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Original poster

To have smiled sweetly and said nothing to this school bully

515 replies

DrinkFromMyFountain · 05/09/2013 14:55

14 years ago I left school. There was one girl who made my life hell, said a load of nasty things about me and told me I would never amount to anything. She also said I'd end up single and Childless at 30 working in a shop. (NB I see nothing wrong with this, but it was meant in a horrible, nasty, put downy way). This was amongst various other things she said and did to try to make my life a misery.

This morning I took my car to the car wash and saw her working there washing cars.

I ordered my car wash for my naice car with my baby DS in the back and said "fancy seeing you here". She made a grimace of a face and carried on with her work.

Karma you beauty.

OP posts:
catinabox · 06/09/2013 08:56

I worked in an old people's home at 17 and was 'lovely' and chatty with the residents and much liked by them. (though i was a bit scruffily presented, underweight, smoked like a train - think badly ironed uniforms and badly dyed hair! - (didnt have family to live with so struggling with independence skills !) ) The manager and his wife were awful bullies and didn't like me, messed my hours around then sacked me. They used to listen to me work outside residents doors. they judged me.

I went into sainsburys about 5 years later (while i was running a project) and was gobsmacked when the person at the till said 'I'm sorry for how we treated you' Managers wife!

Boom!

FreeWee · 06/09/2013 09:09

diferentnameforthis absolutely but I still think you're missing the point. Am I supposed to feel sorry for her making my life hell, turning my friends against me and telling any boy who might want to be my friend how frigid I was? She was a spoilt only child with doting parents. Yes she was an attention seeker and maybe her bullying me was a way of getting attention from the other kids but do you fail to see the irony that she bullied me for being unfanciable yet got herself into trouble over the very same thing? That is my point. If she'd become a drug addict (for example) I would have felt sorry for her because that's nothing to do with me being frigid/ugly etc. But it's the fact she bullied me about something which didn't end up screwing my life up that I find karmic.

There a definite split of opinion over people who have risen above the bullying and just want to try and be the best they can be without belittling the bully. I, on the other hand, have tried to be the best I can be but it's also (yes, yes in an inner bitch kind of way) 'nice' to hear the nasty horrible bully who made my early years miserable isn't doing too well herself. The juxtaposition of my success and her 'failure' is sweet. To me. Call me a bitch. I don't owe her anything.

WreckTangle · 06/09/2013 09:17

If posters still feel that anyone is judging their service industry jobs, they clearly don't understand the thread at all!

Nope, I don't understand it. Try and sugar coat it all you want. The op was looking down her nose at the person working in a car wash. If she had came across this person working as a lawyer/teacher/CEO this thread wouldn't exist.

MarmaladeTwatkins · 06/09/2013 09:27

"If posters still feel that anyone is judging their service industry jobs, they clearly don't understand the thread at all!"

Yes. Yes we do. Or are we too thick to understand blatant mocking when we see it? Hmm

No-one has said "ooh I saw my bully yesterday and she looked a right mess" or "I saw my bully yesterday and she's sprouted a second head". It has been "I saw my bully and she was working in a shop,ha ha ha, I drove off in my merc swishing my expensive haircut as I did so."

I can read and I can see what is being laughed at.

I am also struggling to imagine an instance where someone would say "I will.never work in a shop because it is beneath my superiority" as part of a bullying campaign. It's an odd thing to use to hurt someone. The bullies at my school would predict things like their victims working as prostitutes or toilet cleaners. Working in a shop is neither here nor there. I can't imagine a bully using a predicted career in retail as an insult, unless they were particularly lame bullies.

catinabox · 06/09/2013 09:56

Yes. Yes we do. Or are we too thick to understand blatant mocking when we see it?

Oh god. How completely obvious that this ^^ was the direction this thread was going to go!!

I really don't think anyone is mocking anyone's service industry job...........

OP as someone who has been bulied, I can't help it that your post has made my day a little bit. Sorry to anyone that this offends.

MarmaladeTwatkins · 06/09/2013 09:59

Well yes, of course the thread is going to go this way.

Sorry for being offended at a thread being snide about what a lot of us do for a living.

Crunchymunchyhoneycakes · 06/09/2013 10:18

I was bullied. Later on I worked in a shop. I'm also a recovering alcoholic.

So do I sneer at myself or not? Did I 'win' or 'lose'? Or actually is each person's success or otherwise based on other things? Like whether they are contented in their own life.

This thread is really sad in lots of ways. I actually think people are holding themselves back by holding onto those old resentments - comparison is the thief of joy no matter which way the comparison goes. The ability to have compassion for those who 'wronged' us is actually incredibly freeing.

Crunchymunchyhoneycakes · 06/09/2013 10:21

I'm also confused at those posters deciding that others can't have been 'really' bullied if they don't still want to see those who bullied them brought 'low'. There is more than one way to respond to events. Responding in a healthy compassionate way is equally valid.

CiderBomb · 06/09/2013 10:22

I'm lucky in the I was never actually bullied at school. Subjected to a bit of teenage girl bitchiness, but nothing more. Work is a different matter though, one colleague several years ago managed to completely destroy my self confidence and made me wonder if I was capable of working in that particular industry ever again.

She was funny with me from the off. Barely speaking to me unless it was to complain about the way I did something, undermining me constantly and whinging about me to the manager. I was a nervous wreck going to work most days because of it. The sad thing was the other people there were lovely, but for some this woman took against me without even bothering to get to know me.

Imagine my glee when I hear on the grapevine that the fat, miserable cow's husband ran off with another woman not long after I'd left (because of her). No it's not nice to revel in someone's misfortune, but when that someone is so vile to you that they make you feel like a piece of shit it's just deserts. What goes around comes around.

usuallyright · 06/09/2013 10:26

a girl who bullied me and was generally really unpleasant to me at school is now a head teacher. I pity her students.

HaroldLloyd · 06/09/2013 10:31

I know a lot of hairdressers, at the level of charging 150 a cut they will be earning considerably more than £6 an hour. They also do extra cuts/colours. One went on to open her own salon, another does wedding hair.

Crunchymunchyhoneycakes · 06/09/2013 10:33

It's not nice to revel in others misfortune in fact I would go as far as to say it diminishes the person doing the revelling.

Dobbiesmum · 06/09/2013 10:46

My bully dropped off the face of the earth for years after we left school and only resurfaced on FB when some of us were organising a school reunion. He joined the group through an invitation from someone. His first post? 'Sorry I can't be there, I'm working in XXX at the moment. I was a twat to many of you at school and I'm really sorry. I've grown up since then.' We all keep in touch now through FB, even the lad who had his life made miserable by the ex bully is friends with him.
Gives me a bit of a fuzzy feeling tbh.

Morloth · 06/09/2013 10:49

I love a good revel, and also enjoy a good grudge. Not everyone is nice and nor do they wish to be.

MarmaladeTwatkins · 06/09/2013 10:55

That's fine Morloth, but revelling in others unhappiness is a trait you share with those who bully. If you can square that with yourself then there's not a lot to say, really.

Hemlet · 06/09/2013 10:58

Oh god. To all saying that it's looking down on whatever jobs, it's because the bully said "you're worthless and will be a checkout girl". So when you see them on a checkout you think "Oh, I thought you said this was a worthless job?"

I don't bloody go into Morrisons and gloat at all the checkout staff thinking they're rubbish.

My life was made hell by one particular girl and I don't care what anyone says, if I saw her looking miserable after saying I would have to be a prostitute charging 50p a go for anyone to ever want to have sex with me as well as other disgusting things, I would certainly not go over and be nicey nicey to her.

She can go fuck herself. Yes I'm still bitter about it.

Hemlet · 06/09/2013 10:59

And no she did not have a troubled home life or anything that should encourage her to act that way. She was/is just a nasty piece of work.

AmazingBouncingFerret · 06/09/2013 11:04

I don't get it though. It can't be revelling in people's unhappiness can it?

You don't know what their life is like. If I had been a bully and someone saw me slaving away behind my till serving the masses with toys for their children whilst having to wear a rather unflattering shade of orange polo tshirt, they'd walk away feeling all superior because 'ha! they had to serve me!' What they didn't see was my wonderful children and long and happy marriage and flash car and owning more than one property

It's just a snapshot. What they have chosen to do with their lives shouldn't make you feel happy, what you have chosen to with your life is what should make you happy.

SpecialAgentCuntSnake · 06/09/2013 11:06

Marmalade is spot on.

And I will be on medication for all my life for the torture bullying I endured.

SubliminalMassaging · 06/09/2013 11:07

DobbiesMum that's in stark contrast to a one of those loud-mouthed, too big for his boots school bullies I knew. I spotted him recently on the friend's list of an old acquaintance. I couldn't help looking at his profile and his page said 'All you people from school still moaning about things that happened 30 years ago, grow up and get over it.'

Still a great bloke then? Hmm

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 06/09/2013 11:31

The actual job that the bully has ended up in, is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the victim knows that particular job is one that the bully thought was a shit job - so they wished it on their victim, but ended up in it themselves.

I do not consider any job or any worker to be less worthy of my respect - but I do not have any respect for bullies, unless they have, as adults, realised that what they did as children was bullying, regret it now, and wish to apologise and make amends.

Hullygully · 06/09/2013 11:34

I think revenge and schadenfreude are perfectly normal emotions.

That Bastard Gandhis are few and far between.

Morloth · 06/09/2013 11:44

I don't lose any a lot of sleep over anything much. Grin

Original poster
DrinkFromMyFountain · 06/09/2013 12:10

I'd also just like to point out that whilst I don't see this person on a regular basis I know for a fact that she still says a lot of nasty things about me behind my back. Some very very personal things relating to my previous mental health problems and me being a "fat, ugly, desperate, slag". I literally had to prize this information out of a very close friend of mine who she has been regularly saying this TO.

Half of me wants to confront her and send her a message saying "I know I'm not perfect and I'm well aware that I have my faults and haven't always made the best decisions, but at least I am not a thoroughly nasty piece of work who spends her entire time slagging off someone she hasn't even seen for 14 years".

She is, I can only assume jealous of my life, what else can be the reason for such vitriol?

And for what it's worth the bullying carries on until she was almost 19 when we left school, more than old enough to know better. Bearing in mind I've known this girl since she was 7 and indeed we used to be friends, I'm fairly certain she didn't have a shit home life and id be very surprised if I'm wrong.

OP posts:
Morloth · 06/09/2013 12:24

Just make her irrelevant to you drink prising information out of a friend like that must have been hard on the friend.

She only has any power because you let her. So just write her off as a knob.

What she thinks/says about you doesn't matter.