We are residing in a time of unprecedented modify. And this implies that each and every of us is also faced with unprecedented opportunity.

The dictionary defines unparalleled as “devoid of past occasion hardly ever in advance of recognised or knowledgeable unparalleled.” Our present-day expertise – a collective swimming in unchartered waters – was introduced about as technological enhancements, which keep on to take place at lightning pace, satisfied and coupled with the new financial system. On top of that, for a lot of business owners, business unique elements may well also be at engage in.

I have been chatting to enterprise house owners about these unprecedented moments and I am getting that smart entrepreneurs know that keeping their eyes open up to the rising tendencies in our society, our communities, and our industries is essential. In fact, this is the great time to inquire ourselves what unprecedented modifications and chances are facing me and my business. Here is how some smart and savvy professionals answered this dilemma. As anyone fascinated with the idea of rising traits, I would adore to listen to your solution.

Dr. Ralph Bourjolly is a nearby Optometric Physician. Dr. Ralph saw an unparalleled possibility when a technological advancement permitted him to include a electronic digicam that usually takes pictures of a patient’s retina, into his apply. He is now capable to take distinct pics of a retina without having dilating the patient’s eyes and e mail the photos to a retina expert, conserving time and elevating the standard of care.

Jay Ghanem, of Vehicle Tech and System in Pompano Beach, Florida is an entrepreneur with a exclusive capacity to sense field alterations and chances. Jay is currently working on means to power cars and trucks with squander cooking oil. And, he not too long ago grew to become a distributor of Xenon headlights. These lights can be installed in any auto, cutting down strength usage even though appreciably bettering visibility.

Massage therapist Marie-Josee Berard of the Infant Massage Institute claims that an rising trend in her industry is using massage for the duration of pregnancy to steer clear of colic and other widespread problems. Astonishingly, Marie-Josee is able to use massage to help mothers get treatment of their infants when the infants are nonetheless in the womb.

Michael J. Maynes is a Money Advisor and Certified Monetary Planner with Ameriprise Economical. According to Mike, “the monetary companies marketplace is going by way of a pruning method and this development will in all probability proceed so that broker dealers with inadequate balance sheets and large possibility portfolios will be acquired and stronger firms with a lot less financial debt and decreased portfolio risk will attain market place share.” Mike has located that the existing financial mess has caused his purpose to evolve so that he has turn out to be more of a helper, helping folks in establishing or revising their budgets and taking care of their funds following a layoff.

The bottom line is this. If you are a dentist, you have to have to be using electronic x-rays. If you are a psychotherapist, you have to have to grow your software box outside of Woody Allen design and style prolonged-time period remedy. It really is that basic. Those people who are in a position to flip their challenges into chances will weather the financial storm.

In pinpointing how to divide house in Illinois divorce conditions, judges are directed by 750 ILCS 5/503(d), which sets forth a quantity of factors that have an impact on how marital house may well be distributed. The second of these elements that the Courtroom may look at is the dissipation of marital assets by possibly social gathering. “Dissipation” has been defined by Illinois appellate courts as the use of marital assets for the sole advantage of just one of the spouses for a goal unrelated to the marriage at a time that the relationship is undergoing an irreconcilable breakdown. One particular prevalent form of dissipation is spending marital property on a new girlfriend or boyfriend even though nevertheless married.

In the past, dissipation promises in Illinois were being normally made use of as a type of leverage to achieve a more favorable settlement arrangement. As a divorce scenario came to trial several divorce lawyers would present a variety of claims of dissipation as a strategy of growing their promises to the marital estate. This form of litigation had the influence of making an great amount of do the job for every single aspect in the days and months just before the trial. Typically situations the dollar sum of the claimed dissipation would be dwarfed by the lawful fees essential to protect against the claims.

Fortuitously the Illinois legislature recently amended the statute governing property distribution (750 ILCS 5/503) with regard to the earning of dissipation claims. There are now unique specifications and deadlines that have to be fulfilled in order to make a dissipation claim. Part 503(d)(2) of the Illinois Relationship and Dissolution of Marriage Act now delivers as follows:

(2) the dissipation by each and every social gathering of the marital or non-marital residence, provided that a party’s declare of dissipation is subject matter to the following ailments:

(i) a notice of intent to declare dissipation shall be provided no later than 60 days just before demo or 30 times following discovery closes, whichever is afterwards

(ii) the recognize of intent to declare dissipation shall incorporate, at a minimum, a day or period of time in the course of which the marriage commenced going through an irretrievable breakdown, an identification of the house dissipated, and a date or period of time of time through which the dissipation transpired

(iii) the recognize of intent to assert dissipation shall be filed with the clerk of the court docket and be served pursuant to applicable policies

(iv) no dissipation shall be considered to have transpired prior to 5 many years in advance of the submitting of the petition for dissolution of relationship, or 3 many years right after the celebration declaring dissipation understood or really should have known of the dissipation

Considering that the modification of the statute, Illinois lawyers and events arranging to make a dissipation declare now have a deadline by which they ought to provide a notice of intent to declare dissipation as opposed to waiting until eventually the working day of trial. The discover ought to also give a description of the residence dissipated, when the marriage broke down, when the property was dissipated and it will have to be submitted with the Court. Finally, no party may well make a claim of dissipation that transpired much more than 5 yrs prior to the divorce filing or a few decades just after the claimed dissipation.

The new statute will ideally close the “demo by ambush” system of building dissipation statements though even now permitting for reputable dissipation promises to be brought before the trial courts. There are in simple fact a lot of authentic dissipation statements that ought to be brought just before the court. It is, hence, significant that your Illinois divorce attorney be aware of the amended statute and the specialized methods by which a dissipation declare have to be made.

When grownups make issues or terrible selections, it usually appears to be the kids who experience the most. This is primarily correct in conditions the place couples with kids make your mind up that their everyday living alongside one another is unbearable and cannot be fastened, leaving divorce as the only solution.

With or without having young children, divorce is a complicated choice. When there are small children involved, items grow to be even extra tough. Mothers and fathers have a duty to ease the strain and disruption divorce has on the lives of their youngsters.

In the center of a divorce, young children will go as a result of a large amount of different thoughts. They will be whole of anger towards the scenario, toward on their own, and toward their dad and mom. More youthful little ones of mothers and fathers associated in a divorce often experience they are to blame. When mothers and fathers will be enduring their very own psychological chaos, they will have to do the job to guarantee that the young children realize it is not their fault.

Young children will encounter thoughts of disappointment and grief, as effectively as a sense of reduction. They are normally perplexed and anxious about wherever they will stay. They may possibly be anxious that they will unfastened their pals, as very well as their family and dwelling. A gradual decrease in their potential to concentrate frequently has an effect on schoolwork and grades.

Boys and women react in another way to the affect of a divorce. Boys act out in external techniques by preventing, resulting in commotions, and refusing to sit even now for any duration of time. Material abuse is much additional common amid boys than ladies. Anxiousness, depression, turning into withdrawn, and internalizing unfavorable feelings are attributes witnessed much more usually in girls. Early initiations into sexual activity, together with promiscuity are far more common among women who are inclined to internalize their thoughts.

Mothers and fathers should perform with each other to deliver really like and assistance for their children, regardless of their individual individual conflicts. It is really a great idea for the custodial mum or dad to encourage regular visitation with the non-custodial guardian, barring any legitimate dread that hurt could arrive to the baby. This is very significant in the starting of a separation. Experiments display that, when access has been confined in the preliminary levels of separation, parental involvement declines.

Little ones ought to be handled with really like and respect and not applied as pawns among moms and dads. How parents perform themselves throughout the divorce proceedings will have a immediate result on their child’s potential to type by means of romance troubles as an grownup.

Experiments show that, if there has been a excellent deal of conflict in the relatives, some young children will actually be relieved by the separation or divorce. It could come as a shock, but the youngsters who are most devastated by divorce are individuals whose mothers and fathers make your mind up to divorce when there has not been substantial amounts of conflict in the household. These marriages without having noticeable conflicts have the very best probability of remaining fixed with experienced counseling.

Dad and mom ought to check out to reduce the conflict and discord in the authorized process of the divorce as much as they can to lessen its effect on their kids. Look for an legal professional specializing in spouse and children legislation who will defend your interests and guide you in a well timed and truthful divorce continuing.

How many times have you approached a business, organisation, institution or a government department and been shuffled around by the people who work there, and come out at the other end of the experience no better off than when you commenced? You did not receive answers. You did not achieve any results. You did not find anyone remotely interested in your problem. You felt as if you had wasted your time. How many times have you been dealt with by a whole load of bureaucratic faceless people who in your opinion should not be working there? And when you complained you were met with, “I am only obeying the rules!” or “I’m only doing my job!”

I have been on the end of this so many times that it is heart breaking, and my conclusion is that it is is Organisational and Institutional Bullying, and it s just as harmful as one-to-one bullying, and takes on an almost identical form as one-to-one bullying. The only difference between one-to-one bullying and organisational bullying is that the people who participate in organisational bullying are mostly innocent – and I will explain this shortly..

Traditionally, bullying is generally associated with one person bullying another, and most of us will have experienced or viewed the activities of the schoolboy or schoolgirl bully when we were at school. As we grew older, most of us have also seen bullies in the workplace. The boss who throws his or her weight around unnecessarily and places unreasonable demands on employees, or the peer group bully exerting power over others through fear or threats. Most of us have also viewed overt bullying behaviour in sport.

In recent years, bullying behaviour has come out of the closet and exposed bullies for what they really are: pathetic cowards who get their thrills from exerting power over others. The only reason that bullying came out of the closet was the eventual realisation in the late 1990s that bullying is mostly a lot of small bullying events each of which, in their own right, are fairly insignificant but when spread over a medium to long period of time, becomes unbearable for the victim. Bullying is a bit like the war time Chinese water torture, where drops of water are slowly dripped onto a person’s hands. Each drop, of course, is insignificant, but after three days and ten thousand drops later on the same area of skin, the pain is unbearable – and it has been said that this type of torture is many times more effective than most other tortures. Organisational Bullying is like that – small insignificant power-exerting incidents over a long period of frame. (A long period could be three hours, by the way, if your problem should have been solvable in 3 minutes.)

I looked up the word bullying:-

Wordnet

bullying(n.) The act of intimidating a weaker person to make them do something

bullying(adj.) Noisily domineering : tending to browbeat others

bullying(v.) Be bossy towards : “Her big brother always bullied her when she was young”

Webster Dictionary

Bullying: To treat abusively: to affect by means of force or coercion

Wikipedia

Bullying is the act of intentionally causing harm to others, through verbal harassment, physical assault, or other more subtle methods of coercion such as manipulation. …

They are all correct, but they all lack certain components.

Firstly, some of the definitions talk about a bullying person, whereas I will prove to you that bullying can be from a small, medium or large group of faceless people, i.e. an institution.

Secondly the Wikipedia definition states “the act of intentionally” and I will also prove that in organisation bullying bureaucracies, there is often no overt intention – it is the accumulation of many insignificant and sometimes innocent acts such as pushing people from one person to the next, and then the next and so on, that, as a whole, forms the bullying.

Thirdly, the Webster dictionary mentions force or coercion. I will prove that bullying frequently arises from exactly the opposite – apathy, inefficiency and a complete lack of any force from any specific individual. What is lacking here is the recognition that a group of innocent individuals can bully people through the cumulative effect of their innocent actions.

Underneath the skin of organisational and institutional bureaucratic behaviour is a vast ocean of bullying behaviour so insidious and obvious that we’ve all missed it. There’s an elephant in the room – we all know it’s there, but no-one wants to talk about it. It is a bit like the Emperor with no clothes story. This article aims to expose the truth and reality.

Many of the people within a bullying organisation are innocent as individuals, but horrifically guilty when added to the behaviour of the institution in general. For example, let us say that you, the reader, are shuffled around by twelve different people today, from one to the other, and then you do not obtain a solution to your issue and in fact do not even take one step forward. The reality is that you have experienced twelve totally innocent people just ‘doing their job’ within their institution, whilst you, the receiver of their work and their decisions feels after three hours of getting absolutely nowhere, that you have undergone the Chinese water torture and feel like pulling your hair out? This surely is a form of bullying which could be averted had people in the bullying organisation been trained in providing different options.

Think about the last time you telephoned a company and you were met with an automatic answering machine that provides you with a three minutes spiel about the various options you have, none of which apply to you so you have to wait until the message is over before pressing the “other queries” number. Then after waiting around another ten minutes, you eventually get through to someone who tells you that you actually need to be speaking with someone else – not them. So they put you through to someone else. But the phone goes dead. So you redial the first number. This time, you choose a different option and are put on hold for five minutes. When you get eventually get through, the person is unhelpful and suggests you call yet another external number. You ring this new number, only to find a recorded message that tells you that all contact must be made through their web site. And so it goes on.

Make no mistake – this is bullying behaviour, except that in an institution the people will mostly always remain faceless, blameless, and in many cases even innocent as individuals within the institution. We have all experienced scenarios like this on a regular daily basis.

Let me give you another example. I got married in 2005 and, as usual in such circumstances, my new wife adopted my surname. We changed her surname on our joint bank account whereas prior to this it had been a joint account in two separate surnames. Nothing wrong with any of this – this is what millions of people must do every year. However, I also had an account with an online company attached to a well known auction web site who legitimately sucks money out of our joint account when we need to pay for purchases. The computer system of this online institution saw the name change on our joint bank account and immediately placed an alert on our joint account and suspended it. With a bit of wild imagination, I guess you could say that this action might have been reasonable. What followed, though, was horrific and took dozens of emails, numerous heated telephone exchanges, no apologies on their part at all, and several weeks to get it all sorted out. Meanwhile, I had done nothing wrong except get married. I felt like my wife and I were the only people on the planet to have got married. My feelings were no different to those of a victim of bullying, and so I consider I was bullied.

One of my worst nightmares, which has been going on for around six years and is still unresolved, is with an Australian bank where I have had a bank account since the 1970s. (I spent 27 years in Australia, by the way.) Around six years ago, I used to send payments in cash to pay my credit card through the mail to them from the UK and did this for several years. The payments were only around £20, so I figured I would risk it in the mail rather than have to tackle an international bank draft every month which incurs fees of around £7. One day, however, someone in their Melbourne HQ decided they didn’t like me sending cash, and particularly English cash, so they wrote to me to ask me to find a different method. At the same time, they suspended my account due to late payment, which of course was not true because they were holding the cash in their hands. The account has been suspended for over six years now, as I have chosen to use other banks. About three months ago, after receiving statements with a credit balance by the way for all these years, I decided to call the bank from the UK because I thought it was time I followed this up. I was told in no uncertain terms, “We cannot discuss this issue with you because you don’t have an account with us,” despite the fact that I still receive a regular monthly bank statement even today which shows I am in credit with them. I have done absolutely nothing wrong, but the bureaucratic bullying has led them to believe that they are the angels and I am the demon when in fact the opposite is true.

By the way, I have a stack of other similar stories about erroneous stupid decisions made by several UK banks that I have experienced, so it does not surprise me at all that banks are now crumbling. When someone invents an alternative to banks to store my money, then I will be first in the queue.

Why Organisational Institutional Bullying occurs even though individuals within these places are mostly innocent.

Essentially, it is important to recognise that a great many people in hierarchical bureaucracies are incompetent at the jobs they hold down. This is not a theory. It is a fact. You might have suspected it and here’s how I know.

In 1970s, a man called Dr Lawrence Peter wrote a book called The Peter Principle. At that time, it was a world best seller and still is today. Many older readers may have heard of it. The main theme of the book is that everyone in a hierarchy always gets promoted to the level of incompetence. It tells of how people who commence with an organisation and who perform their job well get themselves promoted. In the new position, they perform well again and get themselves promoted again. This is replicated up the promotional ladder until one day, they get promoted to a position they can’t do, and that’s where they stay, are shuffled sideways or they are fired.

Another route up the same hierarchical ladder in government is promotion by length of service, where it is not a concern whether someone can do a job well, it is reward for how many years they have given, so they end up doing something they are incompetent at.

The sad thing about the Peter Principle is that it is very real. As humans, we are basically lazy. We will refuse to see the truth. Ironically, the people above the person who is incompetent are often also at their levels of incompetence too, so instead of dealing with the reality of what is occurring or having the guts to do something about it when they do see what is happening below them, they leave people to do jobs they cannot do, or they timidly shuffle them sideways into other jobs that they also cannot do, but where harm to others is reduced.

We all have experiences of people who are obviously doing a job they should not be doing particularly in government. Sadly, I suspect that there are significant numbers of people working in government who are incompetent at what they do because they have risen to their personal level of incompetence. However, public and private companies are also full of incompetent people hiding behind a shield of competency and pretending to be competent when in fact they are simply hoping that they will never be found out. I have known a lot of people like this. Of course, they are never going to admit it, but you can easily see them when it comes to making business decisions.

It always reminds me of the story of two business men arguing. One is quite old, the other quite young. They argue for a while, and then the older man says: “Listen here! I’ve done this job for 25 years, so you cannot tell me anything.” The younger man ponders this for a moment and then says: “Are you sure that you have not simply done the job for one year and then repeated it twenty five times?” Oh, what a telling little story!

Work hierarchies are full of people who do not do a very good job, and those that do rarely stick around very long. I do, of course, recognise and respect the argument for the poor employee who plods on year after year doing a good job. But I think the Peter Principle is correct and that many people, particularly in government departments, hold jobs they are incompetent at.

I have mentioned this because I believe the latter is the seed of bureaucratic bullying.

The Cyclical Nature of Organisational Bullying

Organisational bullying nearly always follows the same pattern. The bully (the organisation) rarely makes BIG overt moves. Instead they wear people down with SMALL covert moves which no-one else sees or recognises as a danger:-

1. The bullying behaviour might take place over hours, days, week, months and even years.

2. Eventually the victim will file a complaint with someone, usually the manager of the department.

3. The manager interviews the people in the organisation accused of bullying behaviour. The ‘bullies’ (which are usually innocent individually, but guilty as a group) show that they have simply followed rules and procedure and will often use deceptive charm to persuade the interviewer they have not done anything wrong.

4. The manager is faced with his whole team’s word against a single solitary individual, usually with no witnesses and no specific evidence, so he/she will always take the word of his/her staff.

5. The Manager is then hoodwinked into either getting rid of the victim in order to further protect the bullying environment, or demeaning the victim and making them think that everything was the victims fault. Once gone, the manager sighs with relief and forgets the whole incident.

6. With the victim now gone, new victims are selected and the process simply gets repeated over and over ad infinitum. That is when you make a negative comment to someone about a particular institution, and they say “Yes, I’ve heard similar stories form many others.”

Organisational bullying is obsessive compulsive behaviour by mostly innocent (and often incompetent) people who do not realise that their collective behaviour represents bullying. Worse still, employers often recognise much later after complaints have been raised that they did indeed promote a type of bullying behaviour, but unlikely to ever admit it because to do so would incur liability for not properly investigating previous complaints. The organisational bullying syndrome wins yet again.

Over 40 Indicators of Organisational Institutional Bullying

Of interest is that these are also the kinds of words used to indicate a one-to-one bullying:-

1. When you experience an organisation’s excessive control with a minimum of effective help, or the help they do provide is useless or inappropriate. They exert unnecessary, unreasonable and controlling behaviour on you. They possess an overwhelming desire to apply the rules and control you and fit you into one of their boxes. If you do not fit into a box, you are treated with apathy, disdain and disinterest.
2. When you are not allowed to argue or complain. Workers in a bullying organisation can keep you waiting for hours and send you through twenty different people. They can take weeks to process something that should take minutes. They can bully you in ways you never imagined and cause you such frustration that wrist-slitting may seem like a good way out. If you try to make a point about their lack of service, you will be pounced upon. Signs such as: “we will not tolerate bad behaviour” are springing up all over the place. (I have often mused about whether I should get a sign made up which I carry around that says “I will not tolerate inefficiency.”) Of course, they will tell you that there is a procedure for complaining, but when you read it, it seems as if that, too, could well be a futile exercise.
3. When you hear: “I’m only doing my job!” This is the trump card played by all bullying organisations. Another one is “I’m sorry, but I am not authorised to do that!” and then they refuse to let you speak with anyone that is authorised.
4. When they insist that everyone must conduct themselves within the rules whilst it is obvious to everyone that the rules are silly and need changing.
5. When you feel you are being harassed continually and getting nowhere. However, the harassment is not clear because they use matters so small that each individual issue in its own right would appear insignificant if taken in isolation. Of course, the bullying institution knows this, so to actually catch an organisational bully, you need to monitor and record the frequency and regularity of the numerous small issues as they build over time into a bigger picture.
6. When they jump on you when you put a foot wrong, or when you make the observation that you were not getting anywhere with them. Instead of looking outwards to see how they could solve your problem, they look inwards and become defensive. They refuse to be questioned or called to account. All managers hide behind unseen doors.
7. When they show absolutely no remorse. It is almost as if they are robots without a conscience. They will blame the system as a way of avoiding responsibility for their own behaviour and the effect it has on others.
8. When they use charm as deception to compensate for their total lack of empathy. They can easily appear plausible and convincing when peers and superiors are around.
9. When they nit-pick on the smallest things you might have unwittingly done wrong such as failing to tick a particular box.
10. When they patronise, demean and belittle you in front of others without any conscience or recognition that they are embarrassing you.
11. They will provide unreasonable requests for paperwork or information that is irrelevant to the issue at hand.
12. When you see the bullying cycle occurring. With the staff in a bullying organisation, it’s all about survival – they either have to adopt bullying tactics or lose their job. Those who stand up against bullying will be victimised so much that they suffer severe health problems such as stress, breakdowns, and made into a scapegoat for others. If illness does not get them, redundancy, early retirement or unfair dismissal faces them.
13. When they don’t stop at just YOU. If you feel you are being bullied by an organisation, then you probably are. With a bit of research, it is likely you will find many others experiencing what you have been experiencing with the same organisation.
14. When they place you under extreme deadlines to produce information or documents and threaten you that your case will die if you don’t meet the deadlines.
15. When you work for a bullying organisation and they coerce you to leave through threats and other abusive behaviour. If this does not work, they will find other means such as constructive dismissal (which is illegal), early retirement, restructuring, or accusations of ill-health, in fact anything that gets rid of you victim so they can start over again and abuse others.
16. When they call you at inappropriate times such as 8pm in the evening, particularly if it might benefit them financially, but they are not available to be called at that time.
17. When you experience total lack of compassion. Compassion is something they do not understand, and instead throw the rule book at you.
18. When you have great difficulty gaining the attention of a more senior person. Smokescreens start to appear and you will be made to feel unworthy of speaking to anyone more senior than the person facing you right now.
19. When you are made to feel guilty about yourself, and where they use psychological and emotive techniques so that you truly believe that you are at fault – and not the organisation.
20. When they demonstrate a need to compulsively criticise whilst simultaneously refusing to praise you.
21. When they have an overwhelming and unhealthy narcissistic need to grab public attention where possible and to portray the organisation as a wonderful and kind caring institution.. They are almost always totally oblivious to the real discrepancy between how they like to be seen and how they are actually seen.
22. When you hear their overbearing belief in their own qualities of service which is simply not evident to you.
23. When they are in constant denial about their own behaviour and everything around them. They abdicate responsibility and attempt to distract victims by using false styles of conciliation.
24. When they refuse to answer your questions and fabricate without conscience. (I have lost count of the occasions when I was told that something could not be done because of the Data Protection Act – and when I rang the Data Protection Department in London, I found that it was simply untrue.) The purpose here is to avoid answering questions and thus avoiding responsibility for their behaviour.
25. When they pretend to care about you and will purposely allow you the privilege of giving a long explanation to prove that they are indeed bullies, but when the lengthy explanation is complete, everyone has forgotten the original question and what is left is made out to be trivial. Again, the purpose here is to avoid responsibility for their own behaviour.
26. When the situation reminds you of the condition Autism, where the people inside the organisation possess few skills of empathy, and fail to see things from another point of view. Instead, they rely on systems, procedures, habit, mimicry and the like to hide their lack of being able to help you.
27. When you perceive their paranoia. They can perceive non-existent hidden meanings and threats in even the most benign remarks you make, or any situations or events. They frequently perceive that you are attacking them when you are not, and will counter-attack in a peaceful but aggressive manner without realising that there never was anything to attack in the first place.
28. When they are totally unforgiving of slightsagainst the organisation’s character or behaviour and will fight irrationally to receive apologies. They may even demonstrate an arrogance that borders on contempt.
29. When you see a rule-ridden organisation filled with procedures which does not promote free-thinking. Staff dare not get too involved in dealing with your problem in-depth because it might expose their own inadequacies and ineptitude.
30. When you experience bullying organisations being oblivious to their own behaviour. Even if you could prove that their behaviour was unacceptable, they would fight tooth and nail to defend their position. They simply cannot see things from another perspective. Most people who try to expose an organisation as a bully, lose!
31. When you experience their superiority complex. They honestly believe they are better than you, and that you should go and sit in the corner like a child.
32. When you experience dysfunctional and inefficient staff not doing what they get paid to do. (or in some cases doing things they shouldn’t be doing. Is it right for cashiers in a Post Office to be made to blatantly sell credit cards and insurance?) The bullying organisation promotes divisiveness and disruption wherever possible, but always in the name of something positive such as increased efficiency. Bullying organisations see their self-image as ‘tough managers’ but in the very game of establishing their ‘toughness’ they alienate most of their staff and customers.
33. When you see tunnel vision. They may not remember something they did or said a few hours ago, but they are always able to remember and dig up your faults from years ago.
34. When you see a bullying organisation living in a bubble of their own self-importance. When challenged, for their survival, they will actually believe what comes out of their mouths. That is why it is hard to challenge organisational and institutional bullying behaviour.
35. When you experience little in the way of communication skills, interpersonal skills or social skills. Instead, the organisation chooses to shuffle you around and hope you will go away so that they can get on with their perceived REAL job.
36. When it is obvious that the senior managers have no idea of what is going on at the customer interface. For some managers, it might have been decades since they faced a customer eye-to-eye in a completely different technological era. If they did, they would surely change things. Instead, they survive in their ivory towers protected by their own perceived importance and their minions below who will act as gatekeepers so that the truth doesn’t ever get to the top.
37. When they make mountains out of molehills, and will make a big fuss over small trivial matters whilst totally ignoring important or urgent things (such as your problems.)
38. When you experience a total lack of empathy. Bullying organisations do not know the meaning of empathy. Any attempts at empathy are superficial and amateur and based upon mimicry rather than genuine concern for your problems.
39. When you have difficulty extracting an apology from them for their mistakes. Bullying organisations rarely your probvlems.sations do not know the meaning of molehills. and customer eye-to-eye.eir ivory towers protected by their minionapologise for their mistakes, and any apology is insincere, hollow, artificial and usually inappropriate, but sadly often convincing to peers, superiors and the outside world.
40. When you experience them portraying themselves as disarmingly pleasant when another victim is unmasking them in front of you. Bullies are artistes at making themselves appear anything but a bullying type.
41. When you experience no sense of humour. Any attempts at humour on their part will usually be shallow, flat and superficial.
42. When you experience few listening skills and when they ignore you and overrule you. They only know the rules and frankly, they don’t care about your situation. Talking to people in a bullying organisation can be like talking to a brick wall.
43. When you experience a cruel and sadistic nature. (Rather than admit that they have a potentially deadly problem with their vehicles, many car makers have often denied problems exist and will, instead, force their customers into expensive solutions just to bully people into spending even more money for their inefficiency)
44. When you see a Bullying organisation diverting attention away from themselves when faced with problematic situations. They will fiercely point their fingers at others, make false allegations, lie, cheat, cover-up and do anything which takes people’s attention away from their own inadequacies. (e.g. software people will blame the hardware people. When you ring the hardware people, they blame the software people.)
45. When you see a bullying organisation playing the ‘health game’ by claiming that the victim is “mentally unstable” or “mentally ill” or has some other mental health psychiatric problem. Sadly, what is being said is often a reflection of the organisation’s own ‘mental health.’
46. When mediation and conciliation simply doesn’t work with a bullying organisation. Bullying organisations see mediation as some sort of appeasement, which they take as a green light to carry on as before. Mediation provides the bullying organisation with the public impression that the they (the bullying organisation) are negotiating and being conciliatory, whilst continuing to bully their victims in private.

In the UK legislation was passed in 1997 that states that bullying, which they define as verbal intimidation rather than physical violence, now constitutes common assault and is now a criminal offence. Bullies are running scared. They are now being found out. They are seeking a hiding place – and guess what? The perfect hiding place is in a large organisation or institution where they may not be able to practice their bullying behaviour on peers and colleagues any more because we all recognise individual bullies today, but they can certainly construct situations to bully customers indirectly using innocent co-workers.

Bullying behaviour by organisations now needs bringing to account. It should be as illegal as one-to-one bullying. Too many organisations, institutions and government departments have got away with it for far too long because most people have not recognised the huge elephant in the room. There are quite a few large organisations and institutions out there practicing bullying behaviour – and they need to cease or be brought to their knees. Then it will be a happy day for many of us who will punch the air with a big “Yes!”

Copyright John Edmonds 2009

Aspect A single of Six

Program introduction

As a psychic, medium and certified holistic healer, I generally give assistance to those seeking a way of clearing anxiety and ‘back luck’ philosophies out of their life. Regaining an optimistic, quiet intellect is by considerably the most beneficial way to fight these kinds of patterns of contemplating, which is probable to obtain with intent that can be shipped by means of the practise of meditation. There are other explanations why folks decide on to meditate, it can be as straightforward as seeking ‘time out’ to much more elaborate factors this sort of as attaining non secular pinnacles. Men and women also harvest the wellness advantages that come from meditation, such as lowering blood force. However, there is nonetheless a large anecdote which implies that meditation belongs only in Tibetan monasteries with mantra humming monks sitting in unusual positions. It can be legitimate, that is where by meditation derives from, but the modern-day planet has lastly grasped the idea that we are much more than intellect and overall body, we are also spirit. Meditation has a whole lot to offer us in this frequently frenzied and demanding environment of these days and luckily, culture is far more accepting of practises this sort of as meditation. We see proof of this via the lots of classes’ like yoga and tai chi which are much more regularly taught and learnt. Equally of all those relaxation procedures are a variety of going meditation, which is as its name indicates, is meditation that calls for bodily movement. Several of us have read of meditation of one variety or a further, still nonetheless have no notion what is actually definitely concerned or how it can presumably assist and it is mainly because of people people today that I’ve compiled this information. So let’s begin at the starting by answering your concern of “Why need to I meditate”?

So why meditate?

There are numerous ways to induce the medative point out of head and each individual strategy is designed to realize the identical factor, to obtain a well balanced point out of intellect for internal reflection and a restful condition of becoming. Sounds superior, so let us just take absent the mysticism and preconceptions that meditation has been shrouded in for numerous a long time and focus on why you may possibly take pleasure in and gain from practising meditation. For these who acknowledge that we are additional than intellect and system will recognize if I use the explanation of: Non secular energies/vibrations rise in just the medative state of mind, which induces a deep self reflection and comprehension. That instant of ‘self’ will permit us to detect what we would’nt usually see. But for individuals of you who will not still fully settle for or comprehend that we are thoughts, system and spirit just yet, all of that will audio like jargon. Considering the fact that this is a tutorial for newcomers a like, I have broken down the rewards into a few classes, mind, system and spirit. I assure to go away out all discuss of non secular energy. This should assist give you a additional compliant plan of why meditation has healing rewards. (We will include accurately how our non secular power centres (chakras) are influenced by meditation in a later on lesson, when you are more snug with the strategy of the expression ‘holistic’.)

Brain

In each day we come across factors that make us not comfortable, stressed even. At that distinct time, we you should not realise how a lot this really impacts us in the prolonged operate. The moment might seem to be smaller and insignificant at that time but if you glance at the huge image, all these compact incidents insert up. All those feelings, moments and reminiscences could outcome in evenings of weird goals and built up stress. Meditation is an astounding launch of this kind of feelings that tend to develop up without the need of our recognition, as we obvious our sub-mindful intellect of any adverse believed designs. Mediation is an superb way to harness genuine relaxation, it is even pointed out by most who meditate that a twenty meditation is 100% much more powerful to our condition of thoughts and emotion than a typical 50 percent an hour leisure and is also the equivalent to acquiring two hours sleep. Meditation is also considered to be far a lot more efficient than peace since it has the electricity to unlock these repressed psychological and psychological influences, as a result bringing forward a renewed strength movement, releasing saved negative and undesirable energies.

Entire body

We know that remaining pressured can have a quite damaging effect on the intellect and thoughts, but did you know that the point out of thoughts influences our bodily wellness far too. For illustration, raising our blood stress, inducing headaches, currently being ‘run down’ and turning into inclined to catching prevalent viruses like the cold. So widespread perception would counsel to us that rest (the opposite of remaining pressured) would decreased blood pressure and raise our immune process. Repressed psychological and mental influences can be stored in any portion of our actual physical human body so obtaining a way to release individuals saved energies ought to be a advantage, which can be attained with the frequent practise of meditation.

Spirit

Since we are actively having to pay consideration to our intellect, human body and spirit, for the duration of meditation, we will inactively or actively go after spiritual awareness. In straightforward phrases, this implies we are taking a holistic method to our individual and spiritual attachment to this globe. When our intellect results in being separated from our bodies in this manor, it introduces liberty to seek and freedom from all the points that carry us down. It allows regain our religious energy to go on, not only that, it also presents us provides follow to clear our very own views from our minds, to bring our minds to stand still, to enable messages from spirit to be easier read! To seriously know ones self, it is thought we have to appear in just. There are also excellent ways to envisage what our spirit guides may search like, or to look for for solutions in our possess sub-aware environment of imagery. The choices of our own minds are countless and we can tap into that electrical power and unlimited saved information passed down from generations of our genetic and religious represent as a result of the practise of meditation.

Words and phrases to consider about until eventually our next lesson: “Internal exploration is to locate a way to be much more optimistic and considerably less affected by the negative people today in your life, improve the way you think and how you perspective things with accurate honesty and pure reflection.”

Rhode Island Divorce mediation is not a new concept. It may or may not be of benefit to you in your spouse in resolving your divorce issues.

Divorce mediation typically involves you and your spouse agreeing that you will sit down with a third party as a mediator in an effort to reach an agreement that is acceptable to both spouses for the resolution of the divorce . . . or perhaps better referred to as the settlement of the marriage.

It remains controversial as to whether the mediator must be an attorney or whether another third-party good at negotiating solutions to family issues is sufficient. From the perspective of a Rhode Island lawyer who focuses his legal practice in the areas of Rhode Island divorce and family law I can see the pros and cons of using either. . . . and they are significant.

Consider this one example:

You and your spouse either know or agree that you will get divorced. Your spouse suggests that you can reach an amicable resolution by sitting down with a Rhode Island marriage and family counselor who has had success in helping couples find common ground deciding what to do to finalize their divorce.

You and your spouse go to this Rhode Island marriage and family counselor. A portion of the mediation session goes like this.

Counselor: [To Both of You] Now, I know this divorce isn’t going to be easy for either of you but you both need to be able to survive and move forward with your lives after this is over, wouldn’t you agree.

Parties: [Both nodding]

Counselor [to You] : Okay. Now I understand that you’ve been the main earner in the household, is that right?

You: Yes, that’s correct.

Counselor [to Your Spouse]: And you work part-time to help out with the expenses when needed but you mainly use the money you make for your own personal spending money, is that right?

Your Spouse: Yes, that’s about right.

Counselor [to You]: Now you have a college degree, is that right?

You: Yes

Your Spouse: And I have my high school diploma.

Counselor: And how long have you two been married?

Your Spouse: We’ve been together for 15 years and married for almost 12 years of that time.

Counselor: And during that time, who has been making what portion of the income for the most part?

You: I’ve made about 80 to 85% of our income.

Your Spouse: And I’ve made the remaining part. I think that is a pretty good estimate.

Counselor: Now in my experience only uncivilized and vindictive people go through a divorce and try to hurt their spouse. I don’t think either of you fall into that group because you’re here meeting with me today, is that fair to say.

Both You and Your Spouse: Yes.

Counselor [To You]: Okay . . . now you understand that your spouse is going to have a much harder time financially to make a go of it without your income, right?

You: Well, yes.

Counselor [To You]: And it’s no secret that your spouse has been relying on you financially for the past 12 years to survive, right?

You: I guess so.

Counselor: Well, here you are getting ready to go through your divorce here in Rhode Island and it’s important that we agree regarding the things we’re discussing here today so it’s important that we are sure about thing that we agree on so it’s better if we don’t guess. Has your spouse been providing mostly for her own support for the past 12 years?

You: No.

Counselor: Has your spouse been relying upon someone else other than herself for her financial needs?

You: Yes.

Counselor: Okay, can you give me that person’s name and address.

You: Well, that person is me!

Counselor: Oh… there isn’t anyone else?

You: Not that I know of.

Counselor [To Your Spouse]: Well, is there anyone else that you’ve been relying on for your financial needs?

Your Spouse: No.

Counselor [To You]: So is it fair to say that your spouse has been relying on you these past 12 years?

You: Yes.

Counselor [To Both of You]: Now you both realize that your divorce is going to change that, right?

You and Your Spouse: Yes we do.

Counselor [To Both of You]: And you both realize that your spouse is going to need to survive financially after this divorce, don’t you.

You and Your Spouse: That makes sense.

Counselor [To Your Spouse]: Now you probably figured out already that you’re probably going to have to work on a full-time basis and take care of yourself after this divorce is done. Have you considered that?

Your Spouse: Yes.

Counselor [To You]: And you’ve probably figured out that you’re probably going to have to help your spouse financially for a time, right?

You: What?!?

Counselor [To You]: Well, your spouse has been relying on you for 12 years. We just talked about that a minute ago, correct?

You: Yeah. What’s your point?

Counselor [To You]: And you agreed that you both need to be able to survive financially and be able to move on with your lives after this, right?

You: Yes I did, but. . . [trailing off]

Counselor [To You]: You didn’t expect that you were going to support your spouse for 12 years and then just get a divorce and the family court would just let you walk away did you?

I mean . . . this is 12 years you’ve been doing this for your spouse. Doesn’t it make sense that the Rhode Island family court is likely to tell you that you’ll need to provide some financial support to your spouse for a bit longer so there is time to recover financially?

You: Well I didn’t think I’d have to pay . . .

Counselor: But it makes sense, doesn’t it? You supported your spouse for 12 years or more and you are the one that makes most of the money. Your spouse needs a little bit of time, probably a couple of years, to adjust to this huge change, get new job skills, work up to a full-time job and perhaps develop skills for another job.

You: Yeah but. . . [thinking]

Counselor: So you need to be prepared to help out for some period of time, it’s only fair isn’t it?

You: I suppose so.

Counselor: Now you’ve built up a pretty sizeable retirement account, do I have that down right?

You: Yes . . . I think it was about $175,000.00 as of the last statement.

Your Spouse: Let’s keep in mind that there’s some infidelity here.

You: Well you drove me to it. If you weren’t so cold and distant I wouldn’t have had to find someone who cared and could give me what I needed.

Counselor: Okay . . . let’s remember that this isn’t to try to resolve all of your personal issues, this divorces mediation session is for us to see what affect all of these things have had on you and how we can work out an agreement for your divorce. The idea is, what can we mutually agree upon so that we can help you move forward with each of your own separate lives after this is all over.

Your Spouse: But that’s what this divorce is all about?

Counselor: I can completely understand that you feel that way, and if I didn’t know better I’d probably agree with you, yet in the end this is all about a relationship that has broken down and can’t be fixed. When that happens people go through a legal divorce proceeding. What we’re here about today and what you both hired me to do is to try to see if we can reach some common ground to go your separate ways fairly.

Your Spouse: Well, I want it all.

You: All of it?

Your Spouse: I think it’s only fair since you cheated on me.

You: Are you crazy?

Your Spouse: You should have thought of that before finding another bed to sleep in.

Counselor: [Interrupting the squabbling] Are we done?

You and Your Spouse: Done? What are you talking about?

Counselor: We’re done, right? You two just want to hurt each other so we’re done, right? I’ve earned my fee and you can go into court and just scream at each other.

You and Your Spouse: No… [you] . No. [your spouse].

Counselor: Then let’s look at things here. Is this a fault divorce?

Your Spouse: No it’s not. My attorney says I should file based on irreconcilable differences. But I deserve something.

Counselor [To Your Spouse]: Well perhaps that’s true yet isn’t ALL of it a bit much?

Your Spouse: Not to me.

Counselor [To Your Spouse]: Okay… you say that you were cheated on, right?

Your Spouse: Yes I do.

You: It’s not true though!! [very defensively].

Counselor: Okay, I’m not going to agree if it’s true or not, but assuming it is true just for the sake of argument, how much did this affair… affect the value of the $175,000 retirement plan?

Your Spouse: How much did it affect the retirement plan?

Counselor: Yes.

Your Spouse: It didn’t.

Counselor[To Your Spouse]: It didn’t affect the retirement account at all?

Your Spouse: No.

Counselor [To Your Spouse]: Then why are you asking for all of it?

Your Spouse: Because I deserve it!!

Counselor [To Your Spouse]: Why?

Your Spouse: Because of the affair?

Counselor: So what you are saying is that if you were originally entitled to 1/2 of the retirement account that you are entitled to the other $87,500 because you were cheated on.

Your Spouse: [Hesitating] Well. . . . yes that’s what I’m saying.

You: I did not cheat on you or have any affair!

Counselor: [Interrupting again] . . . You’re hurt. I understand that. And maybe that is worth something financially . . . yet it just doesn’t seem quite reasonable to ask for the whole retirement account when you even say yourself that the affair didn’t hurt the retirement account or your part of it. A judge might give you half or a little more but I don’t think a judge would give you all of it.

[Silence as Counselor thinks…]

Counselor [To Your Spouse]: Assuming just for the sake of argument that there was an affair and no damage was done to the retirement account as you’ve already said, what do you think is reasonable to ask a judge for.

Your Spouse: I don’t know. I’m not a judge.

Counselor: Well what does any affair have to do with all the hard work and deposits that are made into a retirement account if you were to get 1/2 of it right off the bat?

Your Spouse: Well it doesn’t have anything to do with it when you put it that way.

Counselor [To Your Spouse]: Okay, well we’ve agreed that you will need some financial help for a bit of time to get on your feet. Keeping that in mind, how much of the retirement plan would you agree to take in order to resolve this issue and get on with your life?

Your Spouse: 75 percent.

You: You are kidding me. For an affair I didn’t even have?!?

Counselor [To You]: So that isn’t acceptable to you, right?

You: No! That’s robbing me.

Counselor [To Your Spouse]: Okay, is there a lesser amount that you might consider.

Your Spouse: Sure. Give me the whole thing and I won’t take anything from you to get by until I get on my feet.

Counselor [To You]: What do you think of that?

You: [Thinking]

Your Spouse: Otherwise I’m going to go to court and ask for financial help for the next five (5) years plus 75% of your retirement.

You: [Frustrated] ….. Fine.

Counselor [To You]: Fine to what?

You: [Still Frustrated]: If I don’t have to give her any extra financial help then she can have the entire retirement account.

Counselor [To You]: Are you sure? We’re going to set this down in stone so this needs to be firm that you absolutely agree to this.

You: Yes… yes… yes… I agree. Let’s move on.

In this Rhode Island Divorce mediation setting you can see the interpersonal skills of the Marriage and Family Counselor at work. The mediator tries to work with each party, keeps him or her focused on the issues at hand using excellent personal relationship skills and discusses the various positions without taking the side of either party. Logic and common sense are a part of the dialogue yet he or she does not use legal arguments. The parties are drawn together toward a resolution that each agrees upon that the parties agree will be committed to paper and signed as a resolution of their divorce issues.

The pros of a third-party divorce mediator with counseling and/or psychological skills but who is not law trained are seen mostly in the method used by the mediator/counselor to bring the parties together by agreeing in part with each of their positions, providing understanding and also redirecting the party to another way of thinking about a situation without taking on the role of being an advocate for the other party.

The con of using a third-party divorce mediator who is not law trained is the lack of practical family court experience and knowledge of the process. In this particular case, an attorney acting as a mediator for a divorcing couple would be inclined to call to Your attention that alimony in Rhode Island is rehabilitative in nature, may be very limited in time or scope and is also dependent upon Your income and other assets that may be available from the marital estate. This is something a third-party divorce mediator will not usually undertake since the objective of a mediator in this instance is simply to reach an agreeable result and not necessarily achieve a fair result based upon how a Rhode Island family court judge is likely to rule.

The pros of using a law trained mediator are obviously the cons of the third-party counseling divorce mediator. Law trained mediators (such as lawyers focusing their practice in divorce and family law) bring with them the realistic and practical real world results that come from seeing actual cases before the court. This would seemingly lead to a more equitable result or perhaps a result that is more in accord with a result that you might receive from a Rhode Island Family Court Judge presiding over your divorce. Agreements by law trained mediators are more likely to encompass a whole agreement which is dependent upon each of it’s components (i.e. it is a package deal) in order to work as opposed to a bunch of individual elements that are segregated and agreed to one at a time.

The con of using a Rhode Island law trained mediator (i.e. Rhode Island Family Law Mediator) is the lack of any formalized counseling and/or psychological training which helps to facilitate the atmosphere where the parties are drawn together to reach agreement.

If at all possible a Rhode Island law trained mediator who is regularly practices before the Rhode Island Divorce and family court system and also has background in counseling and/or psychology is perhaps the best bet both for reaching an agreement generally and in particular for reaching an agreement that is an accordance what a Rhode Island Family Court judge is likely to order.