I Tried to Bully My Colleagues by Unfriending Them on Facebook

Is there anything cooler than bullying your work colleagues? Taking that power you felt as the wind rushed against your knuckles in the school playground, plunging your fist into the gut of whoever was the best at math, and transposing it in a far more insidious and sinister way into your working life? Making people feel unsafe in the place they have to go to daily to make enough money to feed and clothe their children? Man, I'm getting chills just thinking about it.

It can be a risky business, though. In Australia—a country populated almost exclusively by bullies who were sent there for bullying, and then bullied the indigenous peoples out of it—a tribunal decided that a woman's "unfriending" of a colleague on Facebook constituted workplace bullying. They said that the accused, Lisa Bird, showed a "lack of emotional maturity" that was "indicative of unreasonable behavior."

Of course, merely unfriending someone will not see you hauled in front of an Aussie work tribunal and sentenced to a life of surfing in the rain, or whatever the harshest punishment is out there. You've got to keep the campaign going "over about a two year period" to get to that point.

I didn't have two years to make my workmates cry and vomit with fear and paranoia; I had one morning. So I got to unfriending and saw how people felt about it. First up:

Ian didn't really take to my bullying because he's a pretty cool guy and not much bothers him. I told him he sucked and that I hated him and that I'd removed his poisonous name from my precious friends list, but he just sunshine'd me into submission. He killed me with kindness and I'll never forgive him.

Simon was similarly nonplussed about my #workplacebullying, because I'm generally quite abrasive towards my colleagues (whoopee cushions, fake dog poo on their keyboards, fiberglass in their salads, etc). I was trying, but it just wasn't happening. Maybe I needed to be meaner.

Christ, does no one take my bullying seriously around this fucking place? Here I am, mousing away, trying to get my line manager to drag me into a HR meeting with his hands on his hips, telling me he regrets giving me that chance, and that it was always a risk, and that I've completely blown it and he's sorry but I just have to go, and I'm getting this in return.

So, I decided, I was going to take it straight to the top. I was going to bully the shit out of my lamewad boss.

As you can see, I bullied my boss so hard he forgot what numbers were. Also, after I sent these messages I kicked his leg really hard under the table and spat on his lunch. And I don't mean like a petulant gob; I mean I stood over it and let a long glob weep slowly out of my mouth before it plopped insultingly on his ham roll. I've now been escorted from the building.

In conclusion: yes, you can "get done" for workplace bullying by unfriending people on Facebook. But it's only the beginning. If you really want to make people feel bad, you'd better be willing to put that ancillary work it to really get some results.

Me? I'm moving on. I'm going to find some new friends to unfriend, and start the process once more.

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