Tell Me If You Think This Person Is An A-Hole For Blackballing Their High School Bully From A Bunch Of Job Opportunities In Their Hometown
Lately, I've been reading a ton of posts on r/AmITheAsshole, a subreddit where people ask others to weigh in on the way they've reacted to certain situations.
CBC / Via giphy.com
A loooot of them have to do with people at work. From bad bosses to out of line co-workers, people are sharing all of the work entanglements they've found themselves in, and TBH, I can't get enough of all of this work tea.
Fox / Via giphy.com
Recently, u/auntie-poor-finance, who owns a recruiting agency in their hometown and has business connections in a lot of local industries, shared that their high school bully was looking for a new job.
"Mark (not his real name) is a guy who used to bully me in high school. I have OCD, and he would mess with me to try and get me to have some kind of breakdown. I'm also straight, but I had a bicurious phase filled with him calling me homophobic slurs. It never escalated to being very physical, but I did get bumped in the hallways on purpose. He's recently returned to my state. I'm not sure why; odds are it's COVID-related like everything is these days. He knows vaguely that I run businesses, but I'm not sure he realizes how much I'm involved in and how much of the recruitment in my state is done through my agency, or even that I run it."
ABC / Via giphy.com
"I've had a few versions of Mark's resume come across my desk. All the fields he's applying for are things that I have significant influence over. I've got an email in my drafts right now that essentially says, 'Bin this guy's resume if it comes past us (recruitment agency) again,' as well as a less professional one to all my business owner friends, which says, 'This is the guy I told you about from high school. Do not hire him at any cost.' I'm wondering if I should hit send. If I do not want him to have a decent job in my state, he probably won't."
u/auntie-poor-finance is worried that if they send the emails, it might reflect poorly on them for trying to ruin someone's career prospects.
Starz / Via giphy.com
"Moving back to your hometown alone generally signifies something's already gone wrong, and I'm not sure if disrupting his potential to make a living is the right thing to do in that case," they wrote. "I also feel like what he did to me in high school isn't all that bad; I was never traumatized or super torn up about it, just very irritated and angry."
But on the other hand, they said they would worry about what would happen if they helped Mark get a job, and it turned out that he hadn't changed his bullying ways.
PBS / Via giphy.com
"I have a professional reputation on the line, so if he's the same person he was in high school, I don't want him to fill any positions for my client companies, because I feel like he'll do a bad job and cause stress in the workplace."
Kind of a tricky situation, right? I decided to dive deep into the responses and see what others thought.
Some said that if the poster sent the emails, they would be sabotaging their own reputation by being shady.
NBC / Via giphy.com
"I think it’s fair to bin his future resumes. I probably wouldn’t send the emails though. You have a real reason to toss his resumes, and you also have no obligation to hire him. Talking shit about him in a way that’s gonna be saved and recorded isn’t a smart thing to do, especially if you have a nice job and a lot to lose. Sounds like his life is already pretty bad; there’s no need for you to put your own reputation in jeopardy to make his life worse." —u/DifficultEbb4
"If a recruiter sent me an email to tell me that a candidate was their high school bully, it would honestly make me think less of that person because (barring extreme circumstances), who spends any time of day thinking about their high school bully? Don’t get me wrong — I think it sucks that you got bullied, and am not trying to dismiss that. But do you really want part of your professional reputation to involve sending emails to your contacts about someone that was shitty to you in high school?" —u/baffled_soap
Other people thought that the poster would be the asshole for ruining someone's potential job opportunities.
"I think YWBTA (you would be the asshole) if you went to the lengths of telling everyone to throw away his CV as part of an attempt to manipulate his life because he was mean in high school. It's better to move on from these things than hold grudges forever." —u/Sk111W
"It would be unprofessional to blackball this person and would show that despite your success, you hold grudges from high school. Our brains aren’t fully formed in high school and people’s mistakes from their youth should not jeopardize their chances for employment as adults. Be a bigger person and show that you’ve moved on. Wouldn’t it be cooler to pretend you don’t even remember this guy?" —u/margesimpson0518
A few people said that getting blackballed was what Mark deserved for being a bully.
Fox / Via giphy.com
"Actions have consequences. He may have grown up, he may not have but you will always know he is capable of bullying." —u/Fit-Distribution-252
"He has a history of bullying people for their disabilities. If they hire him and he does the same, it would make someone feel miserable and endanger your workplace. I don’t think it's worth the risk." —u/Ahsoka88
Someone also pointed out that there could potentially be legal implications if u/auntie-poor-finance was caught blackballing Mark over personal reasons.
Comedy Central / Via giphy.com
"When or if Mark finds out that you’re in charge of hiring, he might (rightly) assume that you were attempting to blackball him and might to try to sue." — u/DutyValuable
Finally, many thought that the poster was free to toss his resume and not consider him for any jobs, but that they should pump the brakes when it came to sending emails to other employers about Mark's past.
"I think I’d bin the resumes internally, but would be hesitant to speak externally about him unless I knew he really was still lousy. Would hate for someone else to hire him, think he’s great, then ask why you spoke poorly of him. Then you’d look like you don’t know what you are doing." —u/Matzie138
So, do you think u/auntie-poor-finance is the asshole in this situation?
Is the poster the asshole?
Is the poster the asshole?
Correct Incorrect Yes, you can't judge someone for what happened years ago.
Correct Incorrect Yes. TBH, they're self-sabotaging by being so petty.
Correct Incorrect No, bullies have to suffer the consequences for what they did.
Correct Incorrect They would be an asshole if they sent the emails calling him out, but it's totally fine to not hire him.
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Is the poster the asshole?
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