I met Ursula once. Not the animated, lavender-skinned sea witch from The Little Mermaid. Although honestly? If she had slithered into the office belting “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” at least we’d have had a warning soundtrack. This Ursula didn’t live under the sea. She lived in Outlook. She thrived in fluorescent lighting. She fed on “Reply All.”
And she had tentacles. Not literal ones. Email threads. Meeting dominance. Seniority she wore like a jeweled crown. You get the picture.
It wasn’t our first run-in. We’d tangled before. She had perfected that condescending tone that makes you reread a sentence three times thinking, “Surely I’m misinterpreting this.” Spoiler alert: I wasn’t.
The particular day I’m thinking of, I wasn’t even the target. I was just CC’d. Which, in corporate terms, means you’re technically safe but emotionally still in the blast radius. I was simply in the splash zone. And yet when I opened that email, my stomach dropped like I was thirteen again and someone had just whispered my name in the hallway followed by laughter.
Not because I had done anything wrong. Not because I needed to defend myself. But because the tone carried that sharp, gleeful cruelty that only someone very practiced can deliver. It was precise. Intentional. Almost theatrical.
And here’s what struck me later: she didn’t just want to correct someone. She wanted to shrink them.
That was Ursula’s thing. She didn’t want collaboration. She wanted submission. She didn’t want clarity. She wanted control. She wielded her years of experience like Ariel’s contract. Fine print included: “I’ve been here longer, therefore I get to talk to you however I want.”
I used to think certain industries just had more bullies than others. I remember leaving one role thinking, Wow. This field is wild. The egos. The power plays. And then I moved into another space and thought… oh. Same energy. Different logo.
After a while, I had to admit the truth: Ursula doesn’t belong to one ocean. She swims everywhere.
Bullies don’t disappear after middle school. They just evolve. They trade cafeteria tables for conference tables. Instead of whispering in lockers, they CC executives. Instead of eye rolls in the hallway, they deploy public correction with strategic phrasing.
And honestly? Adult bullies are harder. Because now the stakes aren’t popularity points. It’s careers. Reputations. Paychecks. Health insurance.
So yes, when I read that email, I felt it. That old flicker of “Oh no.” That quick internal inventory: Did I miss something? Should I have spoken up sooner? Am I about to get dragged into this?
Isn’t it wild how quickly we turn the spotlight inward when someone else is behaving badly?
The first wave was shock. The second wave was anger. The third wave surprised me.
Sadness.
Because once the adrenaline wore off, I realized something heavy: this is how she got her kicks. This was her version of feeling powerful. Controlling. Belittling. Dominating in the name of “standards” or “experience” or “excellence.”
And I just sat there thinking… how lonely must that be?
Imagine waking up every day and your primary fuel source is other people’s discomfort. Imagine confusing fear for respect. Imagine thinking that making someone squirm equals leadership.
It’s dramatic. It’s theatrical. It’s very sea witch energy.
But it’s also deeply sad.
And here’s the part I had to wrestle with: my instinct.
Some days, I wanted to fire back. Draft the most eloquent, surgical response that would politely eviscerate her entire argument. I have the vocabulary. I could do it. It would have been satisfying for approximately eleven seconds.
Other days, I wanted to shrink. Stay quiet. Avoid eye contact in meetings. Make myself small enough not to attract tentacles.
Neither option felt like me.
So I asked myself the question I’ve learned to ask more often lately: What do I actually control here?
Not her tone.
Not her personality.
Not her insecurity masquerading as authority.
Not her decades of tenure.
Just me.
Just my response.
Just my integrity.
Just my voice.
Because here’s the quiet truth about Ursulas: they only get full power when we sign the contract.
They only win if we give up our voice.
And I wasn’t willing to do that.
Not dramatically. Not in a grand speech. Not in a “King Triton blasting the sea with lightning” kind of way. Just in small, steady ways. By responding professionally without absorbing her venom. By refusing to internalize her tone as truth. By not letting her version of leadership redefine mine.
The longer I’ve worked in different spaces, the more I’ve seen this pattern. Ursulas often think they’re building empires. But what they’re really building is compliance. And compliance is not the same thing as loyalty.
Fear keeps people quiet. It does not make them trust you.
Intimidation might control a meeting. It does not inspire innovation.
Dominance might silence dissent. It does not build culture.
What lasts is something entirely different.
The leaders who stick with you are the ones who remembered what it felt like to be new. The ones who used their experience to build ladders, not walls. The ones who corrected without humiliating. Who challenged without shaming. Who understood that influence and intimidation are not synonyms.
And that day, after I closed my laptop and let my nervous system calm down, I realized something unexpected: Ursula had accidentally clarified something for me.
She reminded me who I didn’t want to become.
Because here’s the subtle danger in working around sea witches long enough: you can start growing tentacles of your own. You can justify sharpness as “efficiency.” You can call cruelty “high standards.” You can convince yourself that dominance is necessary to survive.
I didn’t want that.
I didn’t want to look back twenty years from now and realize I had mistaken hardness for strength. I didn’t want younger colleagues to feel their stomach drop when they saw my name in their inbox.
I wanted to be safe.
Safe to collaborate with.
Safe to ask questions around.
Safe to CC.
There’s something profoundly powerful about being the person who doesn’t make others brace for impact.
And maybe the most sobering thought of all? Ursula probably didn’t see herself as a villain. Most bullies don’t. They tell themselves they’re protecting standards. Maintaining excellence. Guarding the kingdom.
But if your version of excellence consistently requires humiliation as a tool, something is off.
So yes, I met Ursula. And I’ll likely meet her again. Different office. Different title. Same familiar current.
But the moment that mattered wasn’t her email.
It was what happened inside me after I read it.
I didn’t spiral. I didn’t fire back. I didn’t shrink.
I paused.
I felt the sting. I named it. And then I made a quiet decision not to let her tentacles wrap around my confidence or pull me under into someone else’s storm.
Because I’ve lived long enough to know this: intimidation is loud, but it isn’t strong. Control is visible, but it isn’t leadership. And cruelty may feel powerful for a moment, but it always costs more than it gives.
I don’t get to decide how other people show up in the world.
But I do get to decide if I grow tentacles or not.
I couldn’t control the sea witch.
But I could decide not to become one.
And that felt like a far better story to live in.
Rachel L. Richard is a small-town farm girl turned suburbanite, a delightfully irreverent optimist, Mrs & Mama, floppy dog ear scratcher, lifelong learner, channel surfer, wanderer, believer, occasional creative, out-of-practice musician, cupcake addict, book devourer, and lover of all people.
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