Every day, you interact with a wide variety of men in your office.
There are two types of men who normally confuse people - the alpha male
and the low-life male. I have seen people getting confused with these
two on many occasions. An alpha male type attracts respect and the
other one, demands respect, that too every day, every hour, every
minute. An alpha male normally speaks less, but his presence is felt
all over a meeting. An Alpha male makes people laugh as well. On the
other side, these low life male (LLM), he takes a great effort to make
his presence felt. Asking irrelevant questions to show off his
knowledge/experience is one trait. Another trait seen is hanging around
in the meeting room even after everyone has left, speaking with the
Boss with a serious face. They try to copy the alpha male, and make
everyone's life a mess.
While an alpha male is in control of
his emotions to a large extend, these low life men quickly flare up
raising their voice, eyes popping out, fingers pointing or touching the
next person...it is quite a scene. When you talk to him, one to one,
you can find him standing a little too close to you, and touching your
body during conversations. He is the one who frequently removes others
from CC and sends mail to the higher level people on one to one basis.
Unlike an alpha male, the low life male is so low on self
confidence/self esteem, and is always afraid. They are in a constant
fight with every one, everything.
Under workplace aggression,
bullying by these people are the most difficult to handle. Reason? A
good percentage of managers consider this type to be the best people in
the team. Because, they make their presence felt, and the manager is
tricked into believing they are the best, and they are very loyal,
unless the manager is smart and well trained. Another reason would be
the mistaken loyalty of these low life males, by their supervisors.
Work space bullying itself is difficult to identify, for the employees
as well as for the supervisors.
Women, who are already side
lined, are at higher risk by these men. Winning an argument with these
low-life male is a real pig fight. A pig enjoys being in mud and the
attention that the fight brings in, so does the low-life type lap up all
the undeserved attention. The prevailing culture that belittles loud
spoken women, or women who gets into verbal fights, or get in to a
verbal fight, as “not from a good family further makes it difficult for
women to make their voice heard.
Let us say, you spend daily two
hours for commute and nine hours at work and six hours for sleep- you
are spending the major part of your day at office. And, if you are
affected with these kinds of low life males, mind you - a great chunk of
your time is affected.
How do you resolve this? I don't think
you can. It is complex to fight with these kinds of people. You cannot
go to HR, since you don't have any artifacts to show or you can't
legally express what you are suffering. The supervisors should be
trained not only on PMP and other stuffs. They should be trained to
watch out for these kinds of people, and mentor them.
Note : I
wrote this, when someone asked me for an article about Life @
office...but they rejected this, may be they were looking for a happy
ending. When I shared that news with the friend, who did the proof
reading, and made this article readable, commented "...add a happy
ending then. one alpha male stands behind the door qand when the other
low one comes this alpha shouts BOOOO appo mattoon peedichu pookum appo
officeil ellaarum clap!clap!clap! happy".
Comments