The Corporate Bully that Broke Me and How I Should Thank Her

I was trapped in The Devil Wears Prada meets Mommy Dearest and it ended a 25 year corporate career.

We have all had a co-worker or supervisor that was unpleasant to be around. Many have had to endure “me too” moments in the workplace that are way too common. What I am talking about is the level of toxicity so vile that it breaks your spirit, shatters your confidence, and makes you question your ability not just as an employee, but as a functioning human being and not even your standby bottle of Xanax can help you.

I met her just over three years ago. Before Corona was a virus. I was successful. I made great money for a big corporate name. I was noticed in my department for all the right reasons. I had a team and great accounts and I brought my “A” game to everything. Even with two young kids and an hour commute to the office three days a week, I made it all work. I was a master scheduler and had amazing focus and work ethic.

My bosses boss tapped me one day and asked if I would be up for a challenge. In corporate speak, that is code for “we are testing you”, so of course I wanted to hear more. I was told that I would still keep my current role and do a job share to lead communications for a major conference. I met with my temporary boss over the phone and again in person, she seemed wonderful and said all the right things. I met with her leader as well and felt completely welcomed, so I accepted the assignment. It is the biggest regret of my life and I have an ex-husband.

She introduced me to nobody. Told me I talked too loud on the phone. Cancelled every one-on-one meeting we had and made herself unavailable to answer questions. But that was the easy part. She was an insomniac. Which meant that the bitch stayed up all night typing out incoherent emails to me that I needed to decode the next morning. All were incredibly time sensitive, naturally and none of them made sense. When I would ask a follow up question for clarification, I would either get zero response or chastised for not being able to figure it out. It was a daily hell that started at 6:30 am when my alarm went off and I saw all the notifications. Panic and dread would consume me from the moment I woke until I finally was able to put the phone down past midnight and sleep.

And that was my life. For four months. She never said good morning. Never told me when she would be out of the office, but I was expected to be able to anticipate her every thought. It was an impossible project. Product delays that were out of my control, all decisions needing to be approved by the CEO, and a structural build for the conference that was down to the wire. I managed to pull off the impossible ask despite her constant changes in direction. 70 hour weeks. The last car in a campus for 7,000 people on many nights. Never took a lunch. Never took a vacation day. Worked Christmas Eve. Worked New Years Day. Ordered every single gift, stocking stuffer, grocery for the entire holiday season thru Amazon because I could not break free to go shopping. My husband said he felt as if he worked in a grocery store with the amount of cardboard he was breaking down. Low point, I was on a work call in line for Santa with my kids. I made zero time for my family during these four months and prioritized this psychopath above everything else. It was the wrong choice.

When the conference concluded, the extended team thanked me over and over again for all of my hard work and dedication. The bitch actually hugged me at the airport when the conference was over and told me what an amazing job I did. For a minute I felt fulfilled. For a minute.

Then she sent a review of my performance to my boss, her boss, and my Senior VP. My boss read it to me word for word and those words broke something inside of me that to this day I can’t get over. We were in an open seating space in the building, not a conference room and I started sobbing. I have never in my life worked so hard, put in the kind of hours you only hear about in movies and books, only to be called lazy and incompetent. The thing is, they all pretty much dismissed it as bullshit because she had a reputation of being difficult to work with, but I couldn’t dismiss it. I was always the one who could win over adversaries. I could take on any challenge and exceed expectations. I had done this my entire career. But it didn’t work this time. I didn’t win her over with my skill and wit. She obliterated me professionally in front of people I looked up to and in that moment, even though her write up was completely insane, she beat me. And then the fear and paranoia set in. Did the higher-ups in my department see me differently? Would this impact my bonus? Would I no longer be on my same career trajectory? Those were now the questions I asked myself every day. Multiple times a day. Questions that never crept into my confident mind before this.

The project ended and I went back into my old role. I was in full swing of a new program I had zero pulse on. I was thrown in and floundered. So unsure of myself, confidence so broken that I no longer had my “A” game. I had depression. I stopped writing my blog. I was there for my friends and family but not really present. People noticed. My reputation let me coast for a long while before my boss started to question if I was ok.

I wasn’t. I’m still not. The impact that this corporate bully had on me was enough to not only reevaluate my role within the department, but whether I wanted to stay with the company. Further, did I want to continue to be in my field, in the corporate world? I started to feel like I was giving up. I was beaten by a fucking Regina George mean girl and dammit did that eat at me more than anything. At this point the pandemic was upon us and the reductions in force had already started. Those who left voluntarily were not being replaced. My boss and I were doing the work of a team of six. I was exhausted, she was exhausted, the work did not stop coming in with demand for deliverables increasing. There was no time for mental health check ins. And then I stopped sleeping.

Take someone who has already lost their confidence and deprive them of sleep, while working from home with their spouse and two kids on web calls for school all day. I could not manage. I did this new normal every day for six months. I sat in my home office on calls all day long while my husband had his command center set up from the dining room. I worked from 8am -7pm. If I had a Dr. appointment for a mammogram, I was texting and emailing for work. I had conference calls and worked on decks for presentations during my hair appointments and Girl Scout troop meetings. Every second I had alone in a car was spent multitasking a call, text or email. It was all consuming. I was tired and trying to figure out what my next move should be as this position was not sustainable. What would make me happy? Then the layoffs came.

My husband was first. 22 years with the company and they brought in “the Bobs” and made him take a skills assessment like he was fresh out of college, not a successful member of the leadership team with an impeccable reputation. He had to answer questions like “would you rather kill or steal” and there were 100 of those mind fucks. After a couple of months, he lost his battle in the corporate hunger games. Then my call came. They actually laid us both off. From the same company. Every source of income, gone. We got severance, thank fuck, because we needed it. Unemployment for the first time in both our lives helped as well. It took my husband 10 months to land. After George Floyd’s murder, every corporation in America upped their diversity game. Great for America, bad timing for our middle aged, management level, white dude looking for a job in a pandemic. So now we have my partner in crime on the depression train with me. Woo woo!

The second I was laid off, I panicked, because…health insurance. The corporate machine was kind enough to give me some runway and gave me three extra months before we were out of insurance. That was kind. Biden’s recovery bill also helped us with insurance. I have never in my life benefitted from a government program of any kind, but this one saved us thousands in health care coverage. But it worked out ok in the end. My husbands new company picked up the insurance where Grandpa Joe left off and now I can get my mammogram again without having to take a work call in between breasts being squeezed.

The one thing I have learned is the importance of having a spouse that supports you, respects you, and truly wants to see you go for your dreams. Either that or he was just tired of the funk I had been in for two years. So we made the decision, with the support of our kids and our friends, that I would take my severance and go to beauty school. Fuck, I was scared. My self doubt was high. Would people think I was having a breakdown, a midlife crisis? Could I really give up my income? Would my family be ok? I think my dad literally just stopped asking what my backup plan is last week.

Bottom line is, I did it. And it pretty much sucked. I was a 44 year old student with work ethic, used to going non stop for 20+ years and now I was in class and on zoom calls with kids in hoodies with only one eye showing and vaping on screen. But they weren’t all fuckwits that locked themselves in the single school bathroom to post on TikTok. There were some great ones and I did make friends. Granted, they called me “mom”, but they are friends.

I graduated in under a year. I got all the awards and honors. I paid for the whole program out of pocket and I built my own salon. Again, out of pocket. I am now my own boss. I love what I do. Sure, there are still moments of self doubt that creep on in when it’s a slow week, but I know I am really good at what I do and as my business continues to grow, I will get mentally stronger and more confident.

I will never understand women who degrade and bully other women. I have always and will always go out of my way to make connections for people and to help others. Life is about how you treat people. Put good things into the world and they will come back to you. One nasty witch might have started the trajectory for my corporate days ending, but it opened bravery in me that I never knew existed. So I suppose I should thank my bully for ruining a part of my life. My kids now get to see that it doesn’t matter how old you are, go get your dreams. A little secret – I do keep an eye on that passive aggressive twat on LinkedIn. One day she’s going to work for one of my friends. Karma’s a bitch, and my friends are loyal and fierce. A girl can dream. Xoxo