The People Who Aren’t Nice to You Aren’t Strangers

by Laurie Ruettimann

I’m going to write the cringe post between my client coaching calls today. Here goes.

We talk a lot about toxicity online, about strangers in your comments and anonymous trolls. But most of us don’t actually know internet strangers. The people who aren’t nice to us? They’re family members, friends, colleagues. People at your old job. Former teammates. Those who should have our backs.

The people who aren’t nice to you aren’t random strangers on the internet.

They are people who you trusted and let you down.

I coach leaders for a living. Smart, accomplished people who ran teams and made decisions that mattered. And a surprising number of them come to me gutted, not by a bad quarter or a board fight, but by the fact that people they trusted at their old job turned out to be nobody once the title was gone. Mentors ghosted them. Work friends evaporated. Colleagues who seemed close but now have nothing kind to say about them the minute they walked out the door.

These are leaders. People who spent years building relationships, investing in others, going to bat for their teams. And the reward for all of that was finding out it was transactional the whole time.

This happens to me too. I’ll put it out there for you. I’ve given referrals and never received a thank you. I’ve thought someone was rooting for me when they were just waiting for me to fail. I’ve trusted colleagues enough to call them friends and then caught the snarky comment on LinkedIn. The subtle dig. The silence where support should have been. The passive-aggressive slights that blindsided me.

It stings every time because I’m not a robot. I’m a soft girlie. I snuggle cats and eat dark chocolate for fun. The best part of my job is listening to people talk about themselves. I’m good at it. Who wouldn’t love my vibe, right?

(Now, most people love my vibe. But some people are unkind but cowardly. That’s life.)

Here’s what I tell my clients.

I’ve started writing those moments down as points of gratitude.

Not because I’m above it. Because finding out sooner is better than finding out later. I think about clients who never built relationships outside of work or their neighborhood. They hit a certain age, exit their companies, and realize they don’t have anyone they trust. That’s the real cost of playing it safe, and it’s also the real cost of playing it wrong for too long.

So here’s the idea that I share that I learned the hard way: When someone disappoints you, go back to your own values. Get clear on what you actually want from your relationships. And say a quiet prayer that you found out now, not five years from now, that this particular path wasn’t yours.

The risk of letting people in is that some of them will let you down. That’s not a reason to stop. It’s a reason to pay closer attention to who you’re letting in, and to stop blaming the internet when the call is coming from inside the house.

Getting burned by former colleagues and work-friends is human. Getting burned the same way over and over again is a choice.

Laurie Ruettimann writes a newsletter on work, power, politics, and the economy. You can subscribe here: laurieruettimann.com/newsletter