She dealt with her bullies like a boss.
A 23-year-old UK CEO realized every bullying victim’s dream after rejecting the applications of several women who she says tormented her in high school — including one who poured ketchup over her head. The boss detailed this karmic revenge saga in a video with over 1 million views on TikTok.
“That was a full circle moment,” social media big-wig Vicky Owens said of giving her high school bullies some corporate comeuppance.
The Manchester native is the founder of Socially Speaking Media, a Cheshire-based social media agency that focuses on elevating brands through “results-driven” content, per the site.
After starting the company in her bedroom in 2021, she has since transformed it into a thriving six-figure business and worked with big-time clients ranging from TikTok to the hit Netflix series “Emily In Paris.”
The firm eventually became too big for her four employees to handle, so Owens decided to post a job listing on LinkedIn with the hopes of lightening the load.
That’s when she received applications from three unlikely sources from her past.
“The company just started to get bigger and bigger so I put out a hiring post and three of the girls that were absolutely awful to me at high school applied for the job,” the budding mogul described.
While two of the bullies simply didn’t “give her the time of day,” one of them generally made her life a living hell.
“The other girl was someone who flung yogurt all over my head in the canteen in year 10,” Owens recalled. “Another time I was out with some of my friends in Nando’s in year nine or year 10 and this girl walked past and flung ketchup across my face.”
The social media guru described in the aforementioned TikTok clip felt she was an easy target at the time as she was very shy and tall with “bushy, manly eyebrows.”
While Owens simply ignored the harassment at the same, she said that the constant torment reportedly caused her to suffer panic attacks after graduating high school like a form of bullying-induced PTSD.
Her traumatic episodes were reportedly exacerbated by having to deal with her parents getting divorced at the time.
Needless to say, the burgeoning internet mogul found it ironic that the “girl that was awful to me at school wanted to now work for me.”
“I found it very interesting [that they had applied],” said the Brit. “I was really baffled whether to reply to them [the job applications] or to decline them.”
Some fans on TikTok had some diabolical suggestions such as inviting the terrible trio to the interview and then humiliating and rejecting them.
As satisfying as that may have sounded, Owens wasn’t about to resort to bullying tactics. “I never stooped to their [the bully’s level],” explained the entrepreneur, who ended up simply ignoring their applications sans any Machiavellian revenge scheme.
Owens, for one, believes what goes around comes around, describing, “I would just say to everyone to be kind. The good that you put out does eventually come back to you even if it feels like it’s never going to.”
Owens even indirectly credits the bullying with her success today.
“I continued to have them [panic attacks] and they got so bad I couldn’t work or leave the house and therefore had no income,” the visionary said in the video while describing the fallout from the years of bullying. “This is when I started my business.”
Ultimately, Owens feels like her success is proof that people shouldn’t let their teen years define them.
“Even though it does feel like it, high school is such a short time [in your life],” the undaunted entrepreneur declared. “If you stay consistent and get your head down, you will see results in the end.”
