Shit. I think I have a zoom meeting with my childhood bully.

[TheRealAnnabelleBronstein]

I’m not in the UK so hope this won’t be outing. Have changed details for privacy.

Imagine my name is Eleanor Smyth but I changed my name when I married and am now Eleanor Johnson. Imagine also that I’m the Head of Finance for a huge organization.

A company who sells financial services software has been contacting me for quite a while now asking for me to meet with them for a product demonstration. We’re now in a position where we’re going to stop using our existing product so doing demos with several organizations. The successful company will also be given a piece of work to prepare our related systems for integration and testing and training so there’s a project element as well as a product. The budget for the project is roughly $15m and then the product will be roughly $2m/year so it’s a big piece of work.

The Relationship Manager let me know that the call would be led by one of their sales people who he referred to as (name changed), Edwina Craig. All good and a zoom meeting was arranged.

I’ve just looked at the Zoom invite and can see that Edwina Craig is actually on there as Edwina Craig-Dyson.

Edwina Dyson was the school bully. Thoroughly unpleasant person who made my time at second level very difficult. She was so insidious. She wouldn’t physically bully but it was constant picking and awful comments. When I was in school, a classmate killed herself. I remember one day Edwina and some of her gang surrounded me after school and she basically told me that nobody liked me and everyone was upset that the other girl died and not me. Awful stuff to try and get your head around at 15. It was constant and draining snd, in hindsight, I’m just glad it all happened before social media and mobile phones so at least I could go home and get a break from it.

I finished school, moved to a city 400 miles away and haven’t thought of her since.

I googled Edwina Craig to see her LinkedIn profile picture and found one, but I can’t make out if it’s her or not- I haven’t seen her in over 20 years. I think it is. The location also makes sense.

So, if you were me and it is her, how would you play it? Ultimately, if they have the best product for the best price, we’ll go with them, but I don’t want it to be a walk in the park for her if she really is who I think she is.

I don’t think she’ll know I’m me, if you get me. My name isn’t uncommon and I’m based on a different city than where we grew up so I don’t think she’d make the link.

Well done OP. Brilliantly handled

You remained your usual professional self, judged the product on its merits and did not entertain any personal comments from her. She's so unimportant in all of this.

I hope your company can find the right product.

@Skyelils

It’s hard and upsetting and no excuse. But 20’years down the line she’s probably not the same . As your not neither . Be professional and do your job if not it could come back to bite you then she again had the upper hand. Try and move on from it and be the better person

I know quite a few bullies or not even bullies who are exactly the same as at school.

One woman I’m friends with was very judgmental and quite bitchy and it’s taken her DD now 21 years later to call her out eg in Instagram on this and her mum has been apologetic about this. That’s probably one if the only people I know.

Laughing at the PPs also saying she's bound to send you a linked in request

Now that you can legitimately turn down.

wats wrong with your real name tho serious question?????

Well, I'm one of the ones that didn't read the whole thread and offered advice after the meeting had finished.

My bad - it's been a long week and I remember how vile teenage girls can be.

Well done OP

I see this has happened and well done to you OP.

Just wanted to say, you owe this woman, nothing, nothing at all, re forgiveness and attempts at friendliness.

It was amazing with my bully a few years later, I was FB friends with her and she posted some soul searching videos about how depressed she was etc. She’s now found herself and I’m happy in that and I’m sorry her own DM bullied her but I think she knows now what a complete bullying bitch she was to many not only me. It’d take a lot for me to forgive her and I can forget what happened but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.

I would act like I just didn’t know who she was and keep it Uber professional. I had this once. A guy showed up at my client site. At school he actually physically assaulted me. Inside o was a shaking mess when I saw him. But I acted like I was the biggest bad ass in town and he was nothing, kept it very transactional to just get the job done and get out of there.

You are a professional. Be professional. Do a thorough job of your research and perform due diligence. No more, no less.

This is not about your personal feelings or any vendetta (however justified your dislike), this is about making the best decision for your employers.

As an employer, if I discovered an employee had put their personal feelings/history with an employee before doing their job properly and professionally- especially if they made a decision not to work with a company that offered the most suitable service (or product/package etc) on the basis of their own personal history with a single employee at that other company- I would view it as gross misconduct. I doubt they’d work for us for long, and it would bd included in any reference asked for. It’s not that I don’t understand the feelings, it’s just that in this context it is not relevant. Your job is to identify the best partner/contractor for your company. It’s your responsibility to do that. If you genuinely can’t, you could recuse yourself from the process and deal with the fall out. Or, pull yourself together and act like the professional you are.

If one of our senior employees told me they didn’t even want to properly consider working with a company because due to this reason, I would seriously question their professionalism.

So I’d say it depends whether your desire for revenge outweighs your desire to maintain your professional reputation, and quite possibly your job.

@jacks11 - you could have saved yourself so much time typing that long reply had you have just read the OP's updates

If you play hard and she still gets the sale it will make her look good to her employer. I would get someone else to deal with this because it might end up badly for you.

Well handled op though slightly disappointed that no pencil skirts, shoulder pads, blow dried hair or dramatic outbursts as per a 1980s Hollywood film were involved.

OP brilliantly well.

The flagrant lack of empathy on MN never fails to disappoint. Presumably these are the same people wanting climate protesters run over and murdered.

OP I loved reading your updates, you’re a much classier bird than I am. I think I’d have had to guffaw and say I’M SURPRISED YOU’RE PREPARED TO OWN UP TO THAT (given what an oxygen thief you were in those days)! big smarmy grin byeee!

I find this bizarre.

Why do you think I owe this woman friendliness?

If I was a man and telling you I was punched by another boy in school, would you tell me I now must be friendly to him?

Absolutely agree.

Also, those of you telling the op to ‘get over it’ because it was 20 years ago are making yourselves sound ridiculous.

The very fact that it was 20 years ago, and therefore the op was a child, is precisely what makes this form of bullying so hard to ‘get over.’ Childhood trauma can be life-changing for the victims. It can so easily become internalised because of their age.

Well done OP, that was a classy response indeed.
You handled the meeting perfectly.💐

Ha, you’re brilliant OP.

@TheRealAnnabelleBronstein

Right, so the product isn’t great, objectively speaking. Interface was very laggy during the demo.

Had someone from the IT team with me and they’re concerned about how it’ll integrate with our systems and the costs quoted for support are a lot higher than other suppliers.

Presentation was fine. She seems quite new and junior. She was leading the pitch but the Relationship Manager kept having to jump in to cover bits she missed or take questions she couldn’t answer. I kept it fairly cool and just went through the standard process.
I have a medical issue at the moment that’s affecting my speech a little so I haven’t been too talkative in any of these meetings anyway.

Recognised her at soon as she opened her mouth.

I didn’t think she recognized me but she did.

The meeting closed like this-

Her: Before we wrap-up, I just wanted to say that I think we used to go to school together, Eleanor. I think you were Eleanor Smyth back then? I was Edwina Dyson.

Me: Oh? The name doesn’t ring a bell, I’m afraid.

Her (with that stupid donkey laugh I’d forgotten about): Well, hopefully I’m more memorable now after…

Me: Thanks everyone. Take care.

Also me:
~The host has ended the meeting for everyone~

“Oh? The name doesn’t ring a bell, I’m afraid.”

This is brilliant!! Well done 👍

@fourquenelles

Well played OP.

As an aside did anyone else have to look up "recuse"? Not a word I have come across before. Every day is a school day on Mumsnet.

It’s a bit weird that everyone has suddenly decided to use that word because generally, it applies to legal situations and judges. It can apply to a business situation but I’ve never ever heard it used in that way before. I’m guessing one person used it then everyone else carried on.

Go to meeting and just ask her, did you attend school at this time if it is her, say sorry but you feel you cant be subjective considering the circumstances and end the meeting. Arrange another appointment with another sales representative. Fuck the bitch right up because her boss will want to know what the hell happened

I think you handled it perfectly, making sure she knew she had had zero impact on you long term. End call.
You owe her no friendliness. Professionalism and basic courtesy but nothing more.
No idea why people think you need therapy, if this meeting hadn’t happened you would never have thought about this woman again I. Your whole life.

I was looking to book swimming lessons for my DS and found a lovely little swim school locally, went to the Facebook page to enquire and realised my high school bully ran it. Decided I didn’t want to see her much less give her my money so went elsewhere. Don’t need that in my life.

@RhiWrites

If it were me, I’d recuse myself from the meeting. I’d call in a colleague and explain that you think this may be someone you have a personal connection to and you don’t want that to influence the purchase decision so you’d like them to review the demo on your behalf. Then you can look at the meeting notes.

Does your organisation not need you to declare any conflict of interest? For such a large procurement, to ensure fairness, it might be ideal to do as noted above - even as a precaution to avoid any fall out should their organisation not get the work. That way she can not suggest you let personal bias get in the way

You need to keep it professional.

Make sure you look and sound polished.

Act like you have no idea who she is. If she makes the link and mentions something, pause for thought (as if you are really trying to remember her) and then be super nice and professional and say you hope her family are well. Leave it there.

Just read your post, so glad it ended ok. And someone else agreed that the product wasn't going to work. So glad you didn't have to give her anything nothing narda cos she deserves bugger all recognition.

Well done. Skilfully handled

In my head you should have gone “ahh yes, you told me you wished I was dead, well lucky for you I’m not or you wouldn’t have this pitch “

Your way was better though

I would find out if she definitely is the school bully, if so, tell the company so and to send someone else if they dont want any unconscious bias to creep in - you would never consciously hold it against the company as a professional of course, but she made your life hell at school, so it would be very difficult for that to not affect your interactions with her...so best they send someone else!