It's Petty Revenge Friday, Fuckers

Sometimes I remember I have a backbone.

Today I ran across something I wrote last year.

It was a response to a guy I’d known for years through “professional” circles who systematically treated people, including me, terribly. In fact, fucker would get so hammered at events and put hands on women to the degree that his reputation became known and women in the industry would warn each other about him or steer clear of him at events.

But of course, as with most of these fucking guys, this one was lauded as a “thought leader” and got on stages to give speeches and fanbois fawned over him. Everyone seemed to turn the other way at the rest of his lecherous behavior. Natch.

I was happy over the years that the dude had faded from my view for the most part, I stopped running with any of those tangentially connected crowds, and I thought I’d probably never see his face again. Sadly, I wasn’t that lucky.

One day, my LinkedIn messages pinged and there’s his greasy face in my inbox, asking me for a favor. (This happens a lot with these dickheads; I was no one to them for a long time, then I work for a big company and I’m supposed to now call in favors for people who barely gave me a second glance all the years I needed support…but I digress).

And because I’d had enough of shit like this, and his in particular that day, this is how I responded:

You know, it's really funny to me how time and history work.

For many years, you and I ran in many of the same circles, but for much of that time, you were far too cool to pay me the time of day. Unless you were hammered, of course. 

Then you went out of your way to harass women, including me (which I doubt you'd remember). I watched you behave like such a disgusting human with a good friend of mine at a conference and she was so rattled by it, I'll never forget her tears and your *laughter* when you thought she was overreacting to your "advances".

But in polite and sober company, you and the boys club of digital were far, far too important for the likes of me, and in many a room, you practically looked PAST me.

You fucked over dear friends of mine in business, then had the audacity to ask them for favors down the road.

And surprise, surprise, here you are in my messages. I haven't heard from you for years - which honestly, was a blessing - and then suddenly when I have a high profile job at a high profile company, here you are, asking ME for favors as if we're old chums. Let me make something perfectly clear.

I am not your personal "in" here. I am not your tech support, your connection to the right people, and I am most certainly not your friend. I was polite twice before. Now you can take your arrogant, presumptuous self out of my inbox and off to wheedle somewhere else to try and call in favors over burned bridges.

They say the internet has a long memory, but truth is, my memory is longer still. How you treat people has consequences, and many of the "old guard" of men are learning that the hard way after they treated people - especially women - as expendable and beneath them for years. I'm all done with that sort of nonsense. I may not be able to hold you accountable for the way you treated people I love, but I can at least hold you accountable for how you treated ME. And you should be glad that all I'm doing is telling you to get bent in a private message.

So, no thanks. I won't be coming on your show, I won't be helping you get connected to the truly good people that I work with since they deserve better, and I certainly won't be continuing to let you ping me here to attempt to call in favors that you have never, ever earned.

I doubt you have the self-awareness to reflect on any of what got you here, but at the very least, I can make sure you don't get to keep doing it.

I’m sharing this today not because I’m going to name names. I’ll do that when I have nothing left to lose professionally and decide to fuck off to the Maldives for literal ever. Because we all know that the consequences are never for the perpetrators, but for the whistleblowers. But for now, the point is this.

We all have choices about whether we play nice with assholes or whether we hold them to account. We can’t always afford the price of doing it publicly (especially as anyone who is not a cishet white man), but we can all have backbone and integrity privately and make sure that shitty humans know that we know they’re shitty humans.

It’s cathartic. It puts people on notice. And it reminds us that we do not need to kowtow to these absolute skidmarks of human beings simply because they got themselves popular on the internet once or twice. I think I saved this in my Notes app specifically for the days when I wasn’t sure I had fight in me anymore. I’m glad Then Me took a moment to give Now Me a reminder.

Anyway. Hope it was worth the read and maybe inspires you to say absolutely not motherfuckers the next time someone walks through your ethics, boundaries, good taste, or basic sense of human fucking decency.

Let’s look out for one another out there.

Namaste.

With love and angst,

Amber

image credit: the amazingness that is Effin’ Birds. I own like ten mugs and Aaron’s comics give me life on the daily. You should buy merch too.