The first bully I ever took on was Hubert Presley, the reigning terror of Mason Elementary School. By teacher decree, Hubert was untouchable, immune from prosecution. Every year, like clockwork, his mother—a wealthy widow of an oil man—would meet privately with Hubert’s assigned teacher to lay out her son’s peculiar “nervous condition.” She’d arrive armed with an impressive stack of medical certifications, explaining that Hubert suffered from a rare and severe allergy to stress. A whiff of agitation, she warned, could send him into uncontrollable tremors, reduce him to a crumpled heap, or, in extreme cases, leave him frothing at the mouth.
At least, that’s the story we got.
On the first day of class every year, we got the same lecture: the “Poor Hubert” talk. Teachers, who treated him like a fragile figurine, said it would be our fault if he ever got upset. Collectively, we were to protect him at all costs. The teacher made sure we understood the consequences of messing with Hubert—bodily harm was implied.
Any normal kid might have been humbled, even ashamed, to be treated like a ticking time bomb. Not Hubert. He milked his malady for all it was worth. He flaunted his condition like people brandished their handicap parking permits. Hubert had a free pass to wreak havoc. He shoved kids twice his size just to watch them stammer out apologies. If a game didn’t go his way on the playground, he’d clamp his eyes shut, hold his breath, and tremble theatrically, threatening an explosion. Kids scattered like ants, none of us wanting to be caught near him when he “blew.” We never saw Hubert seize up, but the teacher’s constant reminders gave his supposed condition the weight of the 10 Commandments behind her desk.
The breaking point came in fifth grade under Mrs. Ainsworth’s watch. One day, she was called away from the classroom and left Hubert in charge as class monitor for reasons that still boggle the mind. His task? Write down the names of anyone who misbehaved. It was about then I decided there was little justice to be had in a world dominated by bullies.
The moment Mrs. Ainsworth’s heels clicked out of earshot, Hubert went full-bully. He barreled down the rows of desks, arms stretched out like airplane wings, shrieking at the top of his lungs. With gleeful abandon, he began swiping books off desks, sending them clattering to the floor. No one dared move. Except me.
I hadn’t planned it, but I stuck out my foot as Hubert careened toward my desk. I was as surprised as he was. Hubert tripped in a tangle of flailing arms and legs and went flying. With a sickening thud, he crashed headfirst into the edge of Mrs. Ainsworth’s desk and lay there motionless.
For a moment, time froze. Hubert didn’t move. A tiny bead of blood rose from his forehead. Girls cried. I saw my short life pass before my eyes.
When Mrs. Ainsworth returned, her gasp cut through the silence like a knife. She rushed to Hubert’s side, horrified as he whimpered pathetically. “Who did this?” she demanded, her voice shaking as she dabbed the tiny gash on his head with her handkerchief.
Waiting for my name to be called, I wondered if I should confess before being outed. I wasn’t popular—not even close. A shy kid often bullied myself, I was sure someone would rat me out for extra credit. But no one said a word. I guess Hubert himself wasn’t sure what happened.
Hubert survived, but something in him changed. He came back to school subdued, a little wary. Maybe, like Icarus, he had his own epiphany about hubris, realizing he’d flown too close to the sun. Whatever insight Hubert gained seemed to temper his reign of terror until I left Mason Elementary the following year.
But I heard rumors. At our 25th-year class reunion, they say Hubert got drunk and stood on top of a table to belt out hits from the ’60s, to the disgust of those sitting there. No one tried to reign him in. He was no longer a menace. Just sad.
As for me, I grew up and worked as an organizational consultant. Like most shy people, I became an expert at group dynamics and power politics just to survive. Ironically, Hubert’s lessons have stayed with me. Bullies, I’ve learned, don’t disappear when you leave school; they just get promoted. Over the years, I’ve met plenty of Hubert Presley’s—executives inflated by arrogance and shielded by enablers. And I developed several strategies for dealing with them.
The riskiest is confronting them head-on in the very act of bullying. It feels righteous—it’s what everyone prays for you to do—and sometimes the abuse was so severe I had to step in. But confronting a bully publicly often backfires. People step back, abdicating any responsibility as you throw yourself on the land mine. This leaves you alone to deal with the fallout. It becomes your problem now. Worse, it can embolden the bully, especially if they can count on allies higher up to protect them, like a boss, their mother, or the Supreme Court.
Confronting the bully privately sometimes works, but it depends on your leverage and ability to threaten and enforce sanctions. But be prepared to become their lifelong enemy. They will retaliate.
Sometimes all you can do is just bide your time while studying them patiently. Their narcissistic arrogance blinds them to danger. Plus, the hesitancy of those around them to offer criticism, warnings, or recommend course corrections allows the bully to inevitably set their own trap. When they stumble, it’s by their own design. And when they fall, it’s by their own hand, and the world watches with a relieved satisfaction if not glee. The trick is to enable the bully to hang themselves and not step in to save them. Perhaps, to speed things up, innocently sticking out your foot when necessary. Timing is everything.
So, here’s to the comeuppance to all bullies, regardless of station, and to the hope that those closest to the bully, tired of enabling their ruthlessness incompetence, instead decide to enable the bully’s self-destruction.
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