Can Firing Someone Be a Form of Bullying?

Think about how a firing tends to go now. The moment it happens, you get walked to the door. No chance to gather your things at your own pace, no chance to wrap up the work you had in motion. Even tasks that, left unfinished, could hurt a customer or leave service hanging get abandoned on the spot.

People ask where workplace violence comes from, as if it appears out of nowhere. Some of it may trace back to how certain employees get treated by a boss with hiring and firing power. If you look like a threat to that person, or if you look like an easy mark, you can become the one they make an example of. A way to put their power on display.

Ending someone's employment is a heavy thing to do, and a lot of it could be sidestepped at the front end by simply not hiring the person to begin with. A rejection before the job starts is gentler for everyone. "Thanks, but the role is filled," or "your background isn't quite what we need here," and it's done. Better still, that kind of no never lands on anyone's work record. A firing does.

In all the hiring I've seen, I can't recall an employer sitting an applicant down and asking whether they'd been turned away from other jobs, and what the reason was. Given that, a probation period starts to look fairly harmless. So does a stretch of work through a temp agency. Neither carries the weight people seem to assume.

Something about the arrangement sits wrong with me. The person who got fired walks away owing explanations for years afterward, while the manager or company that did the firing is rarely asked to account for anything at all.

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