Bully

My mom is a retiree. She left the civil service umpteen years ago.  She used to work for some prominent people in those days. After her retirement, however, she did not want to stay idle at home. So she has been working in a school library for the past 9 years. The pay is miserable, but it is ok, or so we thought, as it is something to keep her occupied. 

However, the past few months, after the school has shifted back to their renovated building, mom's workload has increased due to new arrangements. Her pay has not increased but she has to work longer hours (checking in earlier than starting time) and leaving later than usual (without  overtime pay). On a few occasions, mom did not even get to eat lunch because the library was occupied by teachers and students throughout the day for lessons (don't they have new classrooms to have proper lessons in? Why use the library?!) and there was no one to take over mom for even half an hour (yes their lunch hour is only 30 minutes).  Mom went hungry and my mom is someone who cannot go hungry, because of her health and also, being hungry makes her agitated and angry.  After a few occasions, my mom brought up this issue with her manager. Instead, in return, she was scolded for being incompetent in her role, her manager said "I don't like your attitude".  The manager even challenged my mom to complain to the principal or the vice principal. This made my mom very upset. She reports to this manager, and 'gives her face' by bringing issues encountered to her, yet she was scolded and brushed off to talk to even higher authority.

Then just the other day, when some workers were doing some shifting at the library, the teacher/s in charge were not present due to some reason, there was no one to supervise the workers and my mom was not briefed on what to relay to the workers. This tyrant of the manager came into the library after a while, and started ranting at my mom for no reason, shouting at her in front of the workers, who were all shaking their heads at the tyrant's scolding.

My mom felt so insulted for being reprimanded for no reason, and in front of strangers too. It seemed the manager had something to grind with mom after the previous episode. Apparently this manager treats all administrative staff and operations staff in a very condescending and rude manner. She leads by simply shouting at her staff to get things done, by being very fierce. Hence this person is not very popular among the staff. 

Of course I am infuriated. Who is this person to bully my mom in such a manner? Even if my mom has really done something wrong, was this how an educated person in a managerial post IN an educational institution behaves?  How do schools supervise and monitor their staff performance (be it a manager, a teacher, a librarian or a cleaner), besides just pushing students for excellent grades?  Are staff in the lower ranks being taken advantage of?  My mom said this manager is even younger than her own children! And in those civil service days, this very manager was just a young girl working in my mom's department and my mom was her senior. I am waiting to see how this manager is going to address the issues my mom brought up. See if she is still going to continue bullying the old and weak. If this continues, I am going to get my mom out of the place. Since the manager has refused to accept responsibilities, and is obviously not capable  or equipped with the necessary skill set to manage, I am going to "higher authority". I am not going to sit back and see other people get bullied the same way in future. They think my mom is just an old ignorant woman. They forget my mom has children who are not going to sit back and see her being bullied.  They do not know I can be very vocal if I want to. They do not know there are different mediums in which people can feedback. Shame, it's a school some more.