Yup.
If anyone wants to know why I gave up a job I had loved for over 20 years (and was VERY good at); why I gave up my tenure,
THIS IS WHY.
People I thought were my friends, whom I had known for years (decades in some cases) either actively turned against me, or simply turned away (pretending/trying not to notice what was being done to me).
For some years, I tried to stay connected to the university in another faculty, but it turned out they were no different. The fact that I did my own thing, had more publications than any of them, and was doing more cutting edge work than any of them made me a threat and they turned on me too.
Contrary to popular myth, having a strong sense of ethics, clear principles, and being very good at what you do are the most common “triggers” for mobbing. People hate it when you raise the bar – the farther below that bar they are, the more they will resent you.
It has forever changed my life – though, I will admit some (perhaps even most) of it turned out for the better.
I am poorer financially.
I have PTSD.
I will never again be as trusting as I was.
I feel unsafe whenever I leave my home.
On the other hand, I am more successful as an academic, author, and designer than I ever would have been had I not been driven out.
My work is internationally known and respected (and I’m NOT just talking Canada and the US).
So, one day, I may well thank those who tormented me for being so small-minded, petty, and unprofessional, because without their pestilence, I might never have become so successful.
I’m pretty sure that’s not what they were going for.
For Professor Caroline Patsias at Université du Québec à Montréal, once a professor at Université de Sherbrooke. If you’re a university professor, chances are fairly good that you have initiated or participated in mobbing. Why? First, because mobbers are not sadists or sociopaths, but ordinary people; second, because universities are a type of organization that […]
Source: Academic mobbing, or how to become campus tormentors | University Affairs
