DVD Drama Targets Bullies

[brothermagrew]

A hard hitting drama that shows the devastating effects of verbal harassment is to be shown at units across the country from this month. With Friends Like These tells the story of a group of colleagues in a mail centre whose working relationship turns sour when office banter goes to far.

EastEnders actor Jake Wood, who plays Max Branning in the soap, stars as a work area manager who knows members of his team are being bullied, but fails to stop it. The DVD which was filmed on location at Mount Pleasant mail centre in London, has been shown to every Royal Mail manager plus a handful of units.

It will now be shown at all operational units until February 2010. The 40 minute film is followed by a short talk by Professor Geoff Beattie, a psychologist at the University of Manchester.

[POSTMAN]

And soon no doubt the follow up With Managers Like These.......

[Big Daz]

Seen it twice already , RM are taking the piss. :cfo

[norbert]

Seen it twice already , RM are taking the piss. :cfo

it's all hype and spin , bit like afternoon tv , making sh** shine , the ironic thing is that it's all keeping non ops white collar people in work , amazing how they find the money for that

I think the most apt training video for RM would be " The Office " , Corrie with Baldwin's casuals or The Underworld i.e. tribunal every fortnight etc if you ran a place like that in real life , or the spivvy bosses in " I'm Allright Jack " - the management style is straight out of the 70's " though

[TrueBlueTerrier]

I am afraid that playing this DVD is just another tick box exercise for RM. However, if they issued all staff one and let us throw it at bullies they might just get the message.

[martin]

Read this then: :cfo :mfo http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/local_n ... _bullying/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Read this then: :cfo :mfo http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/local_n ... _bullying/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Got that in News yesterday http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/communit ... 18&t=17882" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - defo worth a read.

[andy2007]

And this: http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/ ... loses.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Particularly these 2 paragraphs. Which really shows RM's true colours:
Lead partners for the 2008 National Ban Bullying at Work Day, which had run for six years, were Royal Mail and Amnesty International.

Witheridge said Royal Mail had pleaded poverty when approached for funding, and accused other firms of "jumping on the bandwagon" and treating the tackling of workplace bullying as a box-ticking exercise.

[DGP1]

Is this the one with the fat bloke with Britpop hair because if it is we only had half of it, we never got to see how it ended

[andy2007]

It doesn't matter anyway. If they were serious about stoppingWorkplace Bullying, they wouldn't have supported the Andrea Adams Trust last year, gaining credence from doing so. Only to let it fold for lack of money, this year. Using the excuse, that it was just a box ticking excercise.

Workplace Bullying won't be stopped by showing a DVD. It can only be achieved, by having as much help, both within AND without RM, as possible. Particularly when a lot of the Bullying cases, are brought against RM Managers.

[mailsort6]

Managers and posties know that bullying and harassment goes off but nothing is done, in most cases some posties will tell the bully to F*** O** because this is only language they understand. Credit must be given to those managers, union reps and posties that do tackle bullying or bullies within their office. Sometimes somes bullies get so out of hand that the victims just all get together and report the person/s and that usually works.

[andy2007]

There are some places where RM are doing something about Bullying. Where I am, we used to have a lot of problems with Bullying. Admittedly, things have gone a bit too far the other way now. And there are people getting into trouble for Banter. But even that's better than how things were a couple of years ago.

If we can just get them to ease up a bit, at recognise the difference between banter, and Bullying, we'll have it made.

[Ahebban]

It is a very narrow dividing line between what is banter and bullying/harassment especially when it involves verbal sparring .. one person's banter can so easily become another person's harassment.

Our DO would not survive without the release banter brings to the working day, and I feel sure our DO is not alone in that respect. It usually works on a 'swings and roundabouts' system where no one individual is singled out on a regular basis and is rarely vindictive. Most know when they have overstepped the mark, or have it pointed out to them, so it is kept at a jovial level rather than raising tension. There will always be flashpoints, but by their very nature, they are quick to rise and quick to fade.

What is often forgotten is not what is actual said, but the numbers involved, for and against. It is not easy for one person to ward off banter from multiple sources, however innocuous the banter may appear.

[IWW Fellow Worker]

A forty minute film followed by a talk. I wonder when we're supposed to watch this?

Surely 'Triumph of the Will' would be more in keeping with Royal Mail management style.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

A forty minute film followed by a talk. I wonder when we're supposed to watch this?

Surely 'Triumph of the Will' would be more in keeping with Royal Mail management style.

I thought Mein Kampf with a few paraphrases

"The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one."
"The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the CWU."
"I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Leighton: by defending myself against the CWU, I am fighting for the work of Crozier."
"The Royal Mail should not become a constable of public opinion, but must dominate it. It must not become a servant of the masses, but their master!"

It was scary how easy that was to change the emphasis from anti semitism to anti-union