True Story: “My past came back to haunt me – at my job!”

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“When I was offered my dream job at a multinational company a couple of years ago, I was over the moon. It was exactly the role I needed to advance in my career, and I was looking forward to the chance to prove myself. I couldn’t contain my excitement on my first day at work. As I waited in my HR manager’s office, I thought about all the great things I would accomplish. When the manager came out to see me, she asked me to sign a few papers before taking me down to meet my new boss and team. I was told that I would not be working with the person who interviewed me; instead, the company heads had transferred someone internally to lead my department and run its various teams. Her name was Melinda* and I would be reporting directly to her.”

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Haunted by the past

“My HR manager showed me around the floor I’d be working on and introduced me to the people who were already there. Everyone was very warm and friendly, and I felt very welcome. Finally, the HR manager led me to Melinda’s room. As she knocked on the door, I couldn’t stop smiling at the thought of meeting my new boss.

“And then the door opened, and when I came face-to-face with, Melinda, my whole body turned cold. Melinda and I had gone to secondary school together, and I remember making her time there, absolute hell.

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“If Melinda recognised me too, she hid it well. She stood up, shook my hand, and introduced herself, adding that she was happy to welcome me to the department. I was so shocked that I couldn’t say more than, ‘Nice to meet you’. Then the HR manager walked out of the office, leaving me alone with Melinda.

“There was an awkward silence before Melinda said, ‘Let’s talk about this role and what you’ll be doing’. For the next half an hour, she went through my responsibilities and shared her expectations of me. She then showed me to my cubicle and started me on my first tasks for the day.

“Melinda still hadn’t indicated whether she remembered me or not, so I thought I’d bring it up. ‘We went to school together, do you remember?’ I asked her. ‘Yes, we did’, she replied, ‘I know who you are and I remember everything from those years’.”

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Mean girl

“I’m not proud of who I was in secondary school. I was a ‘mean girl’, someone who taunted and intimidated her classmates. I may not have been one of those girls who got into physical fights in school, but I was bitchy. I thought nothing of insulting other girls’ looks, calling them names, and making them feel small. I guess I was just really insecure back then. It was only when I started university that I reflected on my mean girl behaviour and cleaned up my act.

“Melinda was the target of my bullying because she was grossly overweight. My friends and I would throw snarky remarks her way during recess, saying things like ‘You’ll never lose weight if you keep eating junk food’ and, ‘You need to go on a diet because you’re starting to look like a whale’. During PE lessons, we would laugh at her inability to finish a lap around the track or do anything strenuous. One of the girls in my group used to call her ‘Melinda the Massive’, to her face as well as behind her back.

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“The bullying went on from the time we were 14 until we completed secondary school. Melinda never cried; she just always looked hurt and would do her best to avoid us. She never complained to the teachers or her parents about the way we treated her, so we never got into trouble for it.”

“Now, 20 years later, Melinda was 25kg lighter and looked amazing. I hoped and prayed that she’d gotten over the pain my friends and I had caused her.”

Karma is a bitch

“So much for hoping and praying. Over the next few months, Melinda made it clear that she wasn’t about to forgive and forget. She would shoot down my ideas at meetings, passing them off as ‘unoriginal’, ‘boring’ and ‘uninspiring’, and would also insinuate that I was lazy and unfocused. ‘Is it just me or do you seem like you’re not serious about your work?’ she would ask sarcastically. Every time I asked her how I could improve, she would say vague things like, ‘Isn’t the answer obvious to you?’.

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“Try as I did, I couldn’t get Melinda to say anything kind or encouraging to me. She was the ultimate boss from hell, and I hated every second of working under her. As a result of what I thought was unfair treatment towards me, my whole attitude to my job changed. I went from believing in my abilities to thinking that I was hopeless, and I started to resent going to the office.

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“At the end of my probation period, Melinda called me to her office. She said that my work performance over the previous months had fallen short of the company’s expectations and she wanted to extend my probation by three months.

“The thought of another three months under Melinda was too much to bear. Was this her way of punishing me? I was so tired of being treated badly that I came right out with it. ‘Look, Melinda, I know what you’re trying to do, but this is my career’, I told her. ‘Please don’t punish me this way. I’m sorry for what I did to you in school and I hope you’ll forgive me. I’m not a bully anymore’.

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“Melinda’s reply was shockingly blunt: ‘Your apology is two decades late. You ruined my time in secondary school – those are days I’ll never get back. I cried every single day because of your taunts’.

“It was clear that Melinda wasn’t going to give me a chance. Feeling defeated, I resigned right there and then. There was no point continuing a fight I knew I wasn’t going to win. No matter how hard I worked or how sorry I was, I knew she wouldn’t let my past treatment of her go.

“Melinda accepted my resignation without comment. When the HR manager asked me why I didn’t want to work for the company anymore, I told her, without going into too much detail, that the role didn’t suit me.

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“I didn’t think I’d be paying for the mistakes of my youth two decades down the track. Because my time at the company was cut short I’ll never know how far I could have gone, and I feel like my success in this industry is ruined now. I wish things hadn’t turned out this way but I can’t go back in time and change my behaviour. All I can do is learn from the lesson and make sure I don’t make the same mistake again.”

*names have been changed

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