It Only Takes One Click - Blog Tour - Sash & Em

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Patty Blount

Books:
SEND (2012)

Website | Twitter | Goodreads

To keep his secrets, all he has to do is listen to the voice in his head and just walk away?

On his first day at his new high school, Dan stops a bully from beating up a kid half his size. He didn?t want to get involved. All he wants out of his senior year is to fly under the radar. But Dan knows what it?s like to be terrorized by a bully-he used to be one. Now the whole school thinks he?s some kind of hero, except Julie Murphy, the prettiest girl on campus. She looks at him like she knows he has a secret. Like she knows his name isn?t really Daniel.

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Technical writer by day, fiction writer by night, Patty mines her day job for ideas to use in her novels. Her debut YA ?Send? was born after a manager suggested she research social networks. Patty adores chocolate, her boys, and books, though not necessarily in that order.

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Bullying Isn?t Always Outgrown

When we think of bullies, we may think of the stereotype? the mean kid stealing your lunch money or the popular girl spreading rumors about you after the guy she liked asked you out instead. But bullying isn?t limited to middle or high schools. Some adults never outgrow that need for power.

I know; I was bullied as an adult.

I?ve held a number of day jobs over the years. Back in the late ?90?s, I did administrative work for a group of talented industrial designers and also a group of marketing executives. My first year was incredible. I learned new skills and forged some great professional relationships with people I respected. In the second year, the company hired a new head for the industrial design team. We got along well while he needed my help to learn his way around the company and its people. But in my third year, it all ended.

Despite our excellent working relationship, despite the outstanding positive results we?d achieved during his first year, he set out on a mission to ruin my professional reputation. It began one Monday; the previous Friday, everything was fine. He was deliberately rude and me being my typical easy-going self, shrugged and attributed his poor manners to a bad weekend and didn?t take it personally.

So he upped his game. The rudeness escalated to insults on a personal level. During a staff meeting one day, he took exception to the way I, with my New York accent, pronounced the word ?drawing.? He stopped the meeting, broke the word into syllables on a white board in the conference room, and had me repeat the proper pronunciation after him. He made frequent comments on my accent, going so far as to tell his entire team that he?d had to make an appointment with his daughter?s kindergarten teacher, after she came home from school ?talking like Patty? ? a remark he punctuated with an exaggerated expression of disgust.

I tried speaking to him. His response was to demand I leave his office, saying he had no time to deal with all my shortcomings. I focused on my work and tried to ignore my sense of failure, which was growing like mildew in a wet shower. As hard as I tried, he tried harder. If I paged him with an urgent message from his boss, I was scolded for waking him up. If I held onto his messages until working hours began, I was scolded for not acting fast enough.

I grew so anxious over dealing with him, I hardly noticed the slow unraveling of all the strong professional relationships I?d forged with colleagues. Perception is everything; when a Senior Director talks trash about an admin, who do you think people listen to? Until they?d witnessed his attacks on me for themselves, most people believed every lie my boss uttered. I even complained to Human Resources about him ? their response? They sent me for a soft skills course.

Turns out, that course was the best thing that ever happened to me. I had no idea how thoroughly I?d allowed this boss to erode my self-confidence. The course helped me slowly rebuild it to a point where I felt confident enough to seek and find a new job.

On my last day of work, he revealed the truth. He admitted he deliberately set out to make me hate him because he feared rumors linking us in a romantic sense would ruin his career.

His career.

Not mine. Mine was expendable.

I walked out and haven?t given him a moment?s thought until I sat down to write this post. But writing this post, remembering all of this, well ? it reminded me of an important lesson. Bullying is all about power. Whether it?s power in the classroom, on the athletic field, in a circle of acquaintances, or in a work setting ? power is the prize and it?s rarely, if ever, fairly allocated. When we?re kids, it?s hard to fight for power. We?re scared, easily intimidated. But when we?re adults, shouldn?t we be harder to scare, harder to intimidate? I think so, but the truth is, we?re not, because the stakes are higher. Instead of lunch money, or the cute guy, my bully wanted me out of my job. I was so busy holding on to that job, it took me a while to recognize I hadn?t enjoyed my work for over a year. It was easy to leave after I realized that. He probably thinks he won, that he pushed me enough that I surrendered.

I didn?t surrender. I took my power back.

Kids don?t have the choices I did; kids just can?t quit school the way I quit this job and I get that. I hope SEND makes readers aware that all of us ? no matter how old ? should always step up to defend the powerless. Maybe if we can get everyone giving a little power to someone who needs it, there?d be no reason for bullies to try taking it.

Were you bullied as an adult? How did you manage that slow self-confidence erosion? How do you think we can eradicate bullying?

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Source: http://sashandem.com/2012/08/it-only-takes-one-click-blog-tour.html

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