# Story 1 — Are we normalising trauma at work?

- **Episode:** [204](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/204.md) (2025-06-10)
- **Type:** news-roundup
- **Tags:** trauma, workplace, normalizing
- **Time:** 3:17–14:01 (start 197s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/204?t=197](https://truthliesandwork.com/204?t=197)

---

[3:17] Al Elliott: It's going so well. Okay, Le, what have you seen this week?
[3:23] Leanne Elliott: Have you started the jingle? I didn't ask you to
[3:25] Al Elliott: Yes, the jingle started. The jingle has definitely started
[3:28] Leanne Elliott: What have I seen this week? Have you ever had a boss that was so bad it left you traumatised?
[3:32] Al Elliott: I haven't really had a boss since 2002, so not really, but I I have heard of other people
[3:39] Leanne Elliott: You've had a pretty bad boss though
[3:41] Al Elliott: Yes, I had a very bad boss. Yes, I remember particularly. I won't name that person, but yes
[3:46] Leanne Elliott: I've definitely had some bosses that have, yeah, left a feeling or two. But this is a question posed by Laura Lanier on LinkedIn. Laura is a product and content writer at Rabbet. Is that how you say it? Or Rabbet? I don't know. I'm assuming it's English. I think it's American. I think it's American. Rabbet, R-A-B-B-E-T. Um, the comments, Al. Oh my gosh, the comments. It was a scary place to be, that comment section, not gonna lie
[4:15] Al Elliott: So what did the post say?
[4:16] Leanne Elliott: So the post actually said word for word, have you ever had a boss so bad that it left you traumatized? Vent to me, I'm feeling salty. Um, which immediately grabbed my attention and many other people's attention too. Um, at the time of recording, this post has got 224 comments, 5 reposts, more than 200 Reactions. Um, so yeah, it's hitting a nerve. So I dived into the comments, had a look through. I have asked permission from the people who left these comments for me to share them, so I'm only going to read out the ones that have said, yeah, cool, don't worry. Um, there were some others that understandably didn't, didn't want to. It feels wrong to say these are my favourite given the subject matter, but they're the ones that made me go like jaw drop
[5:03] Al Elliott: Really?
[5:03] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, proper
[5:05] Al Elliott: Goodness me
[5:06] Leanne Elliott: So here, here are some of them, Al. Um, Catherine Boyd, who is a strategic marketing director, shared that she had a boss try to get her to join a cult he belonged to and withheld money from my paycheck to pay for the first meeting
[5:20] Al Elliott: Wow
[5:21] Leanne Elliott: The next one came from Katie Ryder, a data analyst. Katie said, I quit my— I quit after my boss walked in on me pumping. Breast milk pumping, not like humpy pumpy. Um, walked in on me breast pumping, um, and HR said it was my fault and I still had to report him. That was just the tipping point. I'm still traumatized and have flashbacks from working there. I'm slowly recovering with time
[5:45] Al Elliott: Hang on, so the boss walked in on this person pumping and HR said that they had— she had to report the boss?
[5:54] Leanne Elliott: Yes. So I actually messaged Katie about this and she, she actually shared a post about a year ago. Um, that said this: One year ago today, I survived a workplace trauma that shaped where I am today. I tell this story, people's jaws usually drop. I was in my private office of 9 years pumping when the door suddenly opened. My boss, CEO, barged in. Since he did not knock and ignored my pumping sign, he saw me with my shirt up, breasts out, pumps on exposed, and I had to yell at him to leave my office. After talking with HR, I sent in my statement along with some things he said during my pregnancy. Um, weeks passed. I was terrified to be at work, did not leave my office or my lab area. Mental health was declining along with my milk supply. Um, there's a whole post which I'll leave a link to. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's unbelievable, isn't it, that, that, yeah, that, that's her fault even though she had a sign up? Uh, another one came from Nick Power, who's possibly the most famous person on LinkedIn at the moment. Have you been pulled into the Nick Power universe?
[6:50] Al Elliott: No. Who's Nick Power?
[6:51] Leanne Elliott: Nick Power is some— well, he's, he's a marketer. Um, from America, and he's just somehow got like LinkedIn famous. Um, everyone follows him, tags him in posts. Um, it's like if you want to beat the algorithm, you tag Nick Power. Um, he doesn't like to use capital letters. So, um, it's a vibe. Anyway, Nick said, um, had a boss show me in a magazine the image of the sports car he was going to buy with all the money we made this quarter shortly before denying my request for a raise. I left 2 months later
[7:21] Al Elliott: Well, that was foolish, wasn't it? I think, yeah, we, I've, I've had a boss who was, um, way back in the day and he was like, right, okay, so we've got a brand new Range Rover. And then I had to do his accounts for him as well as personal accounts as well. He asked me to do that. Um, and I could see how much he paid for it. And then, then he complained. He, he also did this thing to me. He said, right, okay, you're a contractor, so you invoice me £500 for every sale I made. He said, are you VAT registered? I said, no. He says, all right, so we take off 17.5% of that and that's what I pay you because you're not VAT registered. I kept saying VAT stands for Value Added Tax, not value— it's not VDT, Value Deducted Tax. But yeah, and yes, I left shortly afterwards. And also they did a Radio 4 Expose, um, like documentary thing on him later on. So he was a bad man
[8:09] Leanne Elliott: Bad man with very, very bad ideas
[8:11] Al Elliott: Yes
[8:12] Leanne Elliott: Um, so yeah, that was Nick. Go and follow Nick. I'll go and, um, have a look and, and report back next week. Um, another one. Oh, this was, this was really shocking. Trivia Dali, um, strategic HR and talent lead. Not a boss, but I had a co-worker once call me a half-breed
[8:28] Al Elliott: What the hell's a half-breed?
[8:30] Leanne Elliott: It's to do with her race. She's mixed race
[8:33] Al Elliott: Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm not even gonna get into that one
[8:39] Leanne Elliott: Shocking. I again had a conversation, um, with Trivia about this, and she was saying that she's sat on it for like 6, 7 years because Um, she was an intern at the time, didn't feel that she could speak up, which I think is very, you know, a very common experience for young people. So yeah, awful. Um, another one came from Sharni Anderson, who is a chartered accountant. Um, she said, most of my former bosses were bullies. When I spoke up about pay disparities, one manager told me I was just a senior accountant. It didn't matter that I had over 20 years of experience, which included training and mentoring people, 3 certifications and 2 degrees, and I spent 2 years as an interim director For a client in that company. I walked away from corporate last year to start my own bookkeeping business. Now I have an amazing boss
[9:25] Al Elliott: Which is her. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very good. Bookkeeping always makes me chuckle because it always makes me think of someone who keeps books, like beekeeping and bookkeeping. They're just not the same idea anyway
[9:36] Leanne Elliott: Ah, like a librarian should be called a bookkeeper
[9:38] Al Elliott: Exactly. Exactly. That's what I keep thinking, but it's not the same thing at all. And also, is it 2 Ks? Is it bookkeeping or bookkeeping? Anyway, questions for another day
[9:47] Leanne Elliott: Another day
[9:49] Al Elliott: Do you see any more?
[9:50] Leanne Elliott: I did. Um, this one actually came from Mile Živković, um, who is in Belgrade
[9:55] Al Elliott: Oh, hello
[9:57] Leanne Elliott: I know. SEO and content leader for SaaS brands. Um, this was awful. Um, so he said, my wife was having lung problems and I had to drive to see a— drive her to see a doctor. Asked my manager to leave our one-to-one meeting early. All I got was, I'm sure there are taxis available where you live
[10:15] Al Elliott: Ooh, that's not cool
[10:18] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. Um, also had a little chat with, um, me there. He said, he told me that if, um, if I wanted to add some more details, that manager made his life a living hell. Everyone was afraid to report him. Took them almost 3 years to fire him, long after I was gone
[10:33] Al Elliott: Just goes to show, right? Leanne's always said people don't leave organisations, they leave managers. And so if you've got a bad manager, look at the damage they are doing. Anyway, that's again a different story for a different day. Soapbox dismounted. Anything else? Any, any other comments?
[10:48] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, we had, um, Jacqueline, content marketer. Um, I worked under a CMO, chief marketing officer, who decided she didn't like me for no real reason, which was confirmed by my direct manager. She was rude and condescending, and she once told one of my very busy and productive coworkers She didn't know what the coworker did for 8 hours a day. It was like Mean Girls, the workplace
[11:10] Al Elliott: That's the film, the movie
[11:12] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[11:13] Al Elliott: Yeah
[11:14] Leanne Elliott: Oh, honestly, some of— there were so many. I was really, really sad making— I'll share a couple more. We had Joshua, who is an amateur DB architect, airman, author, said, I had groin surgery. They made me wear a catheter to the office
[11:32] Al Elliott: Ooh, I'm a bit squeamish about that kind of thing, so I don't want to go too much into that one
[11:37] Leanne Elliott: It's like, give, give the guy some days to recover
[11:40] Al Elliott: Come on
[11:41] Leanne Elliott: Goodness me
[11:43] Al Elliott: Um, how vital is the architect business? Is it like, you need to come in and finish this drafting, otherwise the hospital is not going to get built?
[11:50] Leanne Elliott: Uh, and one more— there's absolute loads, but I'll show one more. Nicoletta, who's a life coach, um, she said, I once had a boss That after I was passed on a promotion and I reached out for feedback and improvement tips for 4 months, gave me only one piece of feedback. Maybe you'll want to have a baby anyway
[12:07] Al Elliott: Ooh, was this 1965, was it?
[12:12] Leanne Elliott: You'd think so, wouldn't you? You'd think so. Um, so yeah, shocking, shocking stories there, and I'm sure there's loads more that people have to share, but for whatever reason don't want to do it on a public platform. What's so silly is that Everyone's going, oh yeah, I've had a bad manager, but very few people are probably going to admit that they used to be the bad manager or they are the bad manager. I think, you know, some of these stories are really horrific. I mean, the half-breed comment, completely unacceptable. Um, the catheter in the office, they're maybe gonna have a baby anyway. That's like, you know, really bad discriminatory, um, things coming from managers. But there was one that maybe kind of, it kind of put into context for me how we might be normalising the behaviours. These behaviours just aren't okay. This one came from Cassidy Grigg, who's a copywriter and content strategist. She said, so you know when you do like the me/they kind of things, like scripts. So she said, Mm-hmm. Me, hey, I've been handling our manager's workload since they quit. Can I get paid more for the extra work/stroke hours I've been contributing? Boss, laughs, we don't do that here. Oh, and I just thought that summed up perfectly how many of us engage in, in what's called hope work, um, that we hope that we're going to get something from it if we're not getting, um, that financial gain in the moment. I just think it's things like this that are really adding the pressure on people, um, financially, um, professionally, psychologically. It's, it's a bit of fun and it's a bit of a laugh and it's a bit like, wow, oh my gosh, and it makes us feel great that we're in it together, but really I'd prefer it that we didn't have to be in it together
[13:46] Al Elliott: You know, absolutely, absolutely
[13:49] Leanne Elliott: Anyway, so thank you very much to Laura. I did ask as well her permission to share that, um, post. I'll leave a link to the original post in the show notes. Go follow Laura, she puts some really great stuff on, on LinkedIn. Al, what have you seen this week?