To have not accepted her apology? TW: Bullying/Suicide

[OhNotAnother]

I’ve been at my job for around three years and absolutely love it. I’m really happy here, and was mostly until my school bully joined as well. I work in a city around 30 minutes from where we grew up in a different team but I still have to see her in the office twice a week across the way.

This woman made my life a misery. We were friends, best friends actually when we were 15. I then came home from holiday and returned to school to find that none of my friends would speak to me. I think it was to do with a boy I liked that they also liked, but they never told me why.

They made my life hell, especially this girl. They’d beat me up, they’d deface my books and blazer, they spread rumours I’d had an abortion. They put and spread gum in my hair. They even skipped school to shout abuse at my grandmas funeral as we were all entering the church. They’d do it in front of adults and wouldn’t care. In the end, I tried to commit suicide and my mum had to pull me out and homeschool me. I didn’t get as many GCSE’s as I’d wanted and in the end this girl got expelled soon after I left.

It pretty much destroyed my parents marriage as I was so mentally ill from it and my younger brother also found me on occasion as well after attempts so it messed him up slightly.

Things got better, I went to college did my A-Levels and GCSE’s, Got a degree and a masters, bought a house and I’m now 30. But recently at work, she has tried to make small talk with me. She’s now a mum and she’s sorry. I’ve told her to never speak to me again and if she needs anything professional to put it on email. I think she’s scared I’ll tell others what she did.

but it’s been awful the past few weeks, I have that horrible gut pit feeling in my stomach before I go in and I try to focus on work but she’s across the way. I’ve even moved desks but it doesn’t help. I don’t want to leave my job as I love it and I begrudge losing something else.

I guess what would you do?

If she is on probation, she can be removed for any reason, like not getting along with the team. If someone had treated a member of my team like this, then actually I would get our HR legal check to try to remove them immediately.

Who says she doesn't get on with the team?
I'm not condoning whst she did but it was 15 years ago ,she might have settled into her job and be a valued member of staff for all we know
In the Op,s position i would remain professional and have as little to do with her as possible and keep all lines of communication with her strictly related to the workplace

I doubt it, she is new to that job. I am a retired NHS manager and clinician and I would want to know about this because of the severity of the attack history. I'd certainly want to ensure that the two women were not put to work together and it would be possible for them to avoid each other. Taking action beyond this would depend on further information and looking at HR advice and policies, but I'd certainly want to know about this before the woman's probation period had ended. Some of this would be self protection. We have no idea what this woman's behaviour has been like since her teenage years and if she still has the same issues and there is a risk of the same behaviour happening and I as the manager had an inkling that this might happen, its not going to reflect well on me.

I don't think this advice works at all in the case of this abuse, which was severe. The OP won't be feeling 'fascinated' (as we the readers might be, given that it didn't happen to us.) I suspect she'll be sadly having flashbacks to the abuse.

The apology was absolutely half-hearted and it's a bad idea for the OP to be in any one on one situation with her discussing the events given the track record of 'she said, she said' they've been through during the course of the abuse.

Funnily enough my school bully was employed in the NHS and cared for people amazingly .That was before he was locked up for life.

As I retired NHS manager you should know better
I used to be a nurse in the NHS and it was difficult enough to get them to take actual workplace bullying seriously
They wouldn't have been interested in something from 15 years ago that nobody could prove ,and didn't happen at work.

But as you know the NHS isn't one place where everything works one way. I am sorry to hear that you didn't get appropriate support but as someone who dealt with workplace bullying and fraud going back many years and did get appropriate outcomes, I can assure you that there are places where such things are NOT tolerated. Its why I was clear about what I would do and not what would happen all over the NHS.

No but they do have protocols that have to be followed
Even a probationer would have to have a reason to be failed and managers have to. be seen to be fair they can't arbitrarily decide to take one person's word over another

Quite right, however its perfectly possible to take precautions such as separating the employees. Its why I said I would be getting advice from HR and looking at policies and protocols.

The perpetrator has not changed her spots. She's already blocked the OP's way.

I'm curious, what was the crime?

OP did not say that she works in the NHS. Other jobs and protocols exist. Many HR departments would be alarmed by the OP's story and want to ensure that OP's exposure to this woman is limited. The risk of OP getting mental health issues from being forced to work with this woman is too great for it to be ignored.

This is not someone who called names a few times in school, the severity of the abuse matters.

Workplaces care because failure to make reasonable adjustments could be used in a constructive dismissal case if OP leaves.

Hi all, I wanted to update. I spoke to my manager along with HR yesterday. They’ve taken everything down included that I was previously assaulted by this person. This wasn’t declared by her at interview but it was an under 18 caution so not sure she needed to.

They’ve said that they will ask her to direct all her work queries to my manager, bypassing me so we have no interaction and if she speaks to me/messsages on teams I can just simply redirect her to my manager.

They‘ve also said I can move my work from home day to avoid one of her office days and on the other I’m welcome to work or book out a meeting room if I’d like but no pressure. So really productive and I’m relieved.

hope it continues to be positive for you OP!

That sounds like a good outcome. Well done.

This.
100%.

Well done @OhNotAnother, I hope you are able to fully avoid her. Hopefully it's a relief just to know that if she harasses you then it's all on record to be quickly dealt with.
(Still would have found a way to manage her out if you were in my team, but perhaps that will come.)

That's such good news. I'm glad that they have been so understanding.

That's a good outcome. She might move on quite quickly once she knows they're aware of what she did.

Great news OP! Thanks for the update. So pleased for you. I hope she buggers off and finds a job elsewhere now.

I'd say that there's a good chance, now that the game's up.

Excellent well done! And they sound like they really value you and dealt with it well

Great news op. Really pleased for you, thanks for updating us.