My father took almost a year off when he retired. I mean, got paid for almost a year of vacation. And then went back to work on contract. Freaking crazy person, especially considering that he was funded to fly his family back to Jamaica once a year. And he didn't.

There was a series of weird coincidences when we were moving around for awhile. Everywhere we went there seemed to be a family of all boys next door or behind us that took it upon themselves to pick on the family of (nearly) all girls.

Most of the bullying came from older sisters.

I'm sure I've told this story before, but I'm pretty certain the reason I wasn't bullied in school (and I was a weird kid, no surprise there) was my Dad. I don't think his technique would work AT ALL in this day and age, however.

We had moved, and I was in a new school for 4th grade. Some boy decided that recess was the time to kick and punch me a lot. I told my parents when I got home, and what do you know? The next week there was a parent/teacher night! Dad went to school with me, looked around, and asked me who was the bully. I pointed him out, and Dad went over to have a word.

I found out later that "a word" was "If you touch my daughter again, no one will find your body." Word went out that hey, Jilli's dad was CRAZY, do not mess with her. I was never bullied again.

Like I said, this would NOT WORK in this day and age. But it made my school life easier, I know that.

All the kids who met my parents were terrified of them. I never paused to think if that might have made a difference in how I was treated. Then again, I was crazy, so I probably did okay for myself. Once it became clear that my diminutive size wasn't anything I was actually consciously aware of, and that I liked to hit people for fun (I'd arrange boxing matches with any guy that would stand still long enough), physical intimidation was just never going to be much of a factor.

This is an interesting confluence of influences.

My boss is like that - she's been with the company over 20 years so she has a riDONKulous amount of vacation, and keeps saying things like "I should work 4 days a week for a while to use some vacation days up" but never does.

My friend C is off the last week of every month until the end of the year (started in August) because she's coming has so much and is coming up on use or lose. But she's a great example - last year she took a week off to go on a cruise and got so much shit for it (both open, from coworkers, and more subtle from higher ups) she was worried about taking time off ever since.

Then again, I was crazy, so I probably did okay for myself.

I'm sure that helped me, too. When your classmates are worried that you're researching how to turn them into frogs and that you just might succeed, they treat you surprisingly well.

The schools here take bullying pretty seriously. I wasn't bullied very much despite being quite nerdy and non-popular. I can only think of a couple of instances, but they were walking home from school by older kids, not by peers. Honestly, I don't know how holding down a elementary school kid in a snowbank when you're in high school makes you cool. Look at me, I can take on a 5th grader. But that was just a couple of isolated incidents.

I suspect playing some backyard football with the kids who later became jocks, breaking a jock's thumb in PE wrestling, and being able to jack the ball in PE softball helped (let me tell you, for a nerdy kid having the outfield move back when you come to the plate is a very good feeling).

High School was just nasty rumors, Middle School was my bullying time. I'll just hit the top three:

Let's see... a girl who I thought was a friend and I talked about masterbation once and she dubbed me "pruney" (for my presumably wrinkled fingers) and I spent a better part of a year being called that. That one was rough.

Then there was the Duran Duran song Girls on Film that was oh so cleverly turned into WHALES on Film by a group of boys who would serenade me in the halls.

Probably worst were those occasions when I was foolish enough to not check the lunchroom menu and wound up wearing a button-down shirt on a day when they'd serve peanuts and raisins in a dixie cup. My fairly-unique-at-that-age clevage was a popular target from every direction.

My teachers were by and large wonderful and would stop stuff when they saw it. The lunch ladies thought it was funny.

I got bullied a lot growing up, especially in second and sixth grade (after that I think kids didn't care so much--I was still socially ostracized, but the active bullying and takin my things and such wasn't as much). In high school it was big enough everyone ha their own crowd--sure, you'd be socially uncool and looked down on, but you probably had your own uncool friends, so it was only so bad.

But I think I still harbor resentment towards my parents for not fixing things when I was getting hurt an tortured as a small child (second grade was right after we moved, and when I got glasses, to boot!)

There was one teacher I remember who encouraged bullying. My 8th grade PE teacher who was a total dick. He liked to embarrass the nerdy guys in the class. The wrestling (as mentioned before) was probably the most egregious. He'd pit the least athletic against the boys actually on the wrestling team.