(Photo Credit: Universal Pictures)
Bullies in Workplace Aren’t Really Big Shots, They’re Little People
Many adults deal with bullies too, especially in the workforce.
You know that one person that believes becoming a big shot means belittling colleagues and making the workplace a hostile environment.
While bullying usually garners attention when children become victims, adult bullies usually were bullied as a child or have some severe mental defect that should get ignored.
Thankfully, the film “Little” does not ignore the truly little people who falsely believe that they are big.
Through a hilarious, intelligent and charming film, “Little” shows that the old cliché that says the bigger they are the harder they fall is true.
But it also shows that life has a way of humbling those who have gotten too big for their britches, by making them way too small for their fancy new britches.
In “Little,” Little Jordan Sanders (Marsai Martin, “Black-ish”) epitomizes the socially awkward nerd that no one likes in middle school.
She is fond of science and beyond brilliant.
However, brilliance and eccentricity is not usually something seen as positive amongst preteens.
Middle school is extremely segregated but not in the way many people would think.
As children reach their teenage years, schools usually deal with segregation from a popular versus unpopular standpoint.
If middle school students do not get accepted into the in-crowd, those students often find themselves outcast or bullied.
While most sane people overcome the bullying and poor treatment they received as children over 20 years earlier, people like Jordan hold on to those feelings of rejection.
People like Jordan spend the rest of their lives worrying about how people mistreated them decades ago even though the bully probably is a totally different person by that time and/or does not even remember the student they bullied.
In the 1990s, a talk show featured a young woman who transformed from an ugly duckling into a beautiful young woman.
A boy, years earlier, had bullied her, teased her and probably rejected her at school.
The young lady was so determined to show that former classmate how she had transformed that she invited him to the show as a surprise guest.
That young man initially had no idea why he was a guest on the talk show.
The man apologized but said that he did not even remember the young lady he allegedly mistreated.
OUCH!
EMBARRASING!
That embarrassment is personified in Jordan (Regina Hall) who is so determined to win in business that she is a little terrorist in expensive high heels to her helpless employees.
Jordan’s assistant April Williams (Issa Rae, “The Hate U Give”) finds herself victimized most often by her mentally unstable boss.
Although April holds the thankless title of assistant, with her talent she could be an even bigger asset to Jordan’s tech company.
April must answer Jordan’s telephone calls at all times even if she is asleep.
Jordan tells April that she has to be awake when she calls.
When April asks if she does not know when Jordan is going to call, when is she supposed to sleep, Jordan tells her to sleep when she is not calling.
In “Little,” all of Jordan’s employees fear her, scattering like ants when she arrives at the office.
One employee has even developed an anxiety problem working for Jordan.
But while the adults at the office are scared to stand up to the bullying boss, it takes a child to put Jordan back in her place and back in time.
A little girl named Stevie who helps her father sell donuts from a food truck outside of Jordan’s office takes exception to how mean Jordan is.
However, Jordan dismisses the little girl because Stevie is no match for a full-grown woman.
Besides selling donuts, Stevie is fascinated with magic and she puts a spell on Jordan hoping that she shrinks down to Stevie’s size so that they could go toe-to-toe.
Amazingly, Stevie never can get her magic spells to work.
But for some reason, her trance on Jordan works and the former big boss wakes up as a little person with little respect, little power and little influence.
The thing about life is God has a way of bringing arrogant people down to their knees.
And for the people who get done wrong by these people, God sometimes give His people first row seats to watch their demise.
But God also gives people the chance to learn from their mistakes.
Some people have enough intelligence to learn from their errors and to correct their faults moving forward.
Unfortunately, others are not that intelligent to see their own faults.
Book sense is one thing.
Wisdom and common sense are not always qualities that book smart people possess.
As a result, many bullies in the workplace either turn their best assets away or lose allies in the business world that eventually has a detrimental effect on their career growth.
Jordan wants to win at life.
But she does not know how to go about winning.
She falsely believes that others have to lose in order to win.
Furthermore, Jordan falsely believes that being nervous and anxious makes one more apt to win than being cool, calm and collective.
On Monday, the University of Virginia won their first men’s basketball national championship.
The championship came a year after the worst and most embarrassing loss in NCAA basketball history, when the top seeded Virginia lost to the 16th seeded UMBC.
Throughout the 2019 tournament, Virginia encountered adversity after adversity.
And when the Virginia Cavaliers should have lost to Auburn in the closing seconds of their semifinal matchup, one of their star players Kyle Guy calmly stepped up to the free throw line and sank three game-winning free throws.
Guy did not panic.
He did not belittle his teammates for losing a 10-point lead in the closing minutes.
Guy just confidently sank the most clutch free throws of his career and now he is a national champion.
That confidence that Guy showed is what real bosses need.
Not anger.
Not anxiety.
Not threats.
Not fear.
The reason real bosses do not need the aforementioned qualities is because those qualities are actually characteristics of little people and not big bosses.
REGAL RATINGS
FOUR CROWNS=EXCELLENT
THREE CROWNS=GOOD
TWO CROWNS=AVERAGE
ONE CROWN=POOR
