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by Mary A. Lewis (Author)
I wholeheartedly bought into the American dream that told me if I planned right and worked hard, I could achieve anything I set my sight upon. I came very close to achieving my American dream when I came face-to-face with real evil in the form of a group of work colleagues I considered to be good people. For this gang, the American dream was theirs to grant or deny. They decided who succeeded and who was disposable. Success in this company had nothing to do with talent, dedication, hard work, knowledge or experience and everything to do with who the group in charge liked, who was willing to play their deceitful games and who was willing to sell their integrity for the price of a job. In this environment, dreams were achieved at the price of your soul - a price I was unwilling to pay. I tell my story in this book with the hope that other victims of abusive behavior in the workplace recognize the signs of the campaign being waged against them in secret. I want them to be aware of what is happening to them at the time it is happening so that they can be strategic in how they counter-attack. Power abusers, like the ethics officer in my workplace and the bully in the school bathroom, need their targets to remain ignorant of their strategies so that the target questions himself at every turn. As someone who fell victim to their successful strategies, my goal with this book is to arm other targets with knowledge so that they can forge an effective offensive and defensive counter strategy. This book was a very long time in the making because it required all the years it took for me to become thoroughly honest with myself so that I could write a book that honestly confronts this pernicious problem in our society. What we have labeled as bullying doesn't only destroy a person's confidence, self esteem, mental acuity and overall sense of well being; it also kills their dreams. All my plans and goals were stopped dead in their tracks once I was targeted. It didn't have to be that way. According to the extensive research I have conducted on the subject, my story is just one of so many that are getting played out in all areas of our society. The bullies of our world are increasingly becoming the winners of our world. The only way to eradicate the problem, in my view, is to turn the tables on them and increasingly make them the losers of our world. In the case of bullying, we are often told to turn the other cheek and ignore the disordered behavior of a person or persons who have made it their mission to destroy us. Unfortunately, turning the other cheek by ignoring the bullying behavior does not work in war and it will never work in our schools and workplaces where bully type personalities have declared war on their targets. In civilized environments, we have the luxury of expecting respectful behavior directed towards us when we respect other people. Bullies and the group think of the mob that they instill in their enablers and bystanders are not civilized. They are war mongers in every sense of the word but unlike an official declaration of war, they plan their cowardly war in secret behind the closed doors of a bathroom or board room. Strategies of a civilized society like turn the other cheek do not work in war and they will not work in combating the bullies and mobs of our schools and workplaces. Different strategies are required if the target of a bullying/mobbing campaign wants to survive the ordeal emotionally, mentally and financially whole. Who better to supply us with the strategies of winning a war than the experts in war? Along with some preventive strategies that build inner confidence, I have included in this book some strategies used by the U.S. Army and put them in the context of a workplace whose values and mission have been supplanted by amoral people who have personal agendas they are willing to carry out by any and all means.
