Her Scuba Diver Friend Has Treated Her Badly For Years, So She Had Enough And Decided To Hurt Her Business
by Matthew Gilligan
I’ve never understood business owners who act like total jerks and bullies to people.
You’d think they’d go out of their way to be as pleasant as possible to everyone…or at least pretend to be…
But this woman who owns a scuba diving company didn’t get the memo…and now she’s paying for it.
Read on to get all the details!
Island revenge.
“My ex-best friend was a full blown grandiose narcissist.
She sounds pretty bad…
I’m talking about someone who refers to herself unironically as an “Alpha”. She’s a dive instructor, and she was given the nickname “Hitler” in her dive school and she was proud of that.
She’s very charismatic, and has created a small cult around her on the island she works on.
Yikes…
These people are cut off from the rest of the world, and every year when I visit the island I’ve seen them getting more and more in her service, and the ones who don’t fall in line become social pariahs.
It’s a small island with few permanent residents, and no one wants to be socially isolated, so they tow her line.
Well, today an old Dean of mine reached out to me. She knows I’m an active diver and she wanted some advice on who to dive with on this island as she’s planning a trip.
Now, for over the last decade I have been steadily channeling work Alpha’s way. I did the math and thanks to me, over the years, 14 people have dived with her – my friends and family – and at least 6 of those have been repeat customers.
They’ve helped her out a lot.
Diving is an expensive hobby, and she’s made a pretty package through me. She also gets commissions on accomodation etc when people book through her.
Despite all this, she has behaved very unprofessionally with me on my last several trips, doing things like screaming at me in the dive shop or on the boat, in front of other people, and one time even kicking me off the boat for someone else because she “double booked”.
Totally unprovoked and totally unprofessional.
It’s almost like she was testing how far she could push me. Well, she pushed me too far, I snapped and ended the relationship.
She wouldn’t be getting her business anymore…
So I sent my Dean a detailed email about the best dive schools, where to stay, where to eat, how to get around etc.
I ranked Alpha’s dive school 3rd in my list, a ranking Trip Advisor agrees with.
And I left a small note at the bottom – if you do dive there, steer clear of this instructor.
It’s not much. But I feels good. After 10+ years of championing someone and getting treated like **** in return, it felt like a victory.”
Here’s what Reddit users had to say.
This reader chimed in.
Another person nailed it.
This individual spoke up.
Another Reddit user asked a good question…
I have a feeling her business may be going underwater…
If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.
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