How Avoiding Bears Is Like Avoiding a Workpace Bully

Bears are large animals that can be dangerous and certainly deserve respect and caution. With proper precautions, a person's chances of a close encounter of the worst kind can be greatly reduced. Bullies are dangerous and certainly deserve respect and caution. Attacks are driven by the bully's personal agenda and actually prevents work from getting done. Here a four strategies on how to avoid bully bears. 

Basic strategies for bear safety:
1. Knowledge is power. The most important tip is to get information from reliable sources about how to avoid a problem with a bear - and what to do if you have one despite your best efforts. 

It is important to know which species of bear will be in the areas you are working in. Black bears and Grizzly Bears will react differently in the same situation: the Grizzly bear being the more aggressive of the two species. Office bullies create a dysfunctional workplace, says Gary Namie, a psychologist and founder of the nonprofit Campaign Against Workplace Bullying.The most destructive thing about office bullies is that they tend to target co-workers who are the best and brightest employees. 

"It's much different than school-yard bullying," he says. 'This target isn't the kid with the Coke-bottle glasses'. Instead, workplace bullies tend to drive out colleagues they view as threats: those who are technically competent, independent, possess good social skills, and have strong ethics...

Bullies, especially female bullies, are prone to isolating and excluding other workers – especially those that they feel threatened by. These bullies sometimes even have a following or a group of people that appear to dress, talk and act like them. Bonnie and Clyde. A coworker who is aware of the pair would like to take a new position opening but hesitates because she knows, ’there would be stilettos’ in her back’ from the interaction with them.

2. Avoid encounters with bears whenever possible. Like many other things in life, when it comes to bears a defensive bear will exhibit the signs of stress. They feel threatened by you and may be defending either a food source or young cubs, or are trying to establish dominance in their territory. 

For the same reason, don’t argue with the bully. To compete with a person whose mentality is based on making everyone else's life deplorable is like stooping down to their level. In doing this, we are exposing ourselves to open conflict and direct confrontation with them. This is what they want, a reaction, an argument, and a challenge. The office bully meets aggression with aggression. Stay calm and purposeful. Less is more.

3. Keep your distance.From negative thoughts that is. Do not agree with the bully's negative characterization of you. You did not invite the misery. No one in their right mind should ever believe the bully's lie that another person (you) deserve to be humiliated, intimidated, and abused. You did not ask for it. You did not wake up one morning and say that this was the day to be humiliated. You did not trigger this campaign of hatred. Targets tend to be reluctant to report bullying, primarily for fear of retribution, but also because they run the risk of being labelled a whiner or a snitch, or losing their job outright if the bully is their superior. 

4. Know how to react if you DO find yourself close to a bear. Different actions are also recommended for surprise encounters vs. an actual unprovoked attack. Attempt to measure the grizzly bears mood. Does the bear have its' ears laid back - sort of like an upset dog? 

Bullies feel in control when they intimidate others and they feel admired by peers when they act out. It is not so much the victim that gives a bully his or her sense of power, it is the reactions, or rather the inactions, of bystanders that feed the bully’s superior sense of self. 

The point to remember is: You are not powerless. You have many strategies—trying them can help. Targets who tell their story often face disbelief from coworkers, bosses and human resources managers. Others often assume that the abuse is petty or that the target is just a ‘problem employee’. My Director blames me as starting the abuse. I chose to get out. My health was more important.