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CHAPTER 1

When Sweet Revenge Isn’t So Sweet

 

Sometimes the notion of “sweet revenge” can seem so fitting. Someone has promised to meet your deadline at work but hasn’t come through despite repeated assurances. A boss has unreasonably threatened penalties if you don’t meet a deadline for completing a lengthy report for his presentation with new clients, and then doesn’t give you credit when you do come through. A client tells you she’s going to hire you to work on her next project after you put in long hours to do a really great job, but later she instead hires a friend.

            You may be thinking that sweet revenge might be just the ticket to get back at those who wrong you, particularly if you believe no one will know what you did, say if you send an anonymous letter or phone in an anonymous tip to a regulatory agency or company higher-up. Or perhaps you believe you might benefit yourself while undermining your adversary by acting like a genuinely concerned person providing others with a helpful, altruistic warning about the person who did you wrong, to keep them from getting hurt.

But think again. Sometimes sweet revenge isn’t so sweet, and the fire you start can come back and burn you severely.

            That’s what happened to Betty when she contacted Jane, a recently hired outside PR person, to get product information for a company newsletter she was writing. The newsletter featured the latest news about what different departments in the company were doing and information on useful services that anyone in the company might find helpful. The PR person was representing a gourmet foods company as well as Betty’s own company. Betty had just written an overview about companies that offered these gourmet delivery services, and now she wanted a sample of a typical lunch delivery, such as a few mouth-watering gourmet sandwiches and deserts, to include a personal reaction in her article. In fact, her boss asked her to add this personal touch.

            But then Betty ran into problems with Jane, the PR person for the service, when she asked Jane for a product sample. After some back and forth e-mails and phone calls, Jane said she would check with the service about messengering the sample over in time to make Betty’s deadline. But a few hours later, just before Betty’s deadline, Jane sent another e-mail telling Betty she couldn’t do anything to help and Betty should find someone in the company who actually made the food packages, since the gourmet food service only delivered them. Then, she concluded her memo on a note of exasperation, saying that this was really an inappropriate unprofessional request, and Betty’s company should simply purchase the service if it wanted product samples. Her response infuriated Betty, since Jane had left her hanging for hours before saying she couldn’t do something and on top of that impugned Betty’s integrity. Though the amount involved was small, PR companies commonly provided samples when they were going to gain a plug for the product or service of the company they represented, and usually PR representatives were only too happy to act as liaisons between the person writing the article and the company providing the product or service.  Betty was livid that not only was Jane not acting as people usually did in this situation, but she was also making Betty seem at fault, even unethical, for making what was an ordinary request. Now, because of Jane’s delay in getting back to her, Betty might not make her deadline to get the information for the article.

            Betty exploded, feeling not only stonewalled but also insulted. Why couldn’t Jane have referred her to the appropriate contact in the first place, or, better yet, given her the number? And why did Jane accuse her of being rude and unprofessional, when she felt Jane’s note and behavior was far more offensive than anything she might have done? After Betty called the food company’s contact and got the delivery in time to make her deadline, she stewed about how to handle what Jane had done. She felt driven to do something to release her pent up rage, and she began asking her friends, family, and associates for advice, or, more accurately, for support for her desire to take action to get back at Jane.

            Betty mulled over the possibilities, in her own mind and with others. She considered writing a nasty letter to Jane telling her off for her own “rude and unprofessional” e-mail and unhelpful behavior. Or even better, Betty liked the idea of calling Jane’s boss at her small PR firm representing the food service company to complain that Jane was insulting to her and initially unhelpful in connecting her to the other company that provided the food. Betty even justified the exposé she planned to her friends, explaining that this revelation might help Jane’s boss know that Jane was unhelpful, and her behavior might interfere with the company getting favorable exposure for their clients in future articles. In her mind, Betty thought she would appear altruistic, even as she savored how Jane might lose her job.

            Yet should Betty do anything at all to get back at Jane? Should she really act to gain some sweet revenge? Unfortunately, for all the fleeting satisfaction she might feel at whatever she did, the downside is that any effort at revenge could easily backfire. For instance, an angry e-mail or phone call could lead to an escalating war of words, while contacting Jane’s employer could come off as mean and vindictive, particularly since Jane was a new PR person, just learning the ropes.

            So what should Betty do?
 

While there is no one right answer of what to do in a complicated situation, in general, in such a case, it is better to deal with your angry, insulted feelings and find a constructive way to respond. Today, so many people don’t do this. Instead, they act impulsively from emotion before their rational controls kick in, resulting in the everyday carnage that often makes the news, such as in cases of road rage, airline rage, and other sudden angry eruptions that turn into tragedies leading to lost or ruined lives.

The same act-in-haste, regret-it-later effect can occur even in day-to-day angry encounters. And the problem with trying to respond anonymously in today’s information age is such actions tend not to stay anonymous very long. Once someone investigates, the incident that led to your anger is likely to come up, leading to a focus on you that reveals what you did.

            Thus, instead of seeking revenge, a good approach in a situation where you feel someone has wronged you is to wait until your initial feelings of anger have subsided. Then, if possible, call or write that person and ask to have a discussion with him or her, preferably one-on-one. If he or she agrees, have a heart-to-heart discussion in which you dispassionately describe what happened and how you felt, with a view to improving your relationship in the future. It’s an ideal approach with a peer or subordinate to clear the air. If the offending party is your boss, such a discussion may work if he or she is open to such airings of feelings. But otherwise, if you want to stay on the job, it’s best to suck up your anger and let it go, or find a way to transform it into doing something productive and profitable.

In short, sweet revenge often is sweet only for a short time, and the long-term effects can turn out to be very sour indeed, when your efforts to seek revenge backfire on you.
 

Today’s Take-Aways:

• Sweet revenge is often not sweet at all; instead it is often sour and leaves a very bitter taste.

• The problem with seeking revenge is that it often ends up seeking you—or you might fan the flames that end up burning you.

• Once you let go of the anger that’s fueling your revenge, you can better think through your options and what it’s really best to do.