My workplace bully was fired
He wouldn't look at me for my first three months. He was extremely combative to my ideas or suggestions. He made faces when I talked, he would interrupt me constantly, and would try to undermine my experience or efforts. He really tried to make me feel small. It got to the point where his behavior felt like flat-out misogyny.
I reported him a number of times over the course of three years. Roughly two years ago, we were put together in a meeting facilitated by HR. Unfortunately, nothing changed in our dynamic.
Since February, our working relationship had gotten extremely strained. He had been granted permission to start working on a function of our team that I have been the principal lead on. Prior to, my supervisor had asked if I was comfortable with him coming on to help-- I had requested an additional headcount for coordination. I thought maybe this was an opportunity to finally collaborate and work together.
For the first couple months of this change, our communication was pretty one-sided until it all came to a mount a couple weeks ago. In a meeting with our supervisor present, he threatened to sue me for asking him for 50/50 collaboration on a project the two of us were working on. I immediately moved to end the meeting and reported the incident to HR. They were confused over what he was going to sue me over just as much as I was.
Well, fast forward to today and our supervisor announces to the team he has his last day.
I'm kind of in shock. I spent years dealing with stress from his intimidation and meanness. I've talked about this to no end in therapy for months. And now he's just gone. I feel a mixture of relief, a little guilt (it's a hard job market and I don't wish the struggle of job searching on anyone), and some other feeling I can't quite put my finger on.
Putting this out there as a success story I guess? It doesn't feel successful to be bullied and have someone fired for it. However, it does feel good to be seen, heard, and protected. So, I'm hoping this also becomes the story for someone else out there who is currently struggling in a similar situation.