‘Popular’ (mean) people from school working in salons...

[Stubbornuincorn]

Not really an AIBU more of a wondering if this happens to anyone else!

I’ve returned to where I grew up and went to school, and I keep finding that the people working in spas/hair salons etc are annoyingly often the ‘popular’ girls that were horrible to me when we were at school.

Recent examples are having to have my hair washed by a girl that used to make fun of me during P.E (literally dreaded PE because of it) and having a sodding full body massage from a really chavvy girl who used to really intimidate me. Even though I’m an adult now I find it really uncomfortable!!

Has this happened to anyone else?

I had a job in a nice clothes shop whilst I was a student. One of the girls who made my life hell at school came in. She smiled sweetly at me then had me running all over the place getting her stuff to try on. I then heard her sniggering to her mate about me. She came up to the counter and tossed the stuff down for me to ring up, and started telling me about her corporate admin job in a very supercilious tone, and did the mock-sympathy thing about how awful it must be to ‘just’ work in a shop and how she would never do it. I responded by telling her I was almost finished my PhD, and oh dear, your card has been declined due to insufficient funds... This was way before chip and pin days so she had no idea what I could see - the card WAS declined but I didn’t know why. I have never seen someone turn and walk out of the shop so fast!

I don't know what my childhood bullies are doing now. I remember a couple of them aged 14 smugly announcing that they were going to get pregnant to get a council house. That's it.

What I do feel strongly about is those who pissed around at school, holding everyone else back in their education, monopolising the teachers' time and energy moaning and getting chippy now that they haven't done well in life. The "it's alright for some" brigade. They can go fuck right off.

Some of the attitudes on here from the bullied and the bullies are awful.

I'm in what some of you would consider a boring, shit, unimportant job for thick people.

I was also bullied at school. That, Combined with home life and a childhood trauma, and I have mental health problems (just one of the reasons I was bullied btw, there were others) and consider that raising my daughter and working, even in a 'shit' job to keep a roof over our heads myself, while dealing with the results of other people's actions, an achievement.

One of the girls that bullied me at school works in a shop I sometimes use. Do I look down on her because she works in a shop? No. I don't. She could be a CEO for all I care, because she's eating the words she used to fling at me about how I'd spend my life 'licking windows for being a phsycho'
I'm sure she's well aware of my disdain for her, I'm sure it's written all over my face every time I see her, and I don't care. She, along with her cronies made my life hell at school, it was hell everywhere.
I get more satisfaction from knowing that although we may be the same social 'level' I'm a better person, because I never went out of my way to destroy someone else for the sake of it.
Yes, she may have been a teenager and her mind still forming, but mine was still forming too, and her actions damaged mine forever. I live with that every day, so no, I don't feel bad if I might make her uncomfortable for 5 minutes a couple of times a month. You reap what you sow.

Wow -I'm surprised that so many people on this thread think that somebody who was bullied at school shouldn't be able to call somebody out on it. Just because they're now an adult, doesn't mean that a person shouldn't be held to account for how they acted as a teenager. I wish I had the guts to tell the boys who bullied me what shits they were and how much their behaviour still affects me to this day.
I wonder if those saying such horrible things are actually those who bullied others in the past.

"The bullying threads really do seem like a chance to sneer at menial jobs."

Absolutely and as said, the jobs sneered at are typically jobs that Women do.

We need people to work in retail. I couldn't live without hairdressers, they'd be the ones I'd seek out in a zombie apocalypse . It's sad to see Care Assistants and HCPs being sneered at.

Poorer people really are hated.

"" But equally there’s nothing wrong in someone getting that satisfaction that the bully hasn’t done as well as you.""

That depends on what you decide "doing well" means. You can't see how happy someone has been, or is and why.

Some of the Careers that posters are boasting about, I'd be miserable doing them and money isn't the be all and end all for me.

I say that as someone who was serevely bullied.

As for "everyone judges" not in terms of job roles and income they don't.

Some of the children doing the bullying will have been a result of MH or abuse and it's sad to think that you consider those children a write off. People can turn things around.

Sorry, but until you've suffered bullying on a big scale, you have no right to tell others that they should accept that bullies grow up and change. In an ideal world, if they truly have changed, they'd get in touch with the person they bullied and apologise. Maybe, they'd even explain why they treated them so horribly,. But, as is quite evident in this thread, people who bullied in the past rarely ever seem to own their behaviour. In fact, many just think it was part of growing up and actually just a bit of a laugh.
I accept that people move on but I cannot, and will not, accept that the people who were bullied should never get any closure and should never be allowed to feel a bit 'smug' if they think that they've ended up doing better in life than their bully.
Personally, I have had knocks in life, but I've also got a great relationship. I try to take comfort in that. I am also a lot more bolshie than I was as a young kid and if I ever meet one of the bullies now, I am definitely going to call them out on their behaviour - if only to make sure that they don't allow their own children to treat others in such a nasty way. Bullies need to be educated about how their previous behaviour can affect somebody even 30 + years down the line.

I am shocked by the comments on here about retail workers.

I work in retail. I stack shelves for a living. I am not ashamed of this.

I work my arse off. I do a good job. I help people, especially elderly people. I go out of my way to give people good service, even though I often get treated like the shit on their shoe.

I am 44 yrs old, a wife and Mum of three. I work with great, kind, caring people. We are not thick. I am making a living for my family.

Why do such attitudes exist?

Comments that bullies look down their nose on people because they work in retail, but then they don’t realise they are working towards a phd etc.. Come on..... I think it’s people like you that need to get a life! I’m happy with mine.

I wouldn't look down on any of my former bullies (or anyone else!) for working in a shop or as a hairdresser/beautician, etc. There's nothing wrong with those jobs. They are out there working, fair play to them. And anyway, I don't earn masses myself. I like people who are decent, who I can have a laugh with. Jobs don't come into it.

I kinda see both sides. It's not very nice to act like working in a shop/salon is shit but at the same time, when someone has gone around acting like they're the big man, and then they're just working the same kind of job as everyone else, of course it's sort of gratifying. It's not like I've done so well for myself, but it's like, these people had soooo much power at school and now they have no power, same as me.

Laughing at someone's cat escaping is a bit mental though.

I haven't been back home for ages, but last time I went home, some of the former bullies seemed alright, some of them seemed like they were still stuck in high school mode.

Honestly, I wouldn't really be able to forgive them, at least not the ones who were properly awful, but some of them, I do feel sorry for. There was one girl who was always doing stuff like giving handjobs to guys in public (this is when we were 12-ish) and she had much older boyfriends (again when she was about 12 and they were already left school) - at the time, she was terrifying and intimidating, I mean, she barely had anything to do with me, I don't think she ever took the piss or anything but I was so scared of her (I was v meek and mousy) and now I just think like wtf was going on at home that she was doing that kind of stuff. Obviously quite troubled.

Not to say it's then ok to bully people, or that all bullies are victims, but it's definitely rarely all it seems.

I didn't exactly get bullied, more like ignored and left out a lot, and it does take a long time to heal. I wish I could properly get over it, but I'm still suspicious of people and find it hard to fit in.

@Polarbearflavour, my DD wants to work in hospitality. She works in Pizza Hut and is on a Level 3 Professional cookery course.

Care work isn't dull. You get to make a real difference to someone at a time of need, even on a night shift. I was a CP SW, but my health hasn't been great and I'm not going back. So I'm taking a role in SC, instead. I enjoyed my time as a support worker. More than I did when I worked in banking. The worse part of my job as a SW was the office part. Some of us don't aspire to that. My eldest DD works in MH, she's worked upto Manager, but still chooses to do Care Shifts.

I liked working in a Cafe, restaurant, chalet cleaning and the best job I ever had, in an Off Licence. Just because of the people I worked with and the customers. There was no mental stress and I could live off the wages, bliss.

I'd rather do any of them than some of the jobs described on here.

I've had all the children that I wanted, all natural births with no stitches, manged to BF all of them. Now I've got Grandchildren I adore. That's were my value system is.

It seems that posters are looking for excuses why they are horrible Adults looking down on the lower, less educated classes

I've just looked up my biggest bully. If that's not a wig I'll eat my hat, and judging by his remarkably smooth skin for his age and occupation, he has some fairly big endocrine problems. Also, his Twitter feed shows him to be a belming arsehole.
One of the others is a registered sex offenders, two joined the priesthood, and I had a chat with another where we agreed he'd been a twat. That was nice.

Oh mines a good one!!

I walked into a pub bathroom to three woman surrounding another and they were really (verbally) laying into this other girl. I walked into the toilet and noticed it was a girl who'd bullied me in school. I could hear that the three woman had hushed slightly and were pretty much preparing to kick the shit out of her. I wen out and whilst washing my hands got into a conversation with these woman basically saying they needed to leave her alone I realise they knew my sister and I managed to talk them out of doing anything to her. The the three woman left me and my bully alone and she burst into tears and asked me why I'd done that for her and I told her that is how your suppose to treat other people not how you did when we were kids. She apologised and i see her around and she very kind and polite to me. She has her own business and is very successful but I'm happy I have my kid and a family and an ok ish job. I think if I remember everything unkind and bullying ever said I would dwell on it and not be able to move on.

Hisaishi, she was being sexually abused if she was 12. She was probably being sexually abused at home, as well.

birds well, yes, of course, I didn't say otherwise.

Bit much to say she was 'probably' being sexually abused at home, but of course that's a possibility.

I don’t recognise these school lives at at all. The popular people at our school weren’t bullies, the 2 things weren’t connected. I think I was probably one of them. We’re now everything from a plumber to a barrister

I do have a friend A who is convinced she was bullied by a friend B of mine at school. The reality is the more popular kids weren’t interested in A (probably weren’t really aware she existed) and she’s so self pitying this has become bullying in her head and she still refers to it as such 20 years later

Yes in my school the popular kids were fairly nice. They may not hqve been racing to invite me places but they werent bullies. I was bullied by a couple of boys which is unusual.

I've encountered a couple of the group that gave me a hard time working on the till in the supermarket. Also had friend requests of them on Facebook!

However there were other bullies in their group that moved away and could be high flyers or care workers, who knows? Point being you only know about the ones who have stayed local and work in public facing jobs but not those who made good.

Also different perspectives are interesting. I live 25 miles away from my home town in the same county. Down the road lived a girl from school who I always got on well with eve. If we were not best friends. Another friend (one I met since school but same home town) came to visit and was horrified to encounter this girl as apparently she had been bullied mercilessly by her. I'd never known that about this girl, but did know that her Dad used to physically abuse her and SS were involved at the time she would've been bullying. Complicated.

Do you not think a lot of these people have changed ?
Not everyone stays the same !

This thread makes me so glad to have relocated.

For some reason, I ended up at a comprehensive in the middle of a rough-as council estate, from my leafy-middle class primary school, and leafy-middle class family life. It certainly toughened me up and gave me some "streets".
I certainly wasn't bullied, but I had a few kids over the years, who thought they'd have a go, but because I was so much smarter than them, and had some good mates to back me up, they never got anywhere.

Those kids, the girls specifically, left school with basically zero qualifications, had a couple of tangles with the law, popped out a few kids with multiple fathers quite young, and now they are hairdressers or beauticians, still living on the same rough estate they grew up on, and living hand to mouth. They seem quite content though, because they've never had anyone to model anything better.

About 18 years ago (late 20s) I Went into s shop - franchise type - and the guy serving me (who owned that franchise) said he recognised me and turned out to be a boy in my class who wasn’t very nice to me. I didn’t recognise him at all - he was bald (had blonde curly hair at school), and had gained weight so face had totally changed. He was very pleasant to me though and we had a little chat, I bought my goods and that was that! I did think afterwards that time had not been good to him whereas I was probably benefitting from a bit of weight gain (I was by him at school), still had my hair, was newly married etc. I felt quite good about myself whereas he made me feel crap about myself st school.

*by him is too thin

I moved away - the past is best left in the past. The few who've found me on FB and friended me I'm polite enough to and happy enough to view them as older, wiser and we're all a bit more wrinkled around the edges.

One of the ones who was unkind to me is now a media presenter, MN darling, and generally regarded as a real social-conscience, feminist dear, woker than woke bod. Also interestingly appears to have "youthed" a good 5 years backwards from the rest of our year group's age at times which raises a wry smile at times.

Life is what it is, we were all just trying to figure out how to function on the way to being adults. Arseholes will be arseholes but generally shit comes around in the end. Me? Good degree, good university, crap career choices and now an old, fat SAHM but my kids are fucking awesome.

I Think people do grow up and I do hope some of these bullies realise what horrible they once were and accept they did make some peoples lives a misery. I think the big difference is if they did come across someone they bullied that they at the very least say for what they did and that hopefully one day the person they bullied will accept the apology and see that they have now grown up, realised they were a twat and the damage it causes and they're not like that now.
Some times the victim of bullying just needs the bully to acknowledge what they did and may be then they can see the bully in a different light even if its just for having the decency to admit the what they did and say sorry.
Victims cant move on until this happens, because unless it does happen how do you know the bully has grown up, regretted their past actions and isnt still the bully they used to know? How can you move on?

Oh by the way I've worked in retail and hairdressers. Zero fucks about that bit.

Buuut if I saw one of them now and they tried to be pally pally then I would absolutely them what I think of their hypocrisy.

I'm not talking about 8 year olds by the way these individuals bullied me from 12-16 for being deaf and autistic. They're scum.