In elementary school, the class bully¹ left you with empty pockets. In the corporate² world, the bully can cause even more damage -- ranging from severe emotional distress³ and sluggish⁴ work to stalled career progress. What's worse: Despite hoards⁵ of office initiatives and formal legislation, bullying⁶ is still creeping its way into the workplace.

在小学，“小霸王”让你身无分文。在公司，“霸王”们会引起更大的危害——从严重压抑、效率低下到事业停滞。而更糟糕的是，成堆的办公室条例和法规都无法阻止欺负行为在职场的蔓生。

Nancy Shenker, founder⁷ and principal of the ONswitch, a marketing⁸ company specializing in start-ups, said she was once the victim of a bullying boss who loved to publicly berate⁹ her.

theONswitch公司专门为起步公司提供市场营销，该公司创办人、主席Nancy Shenker说她也曾是职场暴力的受害者，过去的老板总喜欢公然严厉指责她。

"I finally scheduled a private meeting with him and told him quite simply that his behavior was affecting my work performance, that I felt demoralized and embarrassed," she said. "I went so far as to tell him that if I really was so incompetent¹⁰, we should call human resources into the meeting to work out a severance¹¹ package or start writing me up," she said.

她说：“我和他私聊了一次，很简单地告诉他，他的行为影响了我的工作表现，我感到挫败和困窘。我甚至说，如果我真那么无能，那我们应该让人力资源参与我们的讨论，做个离职计划或给我记一过。”

Her boss admitted he had no intention of firing her, and their relationship improved. According to the Workplace Bullying Institute's Web site, bullying is more prevalent in today's workplaces than sexual harassment¹² and racial discrimination. Approximately one-in-six US workers have directly experienced destructive bullying in the last year.

她的老板承认他无意解雇她，两人关系得到改善。”职场暴力研究组织“网站说，欺负行为在当今的职场要比性骚扰和种族歧视更为普遍。近六分之一的美国劳动者去年直接经历了具有破坏性的欺负行为。

Women are most often on the receiving end of the workplace abuse, according to the Workplace Bullying Institute. Although 58 percent of bullies¹³ are women, they make up 80 percent of targets. "Targethood hinges on two characteristics: a desire to cooperate and a nonconfrontive interpersonal style," the organization's Web site states.

该组织说，女性最容易遭受职场虐待。58%的欺负者是女性，而被欺负的女性却占到了80%。该组织网站称，这两种人易受攻击：渴望配合的人和不得罪人的老好人。

Standing¹⁴ up to the bully may not be as difficult as it seems, said Kerry Patterson, co-author of the bestselling books "Crucial Conversations" and "Crucial Confrontations¹⁵." "If you know what to say and how to say it, you can speak up and keep the risk of retaliation¹⁶ to a minimum," he said.

《至关重要的对话》及《至关重要的对峙》两本书的作者说，对欺负者说“不”也许并没有看上去那么困难。他说：”如果你知道说什么、如何说，你就能为自己讨回公道，并将被报复的风险降至最低“。