I've just come to realize that I have been the target of workplace bullying over the last 2-3 years. I knew my work environment could sometimes be very stressful, but it never occurred to me that my colleague was engaging in extremely severe verbal and psychological abuse.

I manage a small team of 2 people. My one employee, John has a repeated pattern of initiating arguments with me that include bullying, harassing, interrogating, accusing, blaming, threatening, yelling, raging and degrading. The dynamic is always the same. He quickly and without any reasonable provocation unleashes blame, hostility, and threats, and I try to calmly explain that what he is accusing me of is not true.

Sometimes there is a reasonable cause and effect to his anger. For example, I might arrive to work 5 minutes late, and he'll boil over with anger that he had to wait outside until I can unlock the door. Oftentimes, there is no reasonable cause having to do with me what so ever, but he'll unleash an extreme hostility toward me. The other day, he was at the Apple store looking for a sales associate but could not find one. He storms out of the store, comes back to work, and begins venting his frustrations to another colleague. He grumpily tell me that he's taking another break later to go back to the Apple store. When I couldn't hear what he said, and asked him to repeat himself, he accused me of escalating the situation. With a raised voice, he goes on a lengthy tirade.

The incident was so quick to escalate, that I experience fight or flight, as I always do when he yells at me. Once it ends, I go back to my desk, feeling drained, physically weak, and a little shaken up. I could feel the shot of stress hormones that had just kicked in to my body, and it took a good 2 hours for them to subside.

I sat there, head down, thinking I can't live like this anymore.

I immediately made a plan:

-- I will leave the company in the next 2-4 weeks, even if it means taking a temporary position. I may leave even if I don't find immediate work.
-- I have emailed my boss who is based in Asia. I've documented this incident and forwarded about 4 additional documents describing similar incidents in the past.

My boss is fairly cold, and uninvolved with much of my work life. He's been grossly negligent by ignoring the problem. I've insisted that the situation has become unbearable and that it's highly important that it be resolved.

As I'm waiting to hear back from my boss (which might take a while given his pattern of not caring) I'm highly uncomfortable at work. Even though I am John's manager, I don't feel as though I can discuss the incident with him. Whenever I've tried to discuss it in the past, he vindictively unleashes even greater anger. This time around, I just don't want to experience the retaliation and stress.

At some point in the near future, I will have to talk to John, perhaps with my boss involving me in some kind of resolution. John could be fired, but that may not happen so swiftly, if at all. In the past I've bent over backwards trying to be understanding, compassionate, and patient with him. None of that has prevented him from repeating his hostile behaviors toward me.

I'm trying to decide what approach to take in the likely event that I end up talking to John. Should I spell it out, and be matter of fact about everything -- something along the lines of "You have deep psychological issues, and I can't experience the stress of your hostility any more"? Do I encourage him to get help, or is he grossly undeserving of anymore compassion or support from me? Would the suggestion of help be pointless, as I think he is mostly unaware of having a problem? Should I be concerned about retaliation? I'm not so concerned with my current job being in jeopardy, because I am urgently trying to get out. But if John gets fired, should I expect he might seek revenge?