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.

You’re a professional, it’s work. You be a professional. That’s it.

It might not even be her. It may be that she’s changed & seems like a person that you could work with.

Best thing to do is listen to the sales pitch, if it’s not what you need just let it go without saying anything.

If you want to move their product on to the next stage of the project then confirm who she is and ask her manager for someone else to head up from their side. I wouldn’t go into the background just say you don’t think that you & x will work well together.

As I am sure it must have been said before, I would speak to my boss and say this is the situation and you think it is best you sit out this meeting as it is such a huge contract.

I don't think this is that complicated really. The details of the bullying don't matter, the point is that you have a prior personal relationship with this person which could affect your ability to run a fair selection process. So just confirm it's her, say you know her personally and ask them to put forward a different sales person to run the call. If you don't disclose that you know her you open yourself up to accusations of bias and unprofessional behaviour. Imagine if you went ahead with her running the demo, her company didn't get the business, and then she's miffed and looks for opportunities to challenge the process and make your life difficult.

Either this
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.

Or ask the vendor to provide a different contact. for the same reason.

If you felt like you might have an anxiety attack or get emotional in a way that might make you or your company look less than professional, then the correct thing to do would be to ask to be excused.

But if it will just be uncomfortable and awkward for you, then just be professional and treat her as you would any other client.

I trained as a nurse with a guy called G. I wouldn't call it bullying but he didn't like me, would totally blank me and refuse to speak to me. To this day (25+years on) I have no idea why.

Since qualifying weve both stayed in London but never worked together, but our paths have crossed a couple of times. In my last job we were in different Trusts but he was working in an a&e role and needed info on a patient known to us. When I answered his call I said "oh hi G, we trained together." Spent a couple of minutes reminiscing and I sent over the info he was looking for.

I know for a fact we're working for the same trust now. His role means that while we've not crossed paths, we may do. If we do, ill remind him whoni am (changed my name when i got married) but eill remain pleasant and polite but will have as little as possible interaction. We're middle age professionals, it was nearly 30 years ago.

Who says she's going to squirm? She might have come to peace with her past and/or deny who she is. Meanwhile the OP will look unprofessional at best and a crank at worst.
I think meeting her again could be used as a healing process. None of my bullies have done better than me and now I know more about them, some are very sad. Some regret their past, others don't give a shit and a chance meeting with a victim isn't going to change anything. It isn't going to devastate her if her firm don't get the contract.

I'm sorry you had an awful time. I was bullied at school but not relentlessly and I was lucky to have solid friends.
However, you need to put this behind you and be professional, her actions as a child will not necessarily mean she is a bad person now. She may have changed for the better, child bullies are often going through trauma themselves.
Definitely don't hide the fact that you know her - if it is her - but don't let something that happened years ago affect your professional life.

@ClawedButler

Also, did you never do anything unpleasant at that age? Did you never write bloody awful poetry? Or anything else that you cringe to think of now? You don't (or shouldn't) punish yourself for stupid things you did as a teen, nor should you appoint yourself life-long judge and jury for stupid things your teen peers did.

Are you seriously comparing writing bad poetry with wishing someone dead? .

Do you want to do the meeting OP?

Also how common is her name? What if you rearranged the meeting, said why etc and then it turns out to be a different person altogether but with the same name.

I wouldn't say a thing, just take the meeting and award the contract to one of the other firms. After all, it's not a given that her bid will be the stand out one, it might not even be as good. The rivals are all likely to be equally competent and in a process like this someone always has to be the loser. Why not her? It would be a bonus if she recognised me but I wouldn't push it.

If you have to go through with it, I'm in the "oh, small world!"'camp. Make sure you look your best, be absolutely confident and professional. Her bullying was water off a duck's back.

Op did she play a part in the other girls suicide?

You're big enough and important enough to ask for a different relationship manager with that much at stake they'll change her. We have clauses in our supplier contracts that we interview lead personnel so sure you could include and position as such.

In your shoes I'd take the pitch, ask if she went to your school and make her squirm and then say she's not a good cultural fit.

@PrivateHall

I think some of the posters replying perhaps haven't been severely bullied before. The priority here is to protect yourself. I was in a very similar position recently and confided in a colleague, who discreetly ensured I never had to set eyes on her. I didn't think it was necessary at the time, but after, when I heard how difficult and unpleasant she had been with my colleagues, I was incredibly relieved that I didn't have to face her again. Scars from bullying run deep, I think you should be led by whether you want to be face to face with her (even on Zoom!). It really isn't nice having those traumatic memories dredged up and anyone who dismisses it just because it was 20 years ago has clearly never experienced anything as bad as you did.

This ^ in spades...

Yes, the bullies were probably very unhappy /abused...

BUT THIS DOES NOT DETRACT FROM THE HARM CAUSED TO THE OP.

People that are minimising the harm... Yes people do mature /reflect in past behaviour... But some of these school bullies carry in to be bullies in the workplace... Just as damaging, in different ways, to school bullies...

Further, bullying is a wide term... The consequences for the odd bit of name calling although unpleasant and unacceptable ... Is quite different to children being chronically, psychologically terrorised by their bullies... .

I saw it many times at school. There were several suicide attempts as a result of a few groups of bullies

Actually don’t think it’s unprofessional for this to influence. Shouldn’t reward companies that hire bullies. Also you won’t be comfortable working with them/her in future. I’d recuse myself but explain why and leave it up to others in company to decide if it’s worth it to go ahead.

Is everyone on here exactly the same person as they were at 15? I'd bloody hope not

People become adults but their personalities can remain the same. Just a grown up version of their horrid unpleasant selves.

So cringey when people on here come up with all sorts of ways to call people out that if you ever did it would just make you look utterly stupid. It was years ago, get on and do your job.

I would acknowledge at beginning of meeting that you know each other. With a telling look.
Make her sweat
If it's the best deal accept it, move on and know you are the better person.

@ClawedButler

Also, did you never do anything unpleasant at that age? Did you never write bloody awful poetry? Or anything else that you cringe to think of now? You don't (or shouldn't) punish yourself for stupid things you did as a teen, nor should you appoint yourself life-long judge and jury for stupid things your teen peers did.

There's a huge gulf before doing something mildly embarrassing, which I'm sure every teenager on the planet has, with going out of your way to make someone suffer. Can you really not comprehend that?

@MrsRobbieHart

You’re a professional, it’s work. You be a professional. That’s it.

This. It's work. You can't choose what meetings you do based on who may be attending and you certainly do not bring what happened 20 years ago to work.

You need to email your manager and tell them you think the salesperson might be someone who had a bad relationship with at school. Let them decide if you take the meeting or not. If you feel that taking it will cause too much stress then request that someone else take it.

If you do take it, don’t play games. Tell her you want to record the meeting to review all the details later. If she tries to mention that you know each other, just politely brush it off with “Oh, maybe. Let’s start the presentation please”. Remember that anything unprofessional that you do could prolong the situation and make you feel worse.

I know it’s tempting to come up with revenge fantasies but you have to forgive. That doesn’t mean pretending it was ok but reaching a point where you have moved on and it no longer weighs upon you. Forgiveness is for your own benefit, not the other person’s. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t painful but it does mean that it doesn’t prevent you from living your life.

I had a slightly similar situation a few years ago. I was tendering for a piece of research that would be used for government policy, so there were really stringent restrictions on the tendering process. I had to meet with the three shortlisted organisations and interview them, the one that I was erring towards was also locally based (total coincidence). The woman who turned up to pitch, and who would be the research manager for the project, was the woman my ex fiance left me for. I didn't know she had gone into this field because she was at university when he met her studying to be a teacher.

It was really awkward (I had married and she didn't realise it was me from my name, and she had married my ex whose surname was a Smith/Jones/Evans type). We did actually work together very professionally but with a cool distance, we didn't mention our earlier personal involvement and were never friendly, just cordial. Was OK, probably worse for her than me because she probably thought I would go with a different company after meeting her, but her organisation was head and shoulders above the other tenders.

Don’t recuse yourself! No way - you are the client! If it is her (probably better have the first meeting to start with to find out), then tell the company you want a different sales lead. You are in the driving seat here! Why should you have to work with someone where there is previous form? Asking for a different rep is actually a professional way of handling a previous difficulty if you ask me….