How common is physical abuse in the workplace?

November 23, 2010 1:34 PM

How common is physical abuse in the workplace? I had a boss who hit me a few years ago and I was talking to a friend recently and she said the same thing happened to her. Naturally, this made me curious as I thought physical abuse was relatively rare in the workplace compared to emotional.
posted by jihaan to Human Relations (41 answers total)

Do you mean in the USA? Or general all around the world?
posted by royalsong at 1:35 PM on November 23, 2010

What kind of workplace? I was whacked in the legs with a stick while working at a sketchy health food store, for resting my feet on the shelves behind the register. I have only gotten psychological abuse in the professional office, however.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 1:37 PM on November 23, 2010

I've never known anyone who was physically abused in the workplace. Sexually harassed yes, but never hit. I'm mid 30s, female, USA.
posted by desjardins at 1:43 PM on November 23, 2010

I've worked in some sketchy, sketchy places, but the one thing that never happened was physical abuse.
posted by griphus at 1:45 PM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Back in high school when I worked at a major multinational fast food franchise (the one with the arches, and the clown) every new worker on their first day got "surprise" locked in the cold freezer for ten minutes in shirtsleeves. That's hazing for apprentices and new workers in blue-collar environments: it shouldn't happen, and it's illegal, but it does.

In white collar workplaces, it never happens. I can't think of a single instance where physical abuse by a boss wouldn't result in a massive stink, resignations, firings, lawyers' letters or arrests. The closest thing to it I've ever heard of was an associate professor at my uni who was locked in a toilet by a student suffering a violent psychotic episode—but that's not the same thing.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 1:45 PM on November 23, 2010

when i waitressed at a family-owned restaurant, a couple of the cooks would try to grab/slap my ass. when i complained to the manager/owner, he told me to fight back. next time one of them tried to slap my ass i tried to slap him back, and he grabbed my wrists and laughed his ass off. yeah, i didn't work there much longer after that. the cooks had been there for like ten years and were more valuable than the waitstaff, so they pretty much got away with murder. (in fact they were probably drunk most of the time they were harassing me.) in any case the owner was not particularly concerned about their antics.

the sad thing is, i think this sort of thing is not uncommon in restaurants.
posted by lblair at 1:45 PM on November 23, 2010

My wife, who is a plaintiff's employment attorney and routinely reports behavior that astonishes me, reports that she rarely sees cases involving physical abuse from supervisors, although it has happened. Violence between co-workers is much more common. Sexual abuse of one stripe or another is sadly something she sees fairly often.
posted by Lame_username at 1:47 PM on November 23, 2010

Anecdata: I worked in a bookstore in college. One night I was alone with the manager on duty (a man my dad's age) who was getting a bit of a reputation as a strange ranger. He asked me about something minor, like did I re-shelve the fiction section or something and I told him no, it was on another staffer's early morning duties for the next day. He freaked, picked up a stack of bound magazines and swung them at me. I jumped and yelped and he stopped in mid-swing and went back to the manager's office. next day, I reported him to the GM.
A few weeks later, he was gone.
posted by pointystick at 1:51 PM on November 23, 2010

I had a friend who had a boss with a bad temper. He used to throw stuff at the wall and once slammed a folder on her desk and made her jump. She felt like he wanted to hit her, she said, and she didn't want that to happen. She actually ended up never working again after getting married and having a baby, and staying home. I hadn't considered it before, but I think that experience may have derailed her interest in her career and working.

This actually happened at a pretty well known agency in DC, where they worked onsite at the actual agency as contractors.

It wasn't really physical abuse in that he touched her directly, but she was very intimidated and it was obvious to me that she felt afraid and his temper led to her quitting.
posted by anniecat at 1:52 PM on November 23, 2010

As a labor organizer who has seen a variety of workplace environments from the federal government to warehouses to nursing homes (and these work places tend not to be the happiest ones, or I wouldn't generally be there), I've never heard of physical abuse from a supervisor towards a worker, except for sexual harassment that involved touching.

I have seen plenty of fights between folks on the same kind of level, and I've seen situations where physical intimidation and casual (hard punch on the shoulder as a "joke") violence were a part of the working environment and the unofficial pecking order.

As a random and unscientific observation, I've seen more violence in bus/van driving workplaces than any other. No idea why that is.
posted by crabintheocean at 1:56 PM on November 23, 2010

My first job was at Safeway as a Saturday girl. Arm-wrestling and roughhousing were common, as was getting locked in the walk-in deli fridge. Grapes, cherries, and other small fruit and veg were thrown with great accuracy all the time, if that counts as physical abuse.

There was a fair amount of what I would now characterize as sexual harassment from some of the Saturday boys and younger male staff -- leering, making suggestive comments -- but no touching.
posted by vickyverky at 1:56 PM on November 23, 2010

FWIW I have seen several situations like the one anniecat describes though.
posted by crabintheocean at 1:58 PM on November 23, 2010

I know someone who has reported being hit by his boss while working. I'm not sure if this was closed-fist or open-hand, not that it makes much of a difference. The same boss intimidates this person from joining a union or doing anything to improve his situation. I know he's trying to get out of the job, but the job provides housing for his family, so it's a tough position for him to be in.

I think it's pretty unusual, but it definitely happens.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 2:06 PM on November 23, 2010

Sexual harassment -- very common. Raging bosses (or coworkers) who intimidate but do not physically harm someone -- also pretty common, I'd say. But hauling off and hitting someone seems pretty rare. I can only think of one instance in my employment where I was handled which was at a Pizza Hut in Texas. I was headed out to scream at a customer who had just made everyone's favorite waitress cry. The manager sent two of the cooks to come get me and they actually grabbed me and threw me in the walk-in. So, of course, after they let me out within about ten minutes I got in the manager's face and he barely looked at me after that. But I told him if he wasn't going to throw the customer out and protect the waitresses then I would. He was so spineless.

Later I kind of laughed about it but I remember my parents were seriously appalled.

I've also had bosses and coworkers who probably needed anger management treatment. That's not so fun. Wow. This is a good reminder that I love working for myself!
posted by amanda at 2:13 PM on November 23, 2010

A friend of mine was punched by his boss. They were used car salesmen and it was the culmination of several months of taunting and psychological abuse that was laughed off as "hazing". He quit shortly after that incident.
posted by naju at 2:19 PM on November 23, 2010

Never seen it in my long white collar career nor in my short blue collar jobs. I did once have a coworker who scared the crap out of me by yelling but he was mentally unstable and incompetent. It wouldn't have been so scary except it was late and we were alone at the office. He was let go soon after.
posted by chairface at 2:28 PM on November 23, 2010

I have one reliable account of a guy pushing a cow-orker down the stairs. He was fired immediately. It seems to have been a roid rage thing. This was in a software house of a couple hundred people.

I had one internal customer that I had to deal with over a responsibility he didn't want to have or understand, yet I had no choice but to communicate with him about it. He mostly tried stuff like saying "Can we agree, then, that [insert phrase I think will magically make you legally responsible for all this if I can just trick you into saying it]." One evening when there were very few people there, though, he loomed up out of his chair, stomped towards me, and physically backed me into a corner. I took this as a threat of violent assault, though he never actually touched me. This was in the head office of a global manufacturing company, population several thousand.

Towards the end of my tenure there I began to feel unsafe walking from my desk to my car, as I thought it not impossible that my line manager might physically assault me. He didn't, though, perhaps because I enlisted a peer to accompany me, or perhaps because I was only meant to think I might be assaulted.

Finally, a department secretary who had been telling stories of suicidal ideation and domestic violence to anyone who would listen, exploded into my office and yelled at me and gesticulated in a way that made me think she might hit me, but she didn't. This was in an academic department of a half-dozen people.

This makes a total of exactly one assault and three implied threats of assault floating in a vast ocean of psychological mayhem. Really, I'm surprised I can't count many more. But white-collar workers tend to use words as weapons. In Manhunter, a homicide detective says to William Petersen: "I heard [Lecter] cut you pretty good," the obvious intent, and effect, is to reopen the wound a little. As in La Leçon "le couteau tue": the pupil is killed by the word knife.
posted by tel3path at 2:31 PM on November 23, 2010

Decades ago, in another life when I worked as a secretary right out of high school, my lawyer-boss angrily threw a pencil at me, which hit me. Why? I hadn't placed the pencils I'd sharpened for him all facing the same direction in his desk drawer. It was a horrible moment, in view of other people, and I just slunked back to my desk. Some months later that incident was still smoldering so much, I realized I was having the wrong life. So I hung a big U turn and commenced the much happier life I've had since then.
posted by Elsie at 2:52 PM on November 23, 2010

My husband had a bunch of paperwork thrown at him by his boss, who apologised afterwards.

i had a boss slap my arse, once. Pity I'd gone down the stairs like a sack of crap and had a bruise down that cheek from hip to thigh so his 'friendly' slap provoked a very unfriendly "OH FUCKING GOD WHAT THE FUCK" which meant it didn't happen again. That and he realised that slapping the arse of his friend's daughter was maybe not a great idea.

I also had a manager force me to clean toilets with my dominant arm in a cast with a tricky wrist break - I was a receptionist at that point. She also called me at home to scream at me for "destroying the company" because I was leaving to start back at uni and only wanted to work casual after that.

Neither of us stayed with those respective companies for long.
posted by geek anachronism at 2:59 PM on November 23, 2010

I've never had anyone hit me in the workplace. I did get "sweater-ed" in the face once by my sales manager.

I was working at a department store (hint: named after Canadian body of water) some years ago. A lady came in to return some sweaters. As per our return policy, she had her receipt, all the tags were still on, and it was within the time limit. So I refunded her money and folded up the sweaters to put back on the floor. My manager, who had been lurking nearby, saw this and flipped his shit. He started telling me I had violated some rule he made up for refusing refunds. When I told him he was wrong, he grabbed a sweater, shrieked, "Just SMELL this, it STINKS!!" and rubbed my face in it. I marched my little teenage butt straight up to the office to make a complaint to the store manager... who did nothing.

I've worked in many other retail positions, in kitchens, in bars, and in offices since, but nothing physical has happened again.
posted by keep it under cover at 3:02 PM on November 23, 2010

I had a male peer raise his fist as if to hit me (female) in the workplace when I was very young, about 19 or 20, many many years ago. Had I not had quick reflexes and gotten the heck out of there, he would have done so. And I would have been able to sue him for assault, because in the United States, that's what that would be considered. Because it's *against the law*, I doubt that it's commonly accepted practice. I've had a lot of jobs in my lifetime and have never seen anything like that except for that one incident.

However - if one is to believe this article, "homicide is the second leading cause of fatal occupational injury in the United States." You can get more specific numbers by searching "workplace assault statistics."
posted by chez shoes at 3:15 PM on November 23, 2010

At the biggest talent agency in town. Many years ago. The agent threw a desk phone at his female assistant, bruising her face. She was quietly paid off. The agent was not even disciplined - he was too valuable. I knew the agent socially, though I never worked with him directly. Some years later, the agent committed suicide (not connected to the phone-throwing incident). I've heard of similar (rare) instances of physical violence at talent agencies. So yes, this can happen in a non-blue collar environment, probably more often in the entertainment business.
posted by VikingSword at 3:21 PM on November 23, 2010

I'm 43, I've had a zillion jobs, ranging from the lowest-of-the-low temp labor jobs, to the much better paid-and-respected garbage man, all the way to white collar manager. I've never heard of a single incident of a boss actually physically assaulting anyone.

I actually shudder to think what I'd do to call down the fires of hell on anyone who dared that with me. There's really no limit to the legal actions I'd take, immediately. Everything in my power and in my lawyers' power to take out the a-hole immediately. Preferably with compensation to me, but regardless, the a-hole has to go.
posted by Invoke at 3:31 PM on November 23, 2010

Federal civil servant. A guy backhanded a secretary. He left. A female manager was this close to throwing a heavy book at me. She left.

Does shouting count? In your face, hand raised, finger at your eyeball, you up against the wall shouting? If so, then I've seen it (and stepped in) three times in 15 years.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 3:36 PM on November 23, 2010

I have a male friend who was offered the option of getting punched by his boss or having damages taken out of his paycheck. He chose the punch.
posted by Night_owl at 3:50 PM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

When I was 14 and working as a busboy, there were two waiters in their early 20s who liked to play practical jokes. I got a praying mantis.

Aside from that, I've never seen physical abuse in the workplace, nor heard of it in face-to-face conversation.
posted by hootenatty at 4:24 PM on November 23, 2010

I got a praying mantis.

What's a praying mantis?

I've seen some shoving matches and fistfights when I was working construction, and once a shouting match in an engineering office that included lots of offers to take it outside, but no acceptance.
posted by electroboy at 4:44 PM on November 23, 2010

I started my career at a Fortune 100 high-tech company as an R&D engineer in 1983.

There was a project manager who would punch his (male) engineers on the arm sometimes when they screwed up. I was told that he also made them do push-ups sometimes. It was kind of a joke and kind of not a joke. Somewhere in the late 80's HR found out and he was told not to do that anymore. His engineers made up a "request for managerial abuse" form in response -- I'm not sure whether they really resented this or took it as a big joke. In any case, I have seen/heard of a manager that physically hit his employees and kept his job -- not recently, but within my lifetime :).

At this same company, in the late 80's, I had a manager that got really mad at his team (which I was part of), called us in a conference area in our open cubicle environment, and shouted at us for about 20 minutes with some cussing too. I really was afraid he was going to haul off and hit the engineer who calmly told him he was full of s---, but he didn't -- he just stomped out of the area when he was done with his tirade. He did come back and apologize to us individually for his behavior.

At this same company in the same timeframe, one of the engineers on our project asked another engineer when it would be a good time to shut down the system (this was a time-shared system). The other engineer responded with a date 6 months in the future. So, the guy who needed to reboot the system went into the system room and re-booted. The other engineer walked down the hallway pounding his fist on the (metal) cubicle walls asking/shouting "Who the f--- shut down the f---ing system". The guy who shut down the system was a friend of mine and he told me he heard the guy coming and hid :).

It was definitely not a "kinder, gentler" workplace. :)
posted by elmay at 5:37 PM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

I had a supervisor shove me once when I was working in a fast food place. I was fairly new, she'd told me to go do something and apparently the split second it took me to respond was enough to enrage her. She shoved me in the shoulder and said "Go!" It wasn't hard enough to hurt me but it was aggressive and uncalled for.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 8:14 PM on November 23, 2010

Then again, just today, I had one of my new employees grab me by the shoulder, turn me to face her, and tell me she needed me to help her with something. I don't know if that counts but I was definitely offended.
posted by Night_owl at 8:20 PM on November 23, 2010

I got a praying mantis.

What's a praying mantis?


Was the bug put in your stuff or on things you were serving customers or is this slang for something else?
posted by brujita at 9:42 PM on November 23, 2010

Female, 30, nine jobs at least, NEVER seen or witness any kind of physical abuse at all. Can't believe that anybody else has!
posted by timoni at 12:27 AM on November 24, 2010

I am also sadly surprised how frequent this seems. I've been working since I was 14, but mainly in office jobs and have never ever seen any physical abuse at work.
posted by like_neon at 1:18 AM on November 24, 2010

Twelve years ago or so, I saw my boss lock a grad student in the mailroom with him, block the door, and scream at her for a good 20 minutes before the dean of students broke down the door. Cause: my boss disagreed with the student's interpretation of some point of the student's own research.

I quit before he could fire me some months later; dude had no control of his temper or his mouth, and I didn't want to get locked in the mailroom. I'm told he's reformed these days, however.

Any stories I could tell you from the entertainment industry are much like VikingSword's, and I'm not at liberty to discuss them in a public forum. Suffice to say that when you're making movies, people get thrown around.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 2:28 AM on November 24, 2010

a friend from New Zealand was slapped, open-handed on the face by his Japanese boss in Tokyo. He said it was not exactly common and he had never witnessed another example, but felt from the reactions around him that other co-workers found it unsurprising. Everyone except the boss was quite embarrassed and avoided talking about it.
posted by Wilder at 3:24 AM on November 24, 2010

I was bullied pretty badly 3 years ago by the owner of the company I used to work at. In addition to generally being an ass, he also liked to throw balls and other stuff at me because he knew that it scared me. One time when I was pulling out of the parking lot, he threw a ball at my windshield so hard that I was surprised it didn't crack. My husband went and had a talk with him after that, and I quit within the next few months.

Sadly, it wasn't until I got my current job with my awesome boss that I finally realized how fucked up the culture/environment was at my old job.
posted by Jacqueline at 4:02 AM on November 24, 2010

There's a boss at my workplace who had a restraining order against him for awhile for whacking one of his employees over the head with a rolled-up newspaper repeatedly, and he had to move to another floor to comply with it. I'm guessing he thought it was "funny", but the employee did not. They're back to working on the same floor.
posted by ldthomps at 8:07 AM on November 24, 2010

I had a boss who was trying to train a peer of mine on a new system sit there slapping his hands when he hit the wrong key in the same way you'd slap a kid for reaching for a hot stove. (If you're the kind of person who hits children.)

I said that she ought not to hit people and the boss said that I'd better watch out, she was coming over to my desk next. My peer said 'Yeah, but winna will hit back', to which I heartily agreed. She didn't slap at my hands as she taught me, which was good for both of us, because I would have certainly slapped back and got fired.

That is the only incident of which I'm aware in a large multinational white collar company.
posted by winna at 11:55 AM on November 24, 2010

Worked at a medical answering service (pre-cell phones, remember beepers?) run by a woman who did pretty much nothing but run this 24 hour answering service. She had maybe two employees and she slept in the back of the room. All the local doctors thought she was terrific. She had a habit of heaving phone books in anger. Heaved one in my direction but phone books are really hard to aim.
posted by Jezebella at 5:46 PM on November 24, 2010

I used to work in a bookstore where once, an odd and much-disliked assistant manager shoved one of the clerks. The clerk was a sweet, goofy, hardworking girl with whom nobody else in the store had ever had a problem, but this guy definitely had it out for her. I always wondered if it was some sort of icky, screwed-up crush on his part.

I figured that he'd be gone within 48 hours after the shoving incident, but he wasn't. Why they didn't fire his ass, I will never, ever know.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 1:11 AM on November 25, 2010

I know a construction guy who regularly beats up his subordinates. He thinks it's funny. He likes it most when they fight back, at which point he stops.
posted by unSane at 6:45 PM on November 27, 2010