Ask HN: I’m being bullied at work. What do I do?

I'm dismayed to see most of the advice given to you by HN is bad. I am in a very similar situation, and it has been ongoing for years. I have also been bullied for some substantial parts of my life, so I understand the power dynamic very well.

In my recent experience, there is a playbook that you should use. This playbook is designed to be used in a one-on-one setting, between the bully and the person defending herself. I consider it fairly literal; you should memorize this sequence, rehearse it, and play it out as close as possible to how you rehearse. It is also intended to be used without any emotion; the goal is to be as matter-of-fact as humanly possible. It goes like this:

1. Point out a very specific problem behavior (screaming at you, some other event). Be as specific as possible, and use times/dates if you know them. There should be zero ambiguity about this, and the bully should never have leeway to disclaim the event. 2. Explain how it made you feel (angry, demotivated, alienated, etc.) 3. Say "when you did #1, the message I received was (.....) Was that the intended message?". A common example from my own experience is "I feel like I'm perceived as incompetent, and not any value to the team." 4. Regardless of the answer to #3, specifically say the words "In the future, don't do that again." Don't use the words "request" or "would like" in this response. 5. Explain the consequences of breaking directive #4. Something like "If this happens again, I will report the incident to HR (or your manager)."

This recipe has corrected nearly every incident of harassment and bullying I have encountered (well, at least as an adult). It won't fix the underlying issues; someone might still hate your guts, be jealous of you, or use you as a scapegoat. Those are deeper issues that this kind of recipe can't address. Nonetheless, this script directly addresses the problematic behavior, and it opens the door to confronting some deeper problems once the bully realizes that their bullying is visible and unaccepted. Strange as it sounds, most bullies think that their behavior is invisible to all but the victim. Exposing the bully to others can shift the power balance substantially.

The other thing I recommend is to keep a work diary. You don't need to write in it every day (although, in a problem workplace, you may end up with >1 entries a day). In this diary, I encourage you to record events that took place, how you feel about them, and any technical consequences of that event. I have noticed that bullying tends to produce technical changes in team function which hurts the product and hurts the operational efficiency of the group. If these kinds of disputes ever escalate to HR, which sounds very likely in your case, you will need this diary to establish a pattern of behavior and demand resolution. It will become your most valuable tool to improve your situation. It also serves as a somewhat impartial record of what happened. You may decide that, after reviewing X months of work diary, these issues are not that serious, and your emotional reaction is dominating how you feel. In my own case, I expected this to be true (I didn't trust myself enough), but it became obvious after a 1.5-year diary review that the problem wasn't me. :)

Good luck.

"It's not easy to defend yourself against sexist accusations, except that I have proof that I'm an activist and I've rallied for women rights and LGBT rights."

You do not need to show any 'credentials'. It doesn't matter what things you 'belong to'. You don't need to cower in defence such accusations or 'prove that you're not' something. If in all your self-awareness, you know you're not sexist, well then - you're surely not. The accusations are unfair and baseless.

More extreme: imagine someone accuses you of being a pedophile - you don't react by saying 'how much you love children and would never do such a thing'. Heyzeus! Just act with firm integrity and dismiss the accusation outright and make sure it's known that the accusations are unfair and baseless.

> It's not easy to defend yourself against sexist accusations, except that I have proof that I'm an activist and I've rallied for women rights and LGBT rights. Does it exclude the possibility of me being sexist? No, but it sure as hell keeps it at bay.

Perhaps this is a nitpicking aside, but let me be clear -- I think there is no correlation at all between attending a feminist rally and not exhibiting general workplace sexism. The idea that attending a rally would make you immune to issues like unconscious biases, sexist condescension, assumptions about technical competence, talking over someone, etc is as ridiculous as the idea that attending an NBA game is a demonstration of proof that you are a competent basketball player. The fact that you even brought it up puts your entire understanding of this situation into doubt for me.

> Edit: From your perspective how can I solve it?

It's tough. You say you're being bullied at work, and if you are, then you have few options -- by definition, bullying involves an unreasonable abuser and an innocent victim. Most of the plausible and good outcomes in this case involve you finding a way to no longer work with this person.

But if you'd instead posted "Ask HN: My coworker screamed at me and told someone else I'd been sexist. What do I do?" then I'd be able to give a very different answer, probably starting with:

(a) I would assume that I had, in fact, done something sexist and upsetting.

(b) I'd ask the person who was upset with me if I could meet privately with them, and I'd tell them that I felt terrible about it; that I badly want to heal the working relationship; that I respect their work and want to put effort into not upsetting them again; that I don't understand what I did but that I understand that this doesn't mean that I didn't do anything, and so on.

HR is not your friend. HR is the company's friend. HR will do whatever it thinks is best for the company, not what's best for you.

Let me tell you something. There are 2 choices in front of you:

1) Loose hope & leave the job - If you choose this option, your PO will come as a winner. After you leave, no one would care if it was your mistake or her but people would most probably forget the incidents and think positive about her. Most of the people will think you had some issues and you left the job. You might find another job but there is no guarantee that you will not find another PO or for that matter any collegue/manager with whom you will NOT have similar issues.

2) Continue in your current Job and commit yourself to improve the situation. Life is presenting with a unique opportunity to you where you can learn how to take control of situation when people disagree with you. IMO, you can learn something very unique out of this situation even if you happen to loose your job after 6 months. This will build a character in you in how to face tough situations. A career is a long journey where you will face situations where people disagree with you. Learning this early in life will help to understand and act better in situations like this. I would say don't worry if you will get a permanent offer from this employer and continue looking for other Job options. If you do find a good job offer then whether to choose that offer should be completely a rational decision based on career growth, salary, technology and not because you are having people issues at your current job. Changing a Job is a life decision and you should be the only one who should take this decision.

Now, there are certain things you should do to improve your current situation at job. By your question, I feel that you had a direct confrontation with your Product Owner. She might not had liked this direct confrontation and is not happy with you. Have a 1:1 discussion with her and understand what you are doing wrong that is making her upset. In the end you will come up as a much more stronger person than her.