Crossing the line at work

Abstract

Fernanda is a public servant. After achieving a doctorate degree in a foreign university, she returned to Brazil eager to apply her new knowledge to projects developed by the ministry in which she worked. However, her new immediate superior demonstrated opposition to her, carrying out systematic and unjustified resistance to her ideas and mocking her on several occasions in front of colleagues and subordinates. Her duties were gradually withdrawn, resulting in the loss of her position. She tried to react, contacted the Human Resources Department of the Ministry and other agencies, but nothing worked. Fernanda ended up taking a desperate measure. This case is about moral harassment and about how such situation is developed within a public agency, without the involvement of other employees and divisions of the agency. At the end of the narrative, there are questions for debate focusing on moral harassment and its consequences. As complementary material is the news from French newspaper Le Monde about moral harassment.