My bully got in touch after 20 years…

[sellotape12]

This evening a message popped up on my LinkedIn. I jumped out of my skin. It was from my old boss, in my first ever job 19 years ago. A man that bullied me senselessly. That experience changed the trajectory of my life.

I haven’t thought about him in almost 2 decades. His message is breezy and a general hello, and commenting on my ‘glittering’ career; as if he’s forgotten.

I remember before he joined I had absolutely loved my job, I was confident and learning. When he arrived, he made me his whipping boy. He set me up for failure. He deliberately embarrassed me in front of clients. Instead of identifying my obvious gaps as a junior and working with me to train me, he took me to task on them all. He told me my accent was too strong. That I wouldn’t make it because “daddy wasn’t rich”. That I was a stupid, foolish little girl for having a relationship in the office (a guy who’s now my husband)

I’ll never forget the day he took me to a café, told me I was incompetent and fired me. I had to leave my apartment and we ended up moving cities. Because my confidence was shot, I fumbled through the next 2 to 3 jobs and didn’t stay very long. I had a lot of therapy.

I don’t know what to say. I haven’t thought about him in almost 2 decades. Part of me wants to delete the message. Another part of me wants to message back with some hard truths. And another part of me is tempted to meet up with him and look him in the eye. Because guess what – we traded places. I worked my ass off in my 30s and I’m now in a much better, more successful position than he. Looks like he went backwards. I want to say look at me now you stupid, silly little man.

But I think I should probably delete it…

Just remembered that he directed me once to open my inbox and project my emails onto the projector (to expose where he said I made a mistake), and I had to do it the entire department at a company meeting. It was humiliating.
Another time he told me I should use some of my £15,000 salary to spend on elocution lessons.
sounds like you a lot of had a few bad bosses as well!

Well what's the old saying Be nice to those on your way up because you might just meet them on your way back down.
Fancy a lump of a man targeting a bloody teenager. Id be more that tempted to give him a long lecture on Karma, but that's just me. I'm not going to advise you what to do that's your call.

Is it actually your opinion that everybody who uses this phrase (and other collquialisms, one assumes) is "thick as mince" and "semi-literate"?

How on earth did you come to this extraordinarily stupid and offensive conclusion?

If you're like me, it might be better for your sanity to reply. I find it very hard to ignore people, and will keep thinking about it. BUT I've learnt to write very meaningless, non-committal messages. You could pretend you forgot who he is, as in 'you're so unimportant that I don't even remember you'.

Ignore him.

He can already see you are successful, you don’t have anything to prove. Ignoring him shows how insignificant he is to you. He will hate that.

I would 100% reply! Nothing nasty but just remind him how horrible he was.
People like that shouldn't be allowed to forget what nasty piece of work they are/were.

@Awwlookatmybabyspider that's so important. Not only might you meet them on the way back down, they might be your boss and help you out of unemployment or something. Being nice on the way up because you might just find yourself working at the same level together and have to play nicely!

Oh @sellotape12 , I had a similar thing (although only a mere 5 years post workplace twunt). He then proceeded to ask me out on a date. I’ve never revelled in turning men down, but I secretly felt a wee amount of revenge in that one. To think the prick had both hated and fancied me at the same time made my blood boil - and even more so that he might’ve thought it was reciprocated!

I would do one of two things.

Short term satisfaction : write back as though you think he is someone else.
“Thanks for getting in touch, this year we won’t be needing a bouncy castle for the fete. The community felt the surfaces were not properly cleaned and were unhappy with staff.”

or the long game to humiliation
String him along, bring nicey nice and helpful. Then when time is right, humiliate him in nicest possible way.

God I would encourage this, then tell him he is competent enough t last knockings

I think you’re doing the right thing, but if you haven’t already seen it, have a look at this form Sarah Millican in receiving an email from her school bully.

I think Ignore, ignore. If he then contacts you again and it appears he is looking for a job you can then remind him of his behaviour and how you would not want that sort of person working in your place. But don't contact him yet or remind him of what he had done as it makes you sound like a wounded victim and he won't care but further down the line if he is asking for a job or whatever is the time to say "No thanks mate, we don't want your sort here".

I would reply along the lines of:

How unexpected and interesting to hear from you. Did you want anything specific?

Then see what he comes back with. I would welcome the opportunity to tell him how he bullied me and that I wasn't going to help him with anything. I wish my previous shitty bosses would get in touch!

I see someone has posted the Sarah Millican response upthread - I was also going to suggest this.

Doing the equivalent of the inane 'who dis' which is the standard not-at-all pithy response for failed relationships will immediately let them know that you remember them and that you're bothered. If you engage at all then whatever the outcome, whenever you deliver it, he will just think 'stupid woman' and not turn that on himself.

Bullies don't care and they are never sorry, not unless they're about to lose big in which case they are sorry for themselves.

Silence really is golden. No need to engage and report back here, you're validated and supported. That's my advice anyway.

Delete, block and move on. He brings nothing of value to your life, so swat him away from you like an irrelevant speck of dust.

Don't diminish yourself by being spiteful or petty.

All that does is validate his past actions to him that you weren't worth investing in.

I wouldn't bother blocking, just do an "Ignore" on LinkedIn and answer Yes to the statement "I don't know this person".

I had my bully come up to see me at a conference. At this stage ten years had passed since she had made my life hell and I was successful in my industry. Same scenario, she had crossed to consultancy and was looking for business. I gave a thin smile and said excuse me. I declined the Linkedin invite and made it clear that my organisation should not do business with her consultancy on grounds of fit and values.

Thankyou!

I yelled at him, he came out with the old 'I don't know why you're being like this' etc as if he couldn't fathom what he'd done wrong. I pointed out a few of the things he'd said and done, which he claimed not to remember!
I've had the Facebook friend request...then asking people if they've heard from me...trying to find out where I worked.

I let him believe I worked for HMRC because I knew he'd got one of these tax avoidance schemes on the go before I lost my job and I knew it would bug him. He had an inspection and was convinced for years that I'd tipped them off or set him up. Anyway, karma got him. It was bliss 😊

I know what it's like to fantasise in my mind about getting revenge on a bully, or getting them to reflect back on their behaviour and feel bad. It never works though. In my experience it backfires and the bully doubles down and becomes defensive. Best thing to do is ignore them. You're free of them now and clearly doing well, which is the best revenge you can ever have.

@SlimeSuspect Ugh that grosses me out. There’s something pretty toxic about that. I feel like a lot of those DV / murder cases you read in the news about often start with a man who can’t separate his sexual feelings from his misogyny. It’s like some people don’t know how to exist.

Why? Why do we, as women, believe and tell each other that we can only be dignified when we are silent? That to call out harm done to us is somehow a sign of weakness?

Whilst I don't disagree with some of the essential sentiments of the longer post, I don't think this matter is a male/female thing and I also think that calling out the bullying so many years later will be ineffective. As I said in my last post, it's highly likely he'll have spun his behaviour so that he's been the mentor. If he even remembers, he won't own his bullying no matter what anyone says to him.

As it stands the power is with the OP, to converse or ignore. She knows what she's doing if she ignores him, but he'll be left wondering why

I think it's a simple as not giving him any head space.

Silence is the most powerful thing you can do in this situation.

It really isn't. It is a silly, immature response that makes the sender look stupid when they're usually not.

Why? Why do we, as women, believe and tell each other that we can only be dignified when we are silent? That to call out harm done to us is somehow a sign of weakness?

I believe that silence is more powerful than potentially saying something that undermines that power. Pulling people up on the harm they've done to you relies on that person understanding, accepting and apologising. In reality that doesn't happen and when confronted they become defensive and possibly aggressive.

Where do women go then? That power they had in silent righteousness is gone.

I've done both; the pulling up and the silence and it's silent 'last word' that brings peace. That's my opinion and it's the one that I share with other women. Everyone's free to do as they choose.