Just wondering, Shambles - threads mostly start with a question. :-/

FWIW, I suffered a shitload of it at school, pretty much for the full 13 years. Being what you'd call a "late developer" (I didn't bulk out until I'd left school, when I put on 20lbs, none of it fat, in the course of 6 weeks!) I was fairly easy pickings until I was about 13, when I started going to Tae Kwon Do classes. It wasn't so much knowing about martial arts as the sense of self-belief that it gave me. Physical bullying drops off around then anyway with children, but the verbal stuff kept going. Result was that it took me close to ten years after school to be able to interact with other people normally, and to be truly comfortable with who I am.

Every parent needs to get their kid to martial arts classes at age 7, or earlier if you think they can take it.

I've been lucky enough not to have a manager who tries that. There's one guy in particular who no-one liked bcos he was *very* abrasive, but if he told you you'd fucked up then chances are that you had. It didn't make him popular, but he got respect bcos everyone knew it wasn't personal - his only reason for doing it was to get the job done as quickly and as well as possible. And if he'd fucked up, he'd say so too.

Probably lucky for bullying managers too. I got a bit of a reputation at my last place for not being entirely tactful in voicing my opinions... :-)

Graham.