Sexual harassment / Bullying and harassment - in the workplace.

[bambu]

There are supposed to be laws, but who cares?...and who enforces them?

Answer: no one much seems to.


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/07/08/1215282835387.html


Bullying caused woman's suicide, inquiry told

July 9, 2008

Page 1 of 2
 
CHRISTINE HODDER, 38, was a much-loved woman with a husband and a three-year-old daughter, and had almost completed her Bachelor of Nursing degree when she killed herself in her backyard.

Ms Hodder, after enduring years of bullying by male colleagues at Cowra ambulance station, where she was the first and only female officer, hanged herself on her child's swing in April, 2005, a parliamentary inquiry into the NSW Ambulance Service has heard.

She could not even leave her car at work because the tyres were let down, her toilet at work was urinated "all over" and she was constantly ridiculed by fellow officers in front of patients, her mother-in-law, Carolynn Hodder, has told the inquiry in a written submission. She believed her death was the culmination of sustained victimisation by colleagues since she started at Cowra in 1999.

She said the bullying went up the line to management and was ignored.

Christine Hodder had lodged two formal complaints, one in 2001 and another a few months before she died, about bullying and harassment by several officers and had twice been on stress leave.

[kim from usa]

There are supposed to be laws, but who cares?...and who enforces them?

Answer: no one much seems to.


[url]http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/07/08/1215282835387.html[/url]


Bullying caused woman's suicide, inquiry told

July 9, 2008

Page 1 of 2
 
CHRISTINE HODDER, 38, was a much-loved woman with a husband and a three-year-old daughter, and had almost completed her Bachelor of Nursing degree when she killed herself in her backyard.

Ms Hodder, after enduring years of bullying by male colleagues at Cowra ambulance station, where she was the first and only female officer, hanged herself on her child's swing in April, 2005, a parliamentary inquiry into the NSW Ambulance Service has heard.

She could not even leave her car at work because the tyres were let down, her toilet at work was urinated "all over" and she was constantly ridiculed by fellow officers in front of patients, her mother-in-law, Carolynn Hodder, has told the inquiry in a written submission. She believed her death was the culmination of sustained victimisation by colleagues since she started at Cowra in 1999.

She said the bullying went up the line to management and was ignored.

Christine Hodder had lodged two formal complaints, one in 2001 and another a few months before she died, about bullying and harassment by several officers and had twice been on stress leave.

I'm sorry, if someone bullied me to where I thought of taking my own life, I would damn sure be taking a few of them son of a bitches with me when I went.

[jen]

That sounds eerily 'postal' kim...

You were talking figuratively?

[Minx]

That's the second case I am now aware of in regards to a person committing suicide thanks to Workplace Bullying and Harrassment

The other being the waitress in Melbourne
Her small business employer and workmates got hefty fines
But, that does not bring back a life too early ended

[kim from usa]

That sounds eerily 'postal' kim...

You were talking figuratively?

My darling, most people who know me would know better than to push me that far. Besides if you are going to kill yourself over a bunch of bullies, you have nothing to fear from getting them too. If you are pushed to that point, why go down alone? I will not go silent into that good night.

[mutation]

Kim has demonstrated that there are essentially two main personality types Victims and Non Victims Kim is the latter and as such in not likely to be the target of a bully. Bullies tent almost exclusively to pick on Victims people like Kim and I are too much like hard work!
If one for any reason feels that killing themselves is preferable to continuing as they are there are any number of other choices the potential risk of which must be far less than certain death and as Kim says they should involve those people who put you in that place!
Retribution is a wonderfully healing thing !


Mutation

[Chris]

Retribution is a wonderfully healing thing !

Maybe for the person doing the killing... but for those left behind afterwards life isn't so pleasant.

Besides, who knows what the motivations are for the bully? There was a guy in  the UK recently called Raoul Moat who drove around shooting people who he decided had upset him... and anyone sles unlucky enough to be in his line of fire.

Still you have to feel more than sorry for anyone tormented into reacting by killing themselves. But what sort of sympathy should we extend to people who kill others because they felt threatened or tormented??

[mutation]

Retribution is a wonderfully healing thing !

Maybe for the person doing the killing... but for those left behind afterwards life isn't so pleasant.

Besides, who knows what the motivations are for the bully? There was a guy in  the UK recently called Raoul Moat who drove around shooting people who he decided had upset him... and anyone sles unlucky enough to be in his line of fire.

Still you have to feel more than sorry for anyone tormented into reacting by killing themselves. But what sort of sympathy should we extend to people who kill others because they felt threatened or tormented??

Retribution can take many forms it does not need end in a homicide and usually wouldnt!
Ye reap what ye sow! If you push someone and they go postal on yo ass and your family for some strange reason is upset by that then tough !

I dont know the answer to your last question I neither give nor expect sympathy or understanding for my actions or reactions! For that matter my motivations, satisfactions obligations and considerations are intrinsic not extrinsic !
Feeling threatened is not reason to respond with force but actually being threatened certainly is and the only person capable of determining what response is appropriate is the person being threatened. Again if you apply pressure to someone you take on the responsibility for the response simple !

As an example say you and i knew each other in person and in the heat of an argument you threaten to kill me or run over my kid or whatever then I would have to decide if it was just an outburst or if it was a credible threat and if the latter I could not and would not wait till you chose to make good on that threat. IF I could circumvent your action with certainty then i would but If I knew you were the type to carry it out no matter what I would preemptively act with whatever force was required to 100% ensure you could not make good on your threat. I have no interest if that is a legally defensible position but i do know it is the right one for me !

Mutation

[kim from usa]

Kim has demonstrated that there are essentially two main personality types Victims and Non Victims Kim is the latter and as such in not likely to be the target of a bully. Bullies tent almost exclusively to pick on Victims people like Kim and I are too much like hard work!
If one for any reason feels that killing themselves is preferable to continuing as they are there are any number of other choices the potential risk of which must be far less than certain death and as Kim says they should involve those people who put you in that place!
Retribution is a wonderfully healing thing !


Mutation

You keep poking the cat, don't cry when you get the claw.

[jen]

Or change jobs...

[bambu]

There are 'no' other jobs in country towns.

There are only so many places to run to, then one day one has to stand and fight.

The bullies and harassers slowly send the minds of the victims down into the depths of depression, a fantasy world from which many can never escape, and the torment only ends with suicide.


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/07/08/1215282835387.html?page=2

She felt that nobody cared and there was nowhere she could go. Nobody listened," Mrs Hodder told the Herald.

In her submission, Mrs Hodder described Christine, who immigrated from France when she was 15, as "a clever, shy, beautiful girl in both appearance and manner".

"Christine initially laughed off the harassment from her fellow officers, but it was relentless, and when it continued over the years, it became very hard to bear. She often said, 'What is wrong with me? Why do they hate me so much?' There were so many incidents perpetrated against Christine," she wrote.

"She took her own life by hanging herself from her daughter's swing in the family backyard. We didn't see it coming, and I cannot even begin to describe the utter horror, disbelief, grief, and unbelievable sadness we feel because she isn't in our lives any more.

*

Last week Christine Hodder's former colleague Phil Roxburgh gave evidence that she had been victimised, that management ignored her complaints and that he himself was bullied when he tried to support her.

>>>>> >>>>>

That's what happens in the real world of the Australian workforce.

[bambu]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/an-ambos-ordeal/2008/07/14/1215887540781.html

Bullies and bullets: an ambo's ordeal


WHEN Christopher Pollard walked into his office at Cowra ambulance station he was confronted by a disturbing sight - a toy monkey hanging by its neck. It was dressed in Mr Pollard's station officer epaulets.

Mr Pollard, concerned for his safety, went on stress leave in December 2006 and never returned. The NSW Ambulance Service did nothing, despite his trauma occurring 20 months after another Cowra officer, Christine Hodder, hanged herself in her backyard - allegedly after years of bullying for being the station's first female officer.

The message to Mr Pollard, the station's manager, reflected the unofficial motto at the station: FIFO - fit in or f--- off. It followed 11 months of a hard core among his staff allegedly abusing and humiliating him.

Several internal ambulance documents from 2006, seen by the Herald, paint a disturbing picture of a lawless "boys' club", where firearms were kept on the premises,  some officers abused the boss and refused to conduct basic safety checks. The Herald understands the plant room had bullet holes from so-called target practice.

The inquiry has confirmed receiving the 2006 Cowra documents but has not made them public. They include an internal email, dated May 9, 2006, that said an officer - a member of the so-called boys' club - had recently stapled his scrotum to a pool table at the local Railway Hotel and was "getting help".

>>>>> >>>>>

This is the mentality of many in the boozy and psycho 'macho-men' boys clubs that bully and harass others to the point of suicide and illness...that inhabit the Australian workforce.

And no one much in the halls of power ever does much about it.

[jen]

It said in the original post that she went from ambulance to nursing... but the comment was actually for kim BU, sorry...

Other than someone threatening me or mine with death, I can't imagine 'taking people out'...I would look for another job, I would rather be wiping old folks bums than working where I was being tormented...

[bambu]

And if you started being tormented in your new caring for old folks job?

[jen]

waitressing...this could take a while folks...lol