THAT'S MEN:Employers must do more to protect workers

WHEN Gordon Brown was accused of bullying staff at 10 Downing Street, I assumed the charges would damage his reputation. Instead, Labour began to rise in the polls to the point that what had seemed a certain Tory victory in the general election has become very iffy indeed.

Perhaps there is no connection between these two events, but I couldn't help thinking of Brown and his rising popularity when reading some accounts of workplace bullying on the excellent management-issues.com

Workplace bullies destroy lives, but I think employers are really bad at calling a halt to their antics.
Here, from the website mentioned above, is an example of bullying behaviour: "Every call I get from her starts with her screaming and yelling at me over the phone. My nerves are shot. She couldn't get a hold of me via telephone one day so she sent me a text on my personal cell stating: 'You either answer the phone or I am coming over there!'"

Another employee, who refused to give the boss gossip about other workers, wrote: "He turned very nasty. Insinuating that I did nothing, heaping my desk with work enough for three people, cutting my hours, etc . . . One of his tactics was to post 'general bulletins' that referred only to me."

Another worker complains of a boss who "has degraded employees and humiliated them in public as well as listening in on our calls and snooping on us".

Complaining to HR sometimes leads to action, sometimes not. In one case, the bully was the HR manager.

Some bullies are overgrown toddlers, some are ruthless schemers trying to get rid of someone they don't like and some are even more twisted than that. The sub-criminal psychopath, for instance, is never going to be a serial killer but destroys the health of people in the workplace. To make matters worse, psychopaths can be the most charming people youüve met in your life, so it can be hard to get others to believe they are bullying you.

It's estimated that about one per cent of the population is psychopathic, so you need to be unlucky to find yourself working for one. Your chances increase, though, in certain professions, according to an article by Brian Amble on management-issues.com: "They often gravitate towards roles in business, the media, law and politics where their scheming and bullying is just part of everyday working life.

"They tend to be manipulative, arrogant, callous, impatient, impulsive, unreliable, superficially charming and prone to fly into rages."

The usual advice to people who are being bullied - and it's good advice - is to document every instance of bullying to support your complaint to management.

But if it becomes clear that nothing much is going to be done about the bullying you should think of leaving for another job while your mental health is intact. Even putting your name down with a recruitment agency should reduce your sense of being trapped.

Ultimately, though, society needs to reject bullying - and the Gordon Brown story makes me wonder how likely it is that this will happen in a meaningful way.

* Theusual image of a biker who crashes and dies is of a twentysomething guy who thinks he's immortal.

But a new US study suggests the image doesnüt tell the whole story. Riders over the age of 40 are up to twice as likely to die from injuries in a crash as their younger counterparts, according to a study of 61,689 motorcyclists by the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Moreover, as a group, injured riders in their 50s are growing faster than any other, according to the study published in American Surgeon.

It seems older bikers have more pre-existing health issues and therefore are more likely to die from injuries received. And a crash is more likely to cause injuries in this group.

Padraig OüMorain (pomorain@ireland.com) is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy