I was bullied for a month this summer. It taught me a valuable life lesson:

Adults can be bullies too.

I thought bullying ended after high school. I never imagined that adults could be so childish and petty, but I was so naive.

I am working in my first office job this summer. I have an amazing internship at Impakt Media, a digital marketing agency, where I genuinely enjoy going to work. I learn something new every day and love working with the Impakt team. I'm learning and am able to feel successful while working and learning.

I am not naming my second job, nor do I have any ties to the organization anymore. I will call it Job B.

At Job B, there was no set system of training for the position. I was trained by a variety of people who each had their own method to accomplish tasks. There was no work manual to find instructions or rules about procedures that needed to be completed in the business.

I was forced to ask questions when approaching new tasks on the job. Normally, I have no problem asking for assistance in a job, but this time was different.

"Jill" and "Jane" had desks in a corner of the office with me. I was facing a wall with them to my left and their backs toward me.

Every time I asked a question, they whispered about me. They didn't know that I could hear or see them, but I could. The second week I was there, they were whispering about me, when I decided to say something.

I didn't want to directly call them out about whispering because I wasn't sure what was OK in an office setting. I knew that they were being unprofessional, but I really wasn't even sure if they were my supervisors or not. (As I later found out, they were not.)

I decided to ask if a certain task had been completed to make them aware I could hear the whispering. The task I asked about had a step that needed to be completed by someone else, before I could do my portion of the work.

I didn't know that Jane was in charge of that task.

"Excuse me. Is task X completed? I just wasn't sure because this is the first time doing this on my own," I asked nicely. She snapped back that she was working on the task. She then turned back and started whispering again. This time, she forgot to be quiet.

"I cannot believe she just asked me that. How rude and plain stupid..."

I went back to my work. I put in headphones to block out the whispering.

Jane never completed that part of her job after my question. It was a part of the job that I was not trained to do and was very time-sensitive. She stopped doing it for any shifts that I worked with her. She stopped doing it for weekends, when she knew I'd be left with that particular task. But I had no way to know if she was doing it on purpose, because no one told me if it was her job.

She made my life harder because I asked one question.

By nature of the job, Jill was given the opportunity to critique my work. She would whisper to Jane while she looked over it and leave lengthy passive-aggressive notes on my work.

In week four at the job, I made my first big mistake. My actual boss sent a stern email, as another new worker had made a mistake similar to mine. I quickly responded and explained how the accident had happened. I learned a new way to complete that task (because I was trained incorrectly, which caused the mistake) and promised not to make the mistake again.

Unfortunately, my coworker and I made minor mistakes during the shift following my boss' email.

Jill had full range to step up her bullying tactics.

The next week, she sent a professional, yet extremely rude email to my entire department about the other new person and myself. She listed 10 things we weren't doing correctly. Her tone basically said, "Are you lazy or just that stupid?"

Then, she listed questions we should be asking more often so that mistakes don't happen. She later listed answers to those questions, and said she should not have to answer our questions. Her tone said, "Ask questions because you're dumb, but it's super annoying you have to ask questions."

Jill was not my boss, just a coworker. Yes, she had more experience with the company, but her behavior was incredibly inappropriate. The day after the email, I saved all of my questions for Jill, so I would only "bother" her once.

I had to get dinner before I could ask her because I needed the time to work up my nerves. I realized as I pulled into the parking lot on the verge of tears that this wasn't like me at all.

I got back to work and asked Jill if she had a moment to answer a couple of questions. She said yes, but immediately sighed, mumbled something under her breath to Jane, and rolled her eyes. I think she may have noticed I watched her do it because her tone was odd while answering my questions.

I went home that night and cried.

I felt degraded and belittled. My confidence was taking hit after hit at this job. There was no way to be right. If I asked for help, I was wrong. If I didn't ask for help, I was wrong.

After the weeks of the constant whispering, I couldn't take it anymore. I quit the job. I didn't follow through on my two-weeks notice.

After quitting, I found out that the previous person in my exact cubicle left one day and never came back.

I felt awful, but sometimes your mental health is more important than being polite. I haven't felt genuinely "bullied" since around the 7th grade. The experience reminded me how much progress I've made. In middle school, I would have yelled at the girls in a passionate, tear-filled outburst. Now, I wanted to, but I realized that some people aren't worth the angry outburst.

Jill and Jane aren't happy. They are hurting. No person is that instantaneously annoyed and impatient with people unless they are truly unhappy with themselves. I know at the end of the day, I love myself. I know I'm not worthless or stupid or lazy or any other word I heard. Their words were a projection of their insecurities, not mine.

It felt so childish to say I was bullied, but adults can be bullies too.

I'm so grateful that I was able to feel successful and supported by the awesome people at my internship while dealing with Job B. One coworker at Impakt even helped me in my search for a new job and had me list her as a reference.

Leaving Job B boosted my confidence and reduced my anxiety and stress. Don't accept bullying because you're an adult. It can become just as detrimental as it was when you were in school.