I rather lost faith in the whole school thing...
I had to literally drag my very distressed children to school for several years, to leave them sobbing their hearts out with a teacher hanging on to them so they didn't run back to me as I left. I'd be telephoned several times a week by the school because they were "distressed" after breaktimes and lunchtimes. I attended meeting after meeting with the head and deputy head about the bullying. The advice given by the staff was the usual "ignore it", "go home for lunch", "walk away", "tell a teacher" type crap. They tried all of this - to no avail. They tried standing up to the bullies - only to get into trouble with the themselves. I was told by my daughter's head of year that nothing would be done about one of the girls bullying my daughter because "her parents would get upset" and would apparently cause trouble for the school - the HoY sympathised, she said, but my daughter would have to try and stay out of the other girl's way. Etc etc, ad nauseum.

After many, many incidents - both physical and verbal, the final straw for me came following yet another a rather nasty assault on my daughter by two girls where, this time, she was thrown on the floor and kicked in the head several times - surrounded by the usual jeering mob. My daughter finally managed to get to the receptionist and asked her to call me. The receptionist said she'd call the school nurse instead, who duly came and took my daughter to the medical room. After being told what had happened the nurse gave her a glass of water and then sent her off to her class. The teacher noticed she was white as a sheet and shaking so sent her back to the nurse, the nurse immediately sent her back to class. After much to'ing and fro'ing to the nurses room over the course of the day (the incident happened in the morning) the deputy head was finally called in. He questioned my daughter and the two girls concerned, who eventually admitted the whole thing and told them to shake hands and apologise.

My daughter came home from school that night still white as a sheet, still shaking, blurred vision, vomiting etc - I finally managed to piece together most of the story from her highly incoherent explanations while we were in casualty. She was concussed but fortunately no permanent or longlasting damage.

Obviously I had several questions for the school staff - why hadnt they called me when it happened, why hadnt they taken her to hospital immediately (which I would think would be commonsense after someone was kicked repeatedly in the head), why did the nurse continually send her back to class when she was quite clearly not fit to be in school after the assault, etc

No satisfactory answers were forthcoming, no apology for the nurse's total incompetence - instead I was apparently supposed to be satisfied with the punishment which the school had decided upon for the two girls concerned - they were "isolated" (not allowed to go outside at breaktime or lunchtime) for one whole day! Woo!

After the meeting concluded I marched straight up to the receptionist, requested a pen and paper, and wrote a letter to the school unregistering them - took them home. They've been home educated ever since.

After being out of the school environment for several years, my children have now returned to the well-balanced and happy people they were before the bullying started. They are respectful, kind and enthusiastic about learning, and are now much more social and friendly with other children (albeit older children rather than their peers) than they ever were whilst at school - something which, had I left them in that abusive and neglectful environment, I'm sure would have been knocked out of them.

Yes, education is necessary - school isn't.
(Freakmandu, Sat 16 May 2009, 4:17, 9 replies)

My teenage daughter was hounded by just one nasty bitch in high school
for a couple of months, by which time she was a nervous wreck.

Her father was a teacher there, so it seemed that for the school to intervene would be seen as favouritism.

I wasn't a teacher though, so I steamed into school and told a deputy head very firmly that if the girl even looked at my daughter again I'd wait for her outside school and punch her face in myself, and I'd ring the local paper first to tell them I was doing it.

The deputy was horrified - 'You can't do THAT!'

Schools HATE 'trouble', but only if it makes them look bad. Individual kids don't matter, not even bright, pleasant ones.

My daughter had no more problems and the bully went on to a successful heroin-and-breeding career.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sat 16 May 2009, 3:21, 8 replies)

My first and last fight
It was my second year of 'big school' and I'm sat in a Geography class, I loved Geography back then and still do.

The lesson was being ruined by Stuart who was sat behind me, he kept shoving his desk forward so it slammed into the back of my chair.

It pissed me off, words were exchanged resulting in an agreement to have a fight at afternoon break.
At break-time we found a quiet area, it was so quiet that the fight lasted most of the break.

Eventually we were stopped, both of us battered an bruised were marched off to the headmaster.
After a telling off we both knew it wasn't over so we agreed to fight again the next day.

It never happened, Stuart was hit by a car on his way home, he died on the road outside the School

I've never had a fight in the 24 years that have passed.

and still feel guilty now.
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Sat 16 May 2009, 3:09, 6 replies)

real talk
i got bullied lots. so i stabbed the top boy in his chestplate.
(papa bouba slap your face, Sat 16 May 2009, 2:18, Reply)

i will try and keep this concise
i went through primary school in a daze, close to top of the class with ease in most things- i didnt even have to try, and had very little trouble other than disparaging comments about my out of fashion clothes (we were pretty skint as a family,but never without the necessities)and the odd roll around the yard over football.
secondry school was different from the off, i was overwhelmed by it and it seemed like all my previous friends had vanished and i was alone. i did make a few friends, but mainly kept my own councel.
of course, being a spotty quiet kid made me the main target for every individual or group of bullies in the school. my mum actually thought i was ripping the sleeves off my blazer on purpose, some sort of teenage rebellion, i couldnt tell her the truth-that it was through trying to escape beatings. my mum and dad worked til well after i finished the school day and my papers, and the last thing i wanted to burden them with was my seemingly petty problems.
the constant dark cloud of the next episode of violence followed me throughout secondry school with instances of abuse and violence occuring almost daily, with only occasional shafts of light piercing through, like my games teacher properly twatting one of the bigger lads(bigger than himself even),after he had kicked my head black and blue for objecting to his thieving of my crisps, one of the few times i actually gave one a crack back, or the day i left the fucking dump-although even that small triumph was tainted by someone i saw as a decent person, who went to shake my hand to say bye, then instead puched me in the guts.
i grew quickly after school, and found life has a nice way of righting the wrongs, call it karma if you like, i dont really care for religious terminology. i have frightened two of them out of a pub just by smiling and mentioning to my dad (proper handy hard case) that i had some bother with them at school, i gave one a savage beating outside a pub in town after he had hospitalised a much smaller and younger lad and the bouncers wouldnt get involved, another tried to carry on the bullying in a pub on my 21st birthday and got his nose smashed all over his face. most will now simply make efforts to avoid me, and this is easy as i dont really socialise much now as i have a family. one or two actually are quite friendly now, but it is quite one sided and barely tolerated. i detest violence, i know from experience that nothing goood comes of it, but i cannot help myself hoping that i will still come across that fucking knob who punched me on the last day of school, and that i will gain some sort of retribution.
reading some of these posts, the idea that all will right itself reoccurs, but even though this has been the case with me , in reality it took 20 years to actually gain enough confidence to function like a normal human. bullying had a massive influence on my life and stopped me going to uni when i was younger, as i associated educational establishments with bullying. for years and years, i struggled to talk to anyone who was not a close friend and i still keep everything bottled up, which isnt good, but doing college courses, representing colleagues and being pushed into a career change has helped me regain a good level of confidence.
bullying can and does change lives, but it doesnt need to ruin them.

keep smiling =)
(discodaz *generic witty comment*, Sat 16 May 2009, 1:11, Reply)

Karate Kid without 'The Crane'
Leroy was one of my best friends at primary school. Back then halfcast was a term that was quite acceptable and the dried dog poo we dodged on the way to school was white.

He came to all my birthday parties, we went to the 'adventure playground' deep within the council estate together, he had Panthro and the Thundertank, I had Lion-O and the Sword of Omens.

I know the day he turned. A bunch of about 6 kids doing a ring'a'roses style circle around him, chanting the racist version of Ibble-obble. I stood at a distance and watched. I wanted to do something but didn't know what I could do.

I'd like to think that if I'd intervened he might have turned out different. But I was 10 or 11'ish and had already received a smack in the mouth from Adrian. To this day I can be a bit to C.L.I.T.O.R.I.S. for my own liking (for the Red Dwarf fans).
The dinner ladies were deliberately ignorant of what was going on.

Between then and secondary school, Karate Kid was a HUGE film. Every kid took up karate, including myself.

But Leroy had taken up karate about a year before everyone else and he was kicking arse. He was Bully Prime of our secondary school. He was Johnny of Cobra Kai.

Despite me being a former best friend, I quickly became just another target for his hostility. He gained two cronies, Stephen and Brendan (another 'best friend' of mine) and would try and duff me (and several others) up during lunch hour using his ninja skills. But I actually found my own karate skills came in to play!

I spent entire lunches practising blocks, and nothing but blocks, against the bastard. I kept waiting for my Daniel-san moment, where he would pause to weigh me up and I would assume The Crane position and kick the c*nt to kingdom come. It never happened. The whistle went and we all went in.

The day it all stopped was when Aaron fought back. Aaron was that big, strapping, softy that everyone has been to school with. Not too bright, good at rugby (because of his size) but with no natural aggression. The kind of lad that should be named 'Mungo'.

I was there the day Leroy tried a roundhouse on Aaron whilst we lined up, waiting to go in to English. I guess Leroy thought decking the biggest kid in the school would secure his status as Bully Prime. Leroy hit at chest height and Aaron didn't even shudder.

With a blank face Aaron lunged the few feet between himself and his aggressor, raising Leroy off the floor by his shirt and collar. Leroy ineffectually punched Aaron/Mungo in the ribs several times before finding himself hanging from a coat hook in the corridor.

Did anyone say anything? No. We all walked past him in to class, the more picked on bravely punching him in the goolies on the way past.

To this day I'm confused on how I feel about this. He deserved the goolie ragging he received, but I'm still a little bit C.L.I.T.O.R.I.S.
(Big Smurf Brush me daddy-O, Sat 16 May 2009, 0:34, Reply)

bullied
Beaten since infants school and bullied thereafter i remember some numtpy insulting my mum at high school so i punched him in the face-still got a kicking but there you go.
(shug, Fri 15 May 2009, 23:24, Reply)

My own attempt at bullying.
I was bullied at primary school by two 'bigger boys'. In my preteen mind I decided the way to deal with this was to bully someone smaller than me.

Even though it was 25 odd years ago, I still remember his name and how he looked. His name was Adrian. He was about the same height as me, but very skinny and had that almost white/blonde hair. He smelt of wee most of the time (which in later life I learned was just a result of clothes not being dried properly) and always looked slightly grubby. He came from the rather rough council estate the surrounded this Colchester primary school.

I walked up to him in the playground after school. I growled "Adrian, I'm gonna duff you up 'cos you smell of piss". I drew my hand back ready to beat him senseless.

And then he punched me in the face and ran.

My career as a school bully started and stopped right at that very moment. The shock of receiving a fist to the mouth, as weak as it was, stunned me in to realising that I didn't really want to inflict pain on other people, that I just didn't have that bullying gene. I'm a pacifist, man.

So thank you Adrian for stopping me becoming some arse who acts out their own insecurities on those weaker than them.
(Big Smurf Brush me daddy-O, Fri 15 May 2009, 23:11, 1 reply)

bully her?
i fucked her sideways, your mum, bullied the fuck out of her before giving her the length.
The FBI is what she wanted and the FBI is what she recieved.

the Fauntleroy Beef Injection.

and i tell you what,
she loved every last one of those 3 inches, the dirty cock hungry whore that she is, your mum.

and yeah, i bullied her into anal as well, she said no she didnt want it up her shit chute, but she ended up loving it, the dirty bitch.

your mum that is
(little lord muthafuckin fauntleroy, Fri 15 May 2009, 22:43, 6 replies)

RE: Teachers
Many stories told here have spoken of teachers who have either condoned bullying, turned a blind eye, or even taken part themselves. These are all terrible occurrences that are to be regretted and thought about, but this is no basis at all for the suggestions that, because of this, "all teachers are scum" or that "the profession as a whole has a long way to go".
I mean, come on, thats like saying "Those nazis, eh? All Germans are cunts".
Get a grip.
(Roopy all is not what it seams, Fri 15 May 2009, 21:43, 8 replies)

you smell

( BadBadman saw an incorrect comma placement on, Fri 15 May 2009, 19:59, 5 replies)

Pierre, The Japie Bastard
I love South Africans.
I work with nearly 100 of them - of all races and colours - in my team and throughout the company, plus contractors. On the whole, they are top notch people - humourous, generous, hard-working, and just good fun.

And I have only met two that were utter wankers - one was Pierre; the other - the pathological liar who upon being fired for conduct unbecoming - had his desk drawers opened by people wearing rubber gloves and carrying tongs, so they could remove a number of soiled womens panties, opened condoms (they weren't game to check if they had been used), and some DVDs of hardcore anal porn. And as for what he had stored on his PC hard-drive.......!!!

But I digress. This is about Pierre.

Pierre, a former bank manager in SA joined the company as department manager, the fifth one in the space of four years (following on from "Tim The Pants", who requires a QOTW all for himself). He was physically large - 6ft4 and built like the proverbial brick shithouse. He didn't so much speak as snarl - this man could not talk normally.

Although he was my manager's manager I had little to do with him thankfully, and his reaction to a calculated remark I made more or less proved that at some stage he had been a member of the AWB. Which didn't surprise me at all....

Now, some managers incorporate different strategies from existing management experts, eg Covey, Kehoe et al, into their management methods. Pierre's method was more akin to that of Atilla the Hun, being simply "FUCKING DO AS I SAY!!!!!"

The walls in our building were very thin, and you could always tell when some poor sod was getting a roasting from him. Loud verbal abuse of a work nature followed by that of a personal nature was his only management style. And normally it was a woman that would bear the brunt of his bullying. The floor had a female-male ratio of 10 to 1 so in some ways its not surprising, however in all the time he was über-boss I only saw 1 male team leader get a reaming from him. At least 2 or 3 a day would get a bollocking, and one of those would walk out in tears.
So at least 5 women a week would be in a dishevelled emotional state.
A good friend of my Girlfriend At The Time endured this treatment every day for 3 weeks until she quit. She wasn't incompetent either - she did her job well and had done so for the previous 2 years before the arrival of Pierre.
He just took a dislike to her, and made her life hell. This was the pattern he followed with others for the next 3 to 4 years. Although there were a number of unfair dismissal cases, he somehow escaped with the equivalent slap with the wet bus-ticket.

The only person who I saw actually confront him was Matt, a Bradford lad and ex-Para who eyeballed him on more than one occasion and gave it back to him in no uncertain terms. Once or twice it nearly came to blows, and my money was on Matt to wipe the floor with his fat ass.

As a manager, he was crap. Motivation was through fear and intimidation, morale was non-existent, he would change his mind or department policy on a whim and deny he had ever done it. But he maintained a veneer of respectability, and kept budgets down by ensuring a constant churn of staff - usually those with experience and knowledge would be bullied out so the noobs he hired or promoted would be on lower salaries - and anything that he couldn't shoehorn into looking good was either dressed-up or quietly hidden.

When we amalgamated with another company, someone higher up the food-chain heard his loud braying voice and decided he was the man to manage the integration. This, he thought would be his crowning achievement - but it turned out to be the beginning of his downfall.
Lets just say it was a bad choice, and 8 years on we are only now free of the fallout from the physical and psychological damage his 'work' caused. The best part was, the higher-ups saw this, and decided to move the seat of his realm from Auckland to Christchurch.

The NZ South Islanders, or Mainlanders as they call themselves are a hardy bunch who take shit from no-one, least of all a loud bullying foreigner. They were familiar with his past and his methods and after a few meetings, presented him with a welcoming gift - the entire staff had joined the Union!
So with his staff standing up to him, the Union on his back for everything from his bullying to wages and terms & conditions, the higher-ups saw what was happening and began to turn the screws on him themselves. They placed enormous demands on him.....

....until he finally cracked. The story goes that one day he deliberately drove his car into the wall of the carpark and sat there bawling his eyes out with a smashed, steaming radiator and the horn blaring, until ambulance staff took him away.
He officially took two months of sick leave and never returned.

And all was peace in the little valley once more.


Length - four years of threats, abuse, bullying and downright incompetence to totally screw up a department.
(Sebulba continues to fight evil with evil....., Fri 15 May 2009, 19:02, Reply)

My school was a bit weird
There was virtually no physical bullying that went on (at least, that I was aware of), but the amount of verbal abuse was beyond belief. In particular, the amount of homophobia was appalling. Probably due to it being a single-sex school, the standard insult was "Gay". Well, that and the usual "your mum" crap.
Out of the entire year set I was in, not one out of about 100 pupils came out, and there were some people who very obviously were gay but were far too repressed to come out with it.
I'm ashamed to say that I wasn't at all without sin, and treated some people very badly indeed. I also happened to get a lot of stick myself, but that doesn't excuse my behaviour at the time.
The positive side I can draw from it is that over the seven years I was there, I learned to despise bullying in all its forms, and will not tolerate it at all these days. I'm only sorry that it still seems endemic in many schools, workplaces and institutions.
Bullies are, without exception, insecure and vicious little shits, and I'm currently looking at becoming a teacher. I'd like to think that in some way, I might be able to stop some small amount of this sort of crap, and if I can, it'll be a good thing.
( wynoh kills threads by his mere presence, Fri 15 May 2009, 18:10, 4 replies)

Not a story, but an observation
We only hear one side of everyones stories here (granted, there are exceptions), but sometimes people make their own beds at school if you know what I mean...

I went to school with this guy who made friends with people and then when invited to their homes would steal from them. He deserved a shoeing, but to this day feels that the constant torment he suffered as a result was unfair. I, personally, feel it was not. He was bang out of order and deserved everything that came to him.

EDIT: just so as we are clear here, I was too much of a pansy to even think about being a bully. I was fat and played trombone FFS.
( currantbun is nubtnarruc backwards, Fri 15 May 2009, 17:18, Reply)

I've been
a longtime lurker here and I've gotta say this is, without doubt, the worst QOTW I've ever seen. Its just an incredibly dull subject which I don't want to read about - I just hope none of you think I'm bullying in any way by pointing this out. Fingers crossed for something better next week.
(Big Grant, Fri 15 May 2009, 17:15, 5 replies)

How I stopped getting bullied:
I went from a very Catholic primary school, where there was really very little bullying - God was watching, you see - to a pretty rough secondary school.

I wasn't ready for it. I got roughed around for being bright and being crap at sports, and especially for being posh (by kids who had far more money than my family did, but there you go, that's what you get for liking to read books).

The kids at my school were right bastards. We used to 'collect' all the local nutcases, they'd get expelled from all the local schools and end up at ours, and some of them had no place being outside a special school.

But - when I was 15, I did something that basically stopped me from getting bullied ever again:

I started smoking. Smoking, you see, makes you look cool (when you're 15). Hanging around the bike sheds smoking a sly fag with the cool kids tends to stop them picking on you, not least because they know at some point they might have to bum a fag off you.
(Seebeedee, Fri 15 May 2009, 17:14, 4 replies)

I bet £50 that I'd be able to come up with a decent answer to next week's QOTW
I lost.
( krang, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:57, 1 reply)

One with a happy (non violent) ending
A few years back I started working at a law firm. My boss was *amazing*, and offered to put me through my law conversion course.

Then his wife started working there. She systematically destroyed any good relationship between the boss and staff. The only member of staff that was exempt was the secretary, an average, fairly dim, suck up.

Over the next 18 months all 12 of the original staff had left. I say this to reassure (mostly) myself that I wasn't a complete pansy.

Her slow take-over of the firm involved Big Brother-esque monitoring of each and every activity partaken in throughout the day, and the slow degradation of my role from that of having my own cases which I ran with minimal supervision, to office skivvy, culminating in them employing a new leader of our department, letting me know on the morning this numpty was arriving, and telling me to shift my stuff out into the hall because, oh, he'd be needing my desk, too. The department I worked in had consisted of me and my supervisor, who, since starting her new job has begged me to come and work with her new firm.

The boss's wife made continual nasty and sexist comments, letting it be known that although the male solicitor didn't have to clock in and out like we did, or fill in time sheets, there would be serious repercussions if we did not.

It is very hard to explain what office bullying is like. I honestly couldn't tell you what it was that affected me so deeply, but it was horrible. I used to sit in my car, trying not to burst into tears, for up to 10 minutes every morning before work, just in case I had to face her - or him, as she'd turned him firmly against us all.

Long and short was that I eventually went to see the doctor because my hair had started to fall out (!), and I was on the verge of a breakdown. She told me in no uncertain terms that I was to take time off with stress. I flinched, because time off with stress was what people who were lazy good-for-nothings did. But saw sense and took said time off. I had a meeting with my boss, and using up the last of my courage reserves explained in great detail why I was having such a hard time, to be reassured it wouldn't continue.

On my return, it was as if he had concentrated each offensive action into the space of 2 hours. I barely made it through the day, handed my notice in that afternoon, and through my tears fled to the doctors to be told that the doc had never heard anything so stupid (re the actions of my boss) in a long time. He signed me off for my notice period.

I did not get paid for that last month. Fair dos, I didn't work. But then my boss wrote to me demanding a number of thousands of pounds because they'd put me through one year of a law conversion course.


And here is where honesty and integrity (and printing all the evidence) prevails. I sent a 22 page official complaints letter, with 41 attached documents; mostly emails and timesheets, listing my unfair dismissal on the grounds of gender, bullying received from his wife, the reporting of said bullying, and the inaction on his part. It took me 2 weeks to write, and since I sent it I have not heard from the firm.

~wavy lines time~

The suck-up secretary who had stabbed all in the back when she was there, had been stabbed in the back herself, and quit. She told my supervisor to let me know that Mr Evil Boss had spent some thousands of pounds getting professional advice re my complaint letter to be told very firmly to shut up and hope that I never contacted them again or he would be in a huge heap of professional misconduct shite.

The firm is still doing business, altho last gossip was the idiot wife had "accidentally" laundered £10k for on of their clients. They still live in a massive house, drive massive cars, and generally act live pretentious nobs.
But... the husband has taken to sleeping in his office to avoid his harpy of a wife, who had gotten pregnant (again). Neighbours had started complaining that he would invite himself to their houses and not leave until the early hours.
And, I earn an equivalent of precisely 2x the wage he paid me. And my current boss is LOVELY. (Altho his new partner's a bit of a cow, hey ho, leaving in a couple of months anyway, and now I don't let it get to me).

I'm just happy that I'm no longer there. Anything else is a glorious bonus!
(Psyche finishes work at the end of June! Yay!!!, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:40, 9 replies)

My sister
was bullied relentlessly throughout primary school - she was in a class of 5 kids, and 2 of them took against her in a big way, and were utterly vile to her. Pushed her over in the playground, tripped her up if she was walking past, threw mud at her - you know the sort of stuff. Mum and dad knew what was going on, although not who the perpetrators were, and told her she needed to stand up for herself, or it would just get worse. There wasn't much else they could do.

As her elder sister, I decided to stand up for her, as she clearly wasn't going to do anything for herself. With two friends, I cornered the chief bully (a weaselly little bitch called Gillian) one lunch time, and politely asked to leave my sis alone, and if not, she'd have me to answer to. That was it. We didn't touch her, just happened to be taller and brighter than her.

When I got home that evening, Gillian's mum was on the phone to my mum, complaining that I had been bullying Gillian and they were going to report it to the school the next day. My mother beat the living daylights out of me for being a bully, my father got home and gave me a stern talking to, and I was told repeatedly how ashamed they were of me. the next day, my teacher called me out to the front of the classroom, told me I had shamed her too, and I had to go to the head teacher, where I got another severe telling off, and threats of expulsion were made. Although I explained to everyone, repeatedly, what had happened, and that I was just defending my sister, I was told that I should not compound my bullying with lies. My two friends also got dragged over the coals for being accomplices.

And what was my sister's response? Fuck all. She said she knew nothing about it, and her bruises were all her own fault.

Bear in mind that we were 5 and 7 years old. It's only been recently, 20 fucking years later, that she'll admit that she lied to the teachers because she wanted to see what would happen to me (WTF?).

I tried to defend her at secondary school when she was bullied too, but to no avail, then when her partner was beating her up a few years back. You would think that one of us would have learnt by now, but no - when I heard she was being bullied at work, I immediately got that urge to rush up to Glasgow and protect her.

Anyway, the whole incident made me deeply distrustful of teachers, so when I was verbally and physically abused at school, I tended to just let it happen, and not do anything. It was only whilst studying for my PhD and dealing with an overbearing prick of a postdoc that I learnt to stand up for MYSELF, and after a small breakdown (which could have been a lot lot worse), I finally realised that we both need to look out for ourselves, and there's nobody out there who will protect us. I'm much better at dealing with bullies these days, and my sister is still a twerp who couldn't find her arse with both hands.

One odd postscript is that the EXACT same thing happened to my father, who stood up to bullies who were targeting his elder brother - so dad has apologised to me, and mum may do one day too. Not holding my breath mind.
( ascorbate, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:39, 1 reply)

If my son gets bullied
I'll kick the fuck out of everyone. Especially my son for being such a poof.
( wotofco pissing in your swimming pool, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:36, 1 reply)

I once knocked out a Honda Accord with Herbie-like capabilities.
Mr T. shit himself.
( Jam Master Geordie Hero of B3ta., Fri 15 May 2009, 16:27, 12 replies)

I've hesistated about posting in this QOTW, not because stories about bullying put me in an embarresing position.
But that it puts me in an extremely guilty position.

See, I was the bully.

I'm not really sure what else to write. Suppose i'm a typical case, Parents divorced when i was 10 which fucked me up no end. My sense of humour was so majorly broken that i genuinely thought pointing out peoples' shortcomings would earn me friends. I never physically hurt anybody, i never teased or picked on anyone in particular. But every time i look back at the way, for example, one of the first days at high school a guy comes up to me and tries to strike a conversation and i echo his squeaky voice back at him, the way i intentionally went around with stickers printed off my gameboy camera asking people to join the "hate reginald club" (name changed, who calls their kid reginald?), makes me cringe.

Listen to me try and victimize myself. I deserve no pity. I was a wretched little bastard with a behavior problem and a child psychologist. My twisted sense of humour earned me nothing but what i deserved, leading me to become that wierdo who does nothing all lunchtime but walk around the playground all alone. I was an idiot, and ended getting the piss ripped out of me by the 'cool kids' (karma anyone?)

Not a day goes by i don't regret all those nasty, hurtful little things i've done. I was mainly friendless in high school because of my actions (That wacky karma). I've apologised to everyone i can find who i picked on and made fun of, and even though i can't say i've fully escaped the vicious circle of self destruction that makes me push people away in such a manner, i hope i'm well on my way to functioning like a normal human being.

So, on behalf of bullies everywhere.

Sorry.
( Willwillwritehiswill An arse like a slapped face., Fri 15 May 2009, 16:18, 19 replies)

I'll do YOU a good turn...
There’s a [controversial?] vein of opinion which suggests that bullies are troubled beings, victims themselves one way or another. In many ways I hope we can sometimes spare a thought for the poor tossers. I know when I was bullied many moons hence I look back on the perpetrator with a kind of gleeful pity. This is a bit of a long one, but then I am a terrible gasbag – so tough.

I had enjoyed a long and productive career in the Brownies; grabbing up badges by the chubby fistful, rising through the ranks with a dark, Machiavellian intensity, and doing good deeds until all the geriatrics in the area frankly begged for mercy. I was a Brownie bloody virtuoso. I became a Sixer (those not in the know – it’s like a lieutenant to Brown Owl’s general) in the Pixies, and I ruled my little group of reports like a fucking despot. But then the inevitable happened. At 11 I became too old to remain in the Brownies and the day beckoned when I was destined to become a Guide.

So – with a brand new blue uniform to replace bile yellow and baby-poo-brown one, a sash bare of badges, and an acute consciousness that I was now at the bottom of the pile where until recently I had been lording it at the top – I threw myself into my new life on Wednesday evening instead of Thursday evening at the leaky village hall. Before you knew it, I was up to my old tricks – sucking up to ‘Mole’, the adult leader, like a Dyson, and generally being a little goody-goody arse.

A few weeks after I joined was the annual Guide Camp event, where we were sent off to large it up under canvas in a field in Withyham. I was put in a tent with seven other girls of varying ages who I didn’t really know at all, but I was the youngest and by far the fattest, specciest and most ginger. There was a leader, of sorts, called Gemma. It took about a nanosecond to interpret the atmosphere in that tent to be one of a relentless and really quite creative hatred towards me, personally. And one look at Gemma was all that was needed to see a laser-like determination to make my four-day stay at Guide Camp an utter, utter misery. After a few minutes it was established that I was ‘spastic Wheezy’, and every time I attempted to join in the conversation my words would be drowned out with a chorus of strained mooing – even if I was replying to a question asked of me. In retrospect, this was quite obviously genius, and if the roles had been reversed I would have laughed like a ‘tard as well every time it happened (every few minutes).

Things started to go wrong for Gemma when we were assigned our first task in tent-groups; lashing together wood we could find in order to make a free-standing wash basin. Would you believe it? I had perfected knot-tying to an art the previous week! So off I go, pushing other people aside, snatching wood out of their ham-fisted hands so that I could do it properly myself, ostentatiously undoing their [perfectly fine] knots and replacing them with my own. Most of the other girls (after a decent amount of ‘stop it you little bitch’, ‘get off, you fat spastic’, ‘moo’, etc) just gave up and took advantage of this saddo to do their work while they sat down and blew through grass whistles. Not Gemma. She was foaming at the mouth with rage that I was taking charge, and pinched and pulled my hair when I didn’t respond to her shouting in my face. I was just putting the finishing touches to the stand when she finally lost it, and, just in time for Mole to see her as she was coming around the tent to inspect our team’s handiwork, Gemma picked up the whole rickety structure and tried to hit me in the face with it. Totally worth it – Mole went postal. Gemma not only had to compose a formal apology and relay it in front of the whole camp at dinnertime that evening, but she was written down in Mole’s little book as a ‘troublemaker’. ‘Hah’, my sneaky little mind thought, ‘that’ll put an end to her tricks.’ Oh no.

Gemma just became more devious in her approach. She and her gang would wait until Mole was otherwise occupied before capsizing my kayak or putting mud in my opaque water-bottle. I managed to drive her to distraction by gaining particular commendation for my skill in recovering from capsizing and also my kindness for relieving a ‘hot and distressed’ sheep by washing it with my own bottled water, which was freshly replaced as a mark of appreciation. She cottoned on to the fact that I was paralysingly scared of the dark, and so would tell ghost stories in the middle of the night which meant that I wet my sleeping bag rather than going outside to the portaloo. The tent was a complete mess, and it wasn’t until the following morning that it was discovered that I had weed on Gemma’s copy of ‘Smash Hits’ with all the pictures of Shane Ritchie drawn around with biro hearts. She wouldn’t admit it was hers – the shame if she did! But I saw her face of real heartbreak when she thought the others weren’t looking.

At last it was the final day. Gemma and the gang had grown tired of mooing at me whilst I packed, and had retired outside to do cartwheels. I was jamming my (dry but slightly whiffy) sleeping bag into its carrier when I unearthed a pair of white kickers. ‘Not mine’, I thought, and looked at the name embroidered in the waist band.

‘Gemma’

I looked at the knickers more closely. There was a long, almost perfect light brown skid mark stretching a considerable distance in the gusset.

I pondered them, then, checking that everyone else in the camp were busy helping take down the kitchen marquee, I sprinted out to the flagpole at the centre of the ring of tents, tied the shitty pants to the cord, and whipped them up to fly proudly about 10 feet off the ground – just out of reach of even the tallest camper, but near enough that the crusty crime was evident for all to see. I scuttled back to my packing, chuckling in a fat, speccy, ginger way.

Gemma cried, and had to be picked up early by her mum rather than go home on the minibuses with the rest of us.

Sorry, Gemma, you poisonous slag!

*pop*
(Wheezy Luv-ah is pootling about on, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:15, 9 replies)

I wasn't going to share this one but...
...the post from Captain Placid got me thinking.

My 11 year old daughter is a great kid - very considerate of others, wicked sense of humour and has always loved school. Recently she has been very different, she has been getting very upset when it's time for school. After some encouragement from mum and me she confided that the boy she sits next to at school has been using some very choice threats and language to bully her. We have a meeting with the school and are advised that the boy - who happens to be the school captain - has been reprimanded and that this will "never happen again". All is good for a week and then my daughter seems worse than before.
The boy in question has told her that he is able to find out her home address from her email address and that he will come around when she is sleeping and break in and rape her. I ask her if she told her teacher and she says she did - this somewhat confuses me as the teacher had said nothing to me about it.
The teacher is confronted by a very pissed off me (I'm a very placid guy usually) and I demand to know why she hadn't contacted me about this. She actually had the gall to state that "Look, shit happens." I told her she was being flippant and she replied that the boy probably doesn't even know what rape is. I point out that my daughter does know. I very angrily demand immediate action that will ensure that the boy never bothers my daughter again and I politely point out that the local paper love running shame stories about schools that don't address these problems. The teacher has the balls to suggest that my boss wouldn't approve - my boss is married to the school's assistant principal. I point out that (a) I'm not in uniform right now, and (b) that I couldn't give a flying fuck what anyone thinks.
After a lot of ducking and weaving and denials of responsibility by the teacher, I suggest we see the principal if she can't see her way to addressing the problem.

Things seemed to have improved a bit and my daughter seems okay going to school now.

Today she bought home the school newsletter and there in bold type, less than a week after my latest complaint, were details of a school award for this boy (who is still school captain). He has been recognised for his "Exceptional Organisational Skills". I asked my daughter what she thought about this and she replied with her typical good sense of humour "Oh perhaps he threatens the girls in alphabetical order?!"

I'm not anti-teacher, all my daughters' other teachers have been great. Also, this boy may have problems and needs help, but I'm there for the welfare of my daughter.
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Fri 15 May 2009, 16:06, 30 replies)

This QOTW is depressing. Can we have a return of smut and body fluids for next week, please?
*warning - post does not contain mirth. there is lots of length instead*

I've lurked on here for several years, and as far as it's possible to tell, most of you seem to be genuinely nice, canny folks. Even if you collectively weren't, you wouldn't deserve to have suffered through a microfraction of the shit I've read on here today.

But shit happens. I grew up with an abusive, alcoholic father, and whilst I was never on the receiving end *too* often as a wee child (that was reserved for my step-sister and mother) the minute I hit my teens and started to think for myself I came in for all kinds of unpleasant shit. What kind of sick fuck gets his kicks from playing mind games with an 11 year old, reducing her to tears simply because she's had the balls to say she thinks you're wrong? (I hasten to add, I was always encouraged to 'stand up for myself, do and say the right thing' etc...hypocrisy was only one of his many failings)

As if that wasn't enough, my physical attributes make me a bully's wet dream - I'm short, fat, geeky, have a ridiculous name, considerably brighter than average, wear glasses, and - most importantly when you go to a posh school - poor. If I was ginger too I probably would have caused a couple of the more obnoxious turds in my year to spluff their pants in glee.

Primary school wasn't so bad. Yes, I didn't really have any friends -how do you make friends when you can never invite them round after school or have enough money to go out and do stuff? - but I wasn't overly singled out for a good verbal shoeing more than the one or two other 'odd' children. It made me sad -very sad sometimes - but not suicidal.

Secondary school was worse. Much worse. We lived miles away from the school so I had to catch one of the private coaches the school used. The abuse got so bad that for the five years I was there I would sit behind the driver the minute I got on and not acknowledge anybody. This of course would provoke other insults once we were at school, but at least nobody could hassle me on the bus - two blissful hours a day where I had a rest from the hell of school and the hell of home.

I managed to make friends with a couple of the other 'freaks' but still had verbal abuse thrown at me from every direction. I was never slapped about - it was a posh school after all - but I did get called every name under the sun and then some. Two of the more unpleasant (but enterprising) psychobitchwhores got their parents to write letters of complaint about me, even though I blatantly hadn't done anything - if you'd cut me in half I would have had 'victim' written through me like a stick of blackpool rock.

I complained a couple of times but was just told to avoid them, ignore them, stop being a drama queen. 'Oh yes?' I felt like screaming. 'When was the last time YOU had to avoid a pack of screeching harpies who would chase you round the school til they cornered you, then ignore them whilst they hurled abuse'?

Then I had the misfortune to be in one of the sports teachers form groups. Surprise surprise, the ones hassling me were the popular kids; the rich ones, the ones that played sport, the pretty ones. This teacher was the most nepotist bitch I've ever had the misfortune to meet. Out of all the people who have directly or indirectly made my life hell, she is the one I remain most angry with - she would turn a completely blind eye to it all because it was her darling sport-playing girls doing it, even when it was happening in the classroom. Protests on my part would be met with withering disdain:
'Can't you make them leave me alone?'
'No. For gods sake, why can't you just grow up and stop complaining. If you ignore them they'll go away.'
'Well that hasn't worked for the last three years you stupid cow.'
-DETENTION-

Then to cap it all off, my only close friend (another 'freak') took against me in a major way. She was always slightly unhinged, and would on occasion ignore me for days at a time, completely out of the blue - even if we'd chatted in a cheery, friendly fashion just hours before. She became almost psychopathic in her hatred of me, and I just couldn't understand it. She managed to turn the whole school against me - not that it took much - and only really stopped when I proved she'd been lying. Even now, when I haven't seen her for the better part of ten years, I occasionally meet people who were at uni with her who'll say 'Oh, so you're berk. Wow, you're nothing like i imagined - I've heard all sorts of shit about you.'
I mean, why tell people - random people who I will probably never even meet - that I'm a bullying psychopath that made your life hell when it was in fact the other way round? The mind boggles. Amusingly, at the last count 4 of these 6 mutual individuals have then gone on to tell me that they no longer speak to the girl in question because she's a lying, vindictive, manipulative mentalist..

I dealt with all of this primarily by not dealing with it - not thinking about it, not talking about it and developing a mouth the size of a small city. A small city mainly made of gutters. This at least earned me grudging respect from the brighter ones and hangers on, as I could verbally outmanouvre a lot of the more puerile stuff the denser ones came up with. And thus the shower of shit became more of a soft, poo-y patter.

I put up with the abuse at school and then I came home and I put up with the abuse there too, because I had no other choice (except possibly offing myself). I sat my GCSEs, stuck two fingers up at the school and left. My dad died, I went to college and had a brilliant time doing my A-levels. I decided I would man the fuck up, grow a massive (pendulous, even) pair of ladyballs and never let anyone give me that kind of shit again. I heartily recommend this as a course of action, but it is *so* much easier said than done, and I know that after reading posts like Vampyrecats and Maladictas, I had it comparatively easy. It was hard, and I've had my ups and downs since (big 'uns too, but this is getting stupidly long so it's for another time) but mostly I'm pretty damn good.

It was a long time ago, but even now words can't convey the hurt, the anger, the bewilderment - why me? - and it simply isn't possible to just ignore them. This may sound like a self pitying tale of woe but it isn't. Being bullied fucks you up. It decimates your self esteem, your confidence - you begin to doubt yourself in every way, and even the strongest person would have difficulty maintaining the belief that they aren't a cunt when they're told they are for several hours a day. I have scars, both physical and mental; I still jump when I hear loud noises (because for the first 16 years of my life a loud noise was inevitably my dad going mental), I still tense when I see groups of people laughing (because my first instinct is to think they're laughing at me) and I have an innate distrust of 'trendy' people. I don't make friends easily.

So yes, my childhood was miserable, but I don't know any different - it's just how I grew up. It's made me *me*, and although I haven't always felt this way, I'm happy with my life and I like who I am. Seeing my parents make so many mistakes has simply made me more determined to never make the same ones, and being bullied has in a roundabout sort of way made me stronger. And given me talent for scathing wit and sarcasm which I continue to find helpful - that was just the way I was best able to deal with it.
I hope that anyone and everyone who has read this and is getting bullied finds their own way to deal with it too - bullies are cuntcakes of the highest, scummiest fucking order and should never, ever be allowed to win.
(berk, Fri 15 May 2009, 15:47, 11 replies)

i think it's fair to say
the post with the video of the halfball getting punched wins this weeks qotw
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 15 May 2009, 15:42, 3 replies)

Here's a story I've been avoiding telling for years
The year was probably 1976 or so, I must have been in the third or fourth year of secondary school. It was a 'nice' school - mixed Grammar in leafy suburban north London only three classes per year. No real trouble except for the odd last-day-of-term rumble with the kids from the Secondary Modern down the road.

At 13 or 14 I was a skinny little under-sized jewish kid and a wimp. I didn't like football, being more into music. One rainy lunchtime, when we were confined to class as it was too wet to go out, some of the rowdy boys in the class decided to assert their obvious superiority over us lesser mortals. They were Arsenal fans and every other Saturday they'd take part in the minor football hooliganism that became famous the world over in those days. There were three of them, Paul, John and Carl - Carl Bauer (big-bollocked Bauer as he was known). Carl's parents were German.

Enough back story, this trio decided to 'take the North Bank' or some such and they rushed down the aisles between the desks, pushing all before them. I was unlucky enough to be standing in the way of BB Bauer who raised his knee and caught me right in the knackers before stepping over my prone body and 'taking' the back of the classroom.

Was this bullying? Not really, just high spirits. The fact that their war-chant was 'Yiddo! Yiddo!' didn't endear them to me, but I knew that it was a blanket term of abuse used by Arsenal fans to taunt Tottenham Hotspur fans - with their large jewish following.

It was the combination of the war-cry, the fact that he was German and the additional fact that he'd kneed me in the balls that really got me mad. Mad enough to do a spot of bullying myself.

It took a while, my hatred festered, but then, one day, I dawdled at the end of the day and waited until the room was empty, then I took a thick, black, indelible marker and wrote all over the inside of his desk lid: 'Bauer is a Nazi' 'Big Bollocked Bauer is a cunt' 'Nazi Bauer' and swastikas a-plenty. Feeling nervous, but totally self-justified, I sneaked out and went home.

The next day, I watched from my desk as he lifted his desk and hid a smile as I saw his face freeze. What I wasn't prepared for was the tears. He didn't know who had done it, or why. He went straight to the teacher who was rightly shocked. I stayed quiet when she asked if anyone knew who had done this despicable thing. I never owned up...until now.

I always felt a bit bad about that, justified, but bad. Maybe I was over-the-top with my revenge, maybe I was a coward. Who knows? I suspect he's forgotten all about the incident, whereas I've never forgotten.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 15 May 2009, 15:13, 4 replies)

I'm opening myself up for abuse here, but this is my being bullied story.
North Halifax Grammar School is a good school in a not so good area, the nearest school is The Ridings at the time the Worst School in England in all the papers etc.
My mother was a departmental head there.

A nasty kid from the Ridings (never knew his name) who knew who I was used to get off the bus on the way home where we both had to switch to a different service.
Every day he would push me into the wall, push me over, throw stones at me, whatever he decided. We were only about 12 so we couldn't really do each other any harm.

Being the good little spod I am, I told my Mum about it.
She told me to ignore him and that she would try and find out who it was and get him to stop.

It carried on for a week or so; the same routine.
Until another boy joined us on the bus, an older boy and not a very clever one by the look of his sloping head.
I was shitting myself, he was wearing a Ridings sixth form uniform and was probably the little thing's brother.

Quaking, I got off the bus with the two of them, whereupon the large Ridings lad says

'Are you Mr's W******'s lad?'

'y-y-yes' I reply

'Is Mark giving you trouble?' he asks

'y-y-yes' I reply

Mark was then picked up and presented to me as a prize.
I asked Mark politely to stop picking on me and he said sorry.
The sixthformer then walked me home and said to say hello to my Mum from Jamie (or whatever his name was, I forget)

Turns out my mum had asked her sixthform Literature group if anyone knew who was doing it and to tell her. One particularly impassioned but dim student had taken it a step further.

This will do little to dispel my image of having an Enid Blyton-esque moralistic adventure of a childhood.
( WormuIus, Fri 15 May 2009, 14:29, 15 replies)

i feel i should do my duty to the community here
and tell you,if you are being bullied,that the most effective weapon ever devised by man for 'dirty combat' is freely available*.
The Bic Biro is the most effective weapon for interpersonal combat freely available on the market today.The biro,and a basic knowledge of pressure points, is the necessary prerequisite for anyone experiencing physical bullying,and it is undetected by security,as well as being cheap and offered in a wide variety of colours.
From personal experience.
* aside from the Honda Accord,obviously.
(Fuckpig "That's not even a pound a midget.", Fri 15 May 2009, 14:18, 6 replies)