or we take our frustration, grumpiness and anger out on our teammates. Also, we take our frustration home and waste precious family time venting about the energy vampires. [...]