Ragging at the work place

This seem little bit of a off topic, but I am sure 90% of us must have had a first hand experience with "ragging at the work place". In college campuses, it is a common practice to rag the new comers, and this may lead to 2 things - a. firstly, some fun can be derived out of it b. secondly, it is way to get to know the new comers and the seniors well. While there may be severe cases where none of the 2 goals are fulfilled! So, what is the goal of ragging at the work place? I find none.
Often, this stems from insecurity of the colleagues/bosses to jealousy and at some other times it is due to callousness of the people concerned.
I will describe here few of my experiences, although the first one can't be called as exactly a work experience, but nevertheless when we are paid to do a certain job, I would call it a work experience..
In year 1993, I got a CSIR fellowship to do my Ph.D. Merely out of my college and at just 21, I had no clue what the outside world would be. But armed with a prestigious CSIR fellowship, I had great dreams of joining a great lab and doing molecular biology research. With all these desire, I landed up at CPMB(Hyderabad). Here it is worthwhile to mention that I have had plenty of offers from reputed labs, but I chose this one. I landed up in Dr.X's lab. Dr. X was working on molecular pathogenesis, a very enviable area indeed. I considered myself fortunate. My training began with making cotton plugs(for the flasks, test tubes), washing contaminated tubes, petridishes  in hot dingy mosquito infested rooms, rinsing them in distilled water  and autoclaving them. I was pretty excited initially to be among so many glasswares and learning the art of sterilizing them. Soon time passed by and I was getting anxious as why I am not starting up my project work(that is cotton transformation). I went to Dr. X asking him where I am with regard to my project. So, Dr. X handed me over a complicated paper on BT cloning with tri-parental mating. Here, it is important to mention that Bt cloning was not going to come in my work for at least one year. But anyways, being ignorant, I started reading. First reading - one full day still  did not understand anything. Asked Dr. X if I can help in the lab while reading papers. He said sure, handed me over all fungal/stinky contaminated test tubes, flasks and I would read and do the cleaning jobs. At the end of the month, I asked Dr. X if I can begin working, so he said OK, follow this protocol, and isolate plasmids. I was so excited, I am learning finally how to isolate plasmids, then I ran gel, did some DNA extraction etc. Then I asked Dr. X why am I extracting all these? Dr. X said don't bother about it now, just do as I say. When you will completely understand all the papers you have  then come back and ask questions. I was disappointed and read harder..
Initially, I joined the center thinking that I should be able to get my Ph.D in 3 years. In fact I registered with Dr. Y(who was the director of the center) for that purpose. But Dr. X was suppose to be my micro-manager. Now after 2 months, I realized, all that I have done is - decontaminating, washing, autoclaving loads of glasswares and centrifuging, running EthBr gels for DNA/plasmids not knowing what for I am doing all that. I was terribly frustrated with my botany background, because I am unable to understand much from the papers, and I have to do all these cleaning jobs. Then for a change Dr. X would ask me to prepare stock solutions, prepare media, clean refridgerators and so on. At the end of 6 months, I was still there where I had started. Dr. Y (my official supervisor) would not bother because he would retire in 2 years. One day, I sat at my table and got an inspirational letter from my uncle. As I read through, I broke down and that never stopped. I cried continuously for 5-6 hours. Meanwhile Dr. X probably needed some cleaning job, so he peeped in and saw me crying, and he left. May be he peeped several times and finally saw I am continuously crying, his guilt consciousness kicked in. He send in Dr. Z, who is from my state. Dr. Z called me to Dr. X's office room and kept asking me what had happened. Then finally, I told him it is because I came here with great hope and for the last 6 months, I am just doing cleaning job and nothing else, and nothing is moving, so I am crying. Then finally, from that day onwards he stopped telling me to do anything and I was on my own. I had a great struggle initially to plan up my work and get going by myself, but I managed finally. I thankfully managed to finish  my Ph.D in 3 and half years!!
Immediately after completing my Ph.D, I worked in a college, where I was ragged by my HOD. She would ask me to teach the most boring areas like taxonomy, economic botany, ayurveda, gymnosperm, algae, fungi etc. and she would take up exciting areas like molecular biology, genetics(This was my favorite subject), genetic engineering. She would often ask me and another colleague of mine to bring chairs, bring tea etc. I used to travel atleast 2 hours to get to the work place, but she would keep my lectures from 7 AM till 5 PM with huge gaps in between. I struggled initially, but later managed well and she would be afraid of me for some reason. She desperately wanted me to leave because I was very popular with the students and lecturers from other department. Finally I left, not because of her fear, but because I found another job that was more exciting. In my second job, all was well, till the company came to a situation where it was on the verge of close down. There was bit of ragging, but being experienced, I gave fitting reply. In my thrid job, another younger girl tried to play politics, but I guess it was getting easier for me. So, finally I am here, ragging proof. So, I would say ragging is also an integral part of a job system, the more you are ragged early the better for you..