I am dealing with a bully at work. Her style of communication is aggressive and demeaning. She doesn't speak, she snaps and bites my head off whenever I do something that she doesn't think is good enough or correct. She nit-picks my every mistake sending emails that are punctuated with numerous exclamation points and questions marks. She complains when I'm not able to complete everything, despite the fact that I actually do more than she does. I'm not the first person she's bullied, there are several, including my coworker. But the department director likes her because she sucks up to him and so he does nothing and enables her behavior. The manager wants us to all just get along. The supervisor is her buddy. Me and my coworker are the rubble under their feet. I can't take the abuse anymore, it's hostile and toxic. So I did something I've never done before. I sent a letter to the director of HR. I'm scared. I've read that HR departments do not like this sort of thing and that they see the complainant (me) as a problem. I'm not perfect. I've expressed my frustration with the lack of information and assistance I've received from the above mentioned management since I moved to this department a few months ago. But I had to take a stand because this workplace abuse is so stressful, it's making it more and more difficult to do my job. They will likely throw me under the bus, blame me, claim I'm just being defensive, and the like, and further alienate me. It's a culture of shame and blame and yeah, I'm defensive, I have to defend myself, because it's not healthy or productive situation and I have no support. I don't know what to expect but it's not much. I expect to either be given a bunch of feely good corporate advice or told to be the better person and suck it up or maybe they'll fire me. Whatever happens I deserve to have my concerns heard and at this point, I don't care if I do lose my job. No one deserves to be treated like this.