Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective
If I was back at the start of my career, I would of dismissed this article and told the author to &quot;toughen up&quot;. After all, what&#x27;s a bit of ribbing among co-workers? Surely she&#x27;s just being overly-sensitive.<p>Until I had the (mis)pleasure of working with a truly toxic co-worker did my mindset completely change on the issue of bullying, intimidation, and hostility in the workplace. He was a senior guy, decent at his job. But how he was able to change the dynamic of <i>multiple</i> teams was very offsetting. Communication declined, as people didn&#x27;t want to go near the team that had the guy that was insulting them everytime on a whim. Workplace politics were on the rise. The common denominator was this guy was involved with every issue. Management stayed quiet and attempted to push it under the rug for a bit, but eventually they had to take notice. It was so relieving to walk in one day to him cleaning out his desk. I remember locking eyes with him one last time and giving him a final unspoken send off with a stern glare. He turned the corner and I never saw him again. My co-workers and myself went out for lunch as a celebration. The amount of relief was incredible. It was like starting fresh again.<p>Back to the article, I still can&#x27;t say I fully understand what this woman went through. But just having a taste of how off-putting 1 toxic employee can be really opened my eyes. I can&#x27;t fathom having multiple employees or even a <i>manager</i> with that type of behavior. I won&#x27;t comment on gender or racial issues.<p>Being stressed from work is okay. Some jobs have more stress than others, and at higher frequencies. But being stressed from the people at work is needless stress that compounds on top of the regular work stress that we all accept to some degree when entering a job or role.