Question 1

What counts as workplace bullying, exactly?

Accepted Answer

Researchers generally define it as repeated, health-harming mistreatment by one or more people against a target, verbal abuse, threats, humiliation, sabotage, or a pattern of undermining behavior. The key word is repeated. One bad meeting is not bullying. A consistent pattern is.

Question 2

Is this the same thing as harassment?

Accepted Answer

Not legally. Harassment, in the U.S., usually refers to mistreatment tied to a protected characteristic like race, sex, age, or disability, and is covered by the EEOC. Workplace bullying is broader and often legal, which is exactly why the language patterns matter so much. It can be very real and very damaging without breaking a specific statute.

Question 3

What is the difference between a tough boss and a workplace bully?

Accepted Answer

A tough boss holds high standards consistently and applies them to everyone, and the criticism is specific and tied to the work. A bully's criticism tends to be vague, personal, inconsistent, and aimed at control rather than improvement. If you can never quite meet the bar and the bar keeps moving, that is a signal worth paying attention to.

Question 4

What does gaslighting at work actually sound like?

Accepted Answer

It usually sounds ordinary in the moment. Phrases like that never happened, you are misremembering, or I never said that, said calmly and repeatedly, are designed to make you doubt your own memory of events rather than to argue the facts. That repetition is the tell.

Question 5

Can workplace bullying happen over email or Slack, not just in person?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and in some ways written bullying is easier to document. Passive aggressive CCs, curt one-word replies to some people and warm replies to others, being quietly dropped from threads, these all leave a paper trail, which is actually useful if you ever need to describe a pattern to HR or a lawyer.

Question 6

Does this tool save or send what I type anywhere?

Accepted Answer

No. Everything runs in your own browser. Nothing you paste or check on this page is saved, transmitted, or stored anywhere, including by China Decoded. You can safely paste real messages.

Question 7

Is workplace bullying only about what someone says?

Accepted Answer

No. Tone of voice, body language, facial expressions, and passive aggressive behavior like the silent treatment are all documented parts of workplace bullying, sometimes more damaging than the words themselves precisely because they are harder to point to. The Pattern Quiz on this page covers both verbal and nonverbal cues. The paste-a-message tool can only read written text, so it can't detect tone or body language, that's a limit of any text-based tool, not something this one is missing by accident.

Question 8

I don't have a specific example yet, I just have a feeling something is wrong. Does that count?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The instinct that something is off usually shows up before you can articulate exactly why, and it is often accurate. Use the Pattern Quiz to help put language to what you are already sensing, then start noting specific moments as they happen, dates, exact words, who else was there, so the pattern becomes easier to see and to describe to someone else later.

Question 9

What if I'm not the target, I'm just watching it happen to a coworker in meetings?

Accepted Answer

It still counts, and it still matters. Research on workplace bullying notes that witnesses who see it happen and stay silent are not being neutral, silence has its own effect on the pattern continuing. The same categories on this page apply to what you're observing. Writing down what you saw, when, and who was present can genuinely help a colleague later, whether that's supporting an HR complaint or just being a reliable witness to what actually happened.

Question 10

Is this legal advice?

Accepted Answer

No. This is a language analysis tool built on documented workplace bullying research. It can help you name a pattern. It cannot tell you whether anything you experienced was illegal. For that, talk to an employment attorney or your local labor board.

Question 11

What should I do if I recognize these patterns in my own workplace?

Accepted Answer

Start documenting. Save messages, note dates and what was said, and who else was in the room. Patterns are much easier to act on, whether that is a conversation with HR, a manager, or a lawyer, once they are written down in specific, dated detail rather than held as a general feeling.

Is This Workplace Bullying? A Language Checker