A reader writes:
This starts with my wedding. To make a very long story short, my wedding dress alterations were a complete disaster. The seamstress produced such awful work that I had to have an emergency appointment with another shop to fix the dress, just days before my wedding. The new seamstress showed me how my $5,000 dress had been totally butchered. She was able to save it with some incredible work, though, and it turned out so beautifully.
So, how this relates to work: I’m an events manager for a local nonprofit. After the wedding, I sought a partial refund for the botched alterations. Turns out, the shop owner, Abby, is completely unhinged. She went off the rails, accusing me and my mother of lying about our experience, and making blatantly, provably false claims. After almost two weeks of abhorrent emails from her, I decided to drop the request — it was still a huge amount of money, but I just don’t have the capacity for stress right down, during a busy season at work and a move into a new home. Plus, she had roped in my grandmother as well, and I was very worried about my sickly grandmother dealing with awful emails calling her granddaughter all sorts of horrible, childish-bully type names.
I emailed Abby that while I found her correspondence completely unacceptable, I was dropping the refund request to avoid further stress on my family. I asked that she stop all contact with my family and assured her that we would also stop contact with the shop. I got yet another unhinged email back, saying we were “dishonest people” and she would “MAYBE CONSIDER” stopping contact if we proved that we wouldn’t contact them further. What? But whatever, fine. My relatives and I completely stopped responding to her.
Today, after much reflection, I took a deep breath and wrote a one-star review on Google. I knew it would be seen by bananapants Abby, but I felt it was important — her shop produced horrendous, expensive work, and then attacked my family when I asked for a partial refund. If I’m not getting money back, I’m at least going to post about my experience. Almost immediately, Abby emailed that she was filing a police report against me, as a negative review is harassment. I audibly laughed and shrugged it off. I called the local police just to make sure, and they basically laughed too, assuring me there’s nothing Abby can actually do.
My concern is that Abby mentioned twice, in email, that she knows I work in events, and that I’m a “scourge” on the name of the industry. She went on to say that my “lies” and “manipulation” tell of my reputation. I never mentioned where I work, but honestly, I’m a little concerned that this woman may look me up and call my workplace. My boss would definitely laugh in her face, but still, I don’t love the idea of some unstable lady being out to get me professionally. Maybe I’m wrong — I’m almost wondering if she assumed I’m a wedding planner, and thus competition for the planning arm of her business, and that’s part of the reason she was so vile.
I should mention, one of my coworkers is aware of the situation. She used to be a paralegal, so I asked her to look over the correspondence and tell me if I needed to be concerned (for the record, she thinks I have a harassment case against the shop). But do I need to mention this to my boss, as a heads-up? Or would that do more harm than good? I don’t plan on mentioning this to my vendors — they all know me well and I don’t think they’d be phased by Abby, if she ever unearthed any connections. I don’t want to run a smear campaign. I just want this to be over, without worrying about harm to my reputation.
You don’t need to mention this to your boss, but you can if it will bring you peace of mind.
Personally, I will nearly always try to find a way to say the potentially awkward thing in order to buy the peace of mind that comes with not having to worry about it after that. Worded something strangely and worried later that the person took it wrong? I’ll go back and clarify. Accidentally hugged the CEO in the elevator because it looked like they were initiating an embrace when they weren’t? I’d speak up. Concerned something weird and misleading will make its way to my boss and I want to ensure they know the real story? I’ll tell them. It can make for a mildly awkward conversation sometimes, but 100% of the time I’ve been glad I’ve done it — because it’s a chance to make sure the other person isn’t left with the wrong idea about something I care about. And even when it’s turned out they didn’t have the mistaken impression I was worried they’d have, I’ve still been glad I didn’t need to worry about it anymore.
So in this case, I’d say something! It doesn’t need to be a big deal — just, “Hey, I have a weird situation. I asked my wedding dress seamstress for a partial refund for botched alterations and left an honest review, and she’s gone off the rails — bombarding me with hostile emails and harassing my family. I’m hopeful it’s over but she’s unhinged enough that I wouldn’t put it past her to try to contact my workplace. So I wanted to give you a heads-up in case she does.” (And make a point of saying “wedding dress seamstress,” not “vendor.” Since you work in events, I don’t want your boss to have even a minute of thinking, “Oh no, could this affect our rep with other vendors?”)
You’re already confident your boss would laugh in Abby’s face if she did contact her, but I think you’ll feel better getting it out in the open and then not having to worry about it.
On the other hand, not everyone shares my bias toward “just say the thing and get peace of mind.” When you envision having this conversation, if you feel dread rather than relief, it would also be fine to just leave it alone and give your boss the context only if it ever does come up — which it’s very likely not to.
