Professional meetings are supposed to be about business, not personal remarks.

So when one engineer sat down with a potential client who decided to comment on her appearance instead of the project, the conversation took a turn that neither her coworker nor her boss saw coming.

You’ll want to keep reading for this one.

AITA for how I ruined a deal and snapped at my boss after a potential client harassed me?

I work for a small engineering firm, and I really like it there.

Before this job, though, my last job almost made me leave the entire career field. It started with harassment, escalated, and long story short… the stuff that went down there literally gave me PTSD.

So at this new job, she was horrified when she soon ran into similar issues.

I had a meeting with a potential client I’ll call Jeff. A junior coworker of mine I’ll call Dan was there too.

During it, Jeff made an inappropriate comment about my body.

To her credit, she responded with impressive calmness, but Jeff continued to push it.

I tried to remember what my therapist had told me about how my first response when I’m feeling triggered was often disproportionate, so I slowed down, took a deep breath, and calmly asked him to cut it out.

Then he commented that I was uptight and to just take a compliment, and that if I was wearing that kind of pants I should expect appreciation.

That’s when her mental health really took a big hit.

I started feeling panic internally.

But panic mixed with a weird bit of disassociation or disconnection from reality.

I remember hearing, as if through a fog, “Dang, I’m sorry.” “Do you hear me? I said I’m sorry — I didn’t mean to tick you off like that.”

She feels totally out of it.

But my mind was honestly elsewhere and not processing the words.

I was eyeing his hands and feet looking for movement, while also thinking through the fastest way to my car.

Writing all this out, it feels stupid. But that’s how PTSD triggers work. The critical thinking part of my brain just shuts down in panic mode.

Next thing I know, Jeff said something I didn’t process and he left.

Her coworkers grow concerned about her.

My coworker Dan was like, “Op? Op? The heck is up with you?”

And I kind of finally shook out of it a bit and said, “Uhh did you hear that stuff Jeff said?”

He said yeah, of course he did. He told him to cut it out.

But what the heck was going on with me? I was acting weird, had this thousand-yard stare going on. I’d been staring through Jeff, and now I was staring through him.

Looking like I’d seen a ghost.

I shrugged and said, “Near enough. Jeff reminded me of someone.”

Soon, she’s forced to confront the issue with her boss.

I went to head out, but before I left my boss Mick confronted me, asking me what the heck had happened in the meeting.

He’d run into Jeff, who said I got upset over some joke and then gave him the evil eye for minutes on end, refusing to respond or even blink.

Now her boss is blaming her for what went down with Jeff.

And he’d been building up a working relationship with this guy, and “my stunt” had probably ruined the deal.

I got angry and told him, “Your buddy there harassed me. After that I didn’t have crap to say to him. I’m going home.”

So that’s exactly what she did.

And I walked out.

I realize now that was also kind of overkill. But I went home.

Now she’s sort of second guessing herself.

And I feel like I was a jerk to my boss for no reason.

I don’t figure he knew about Jeff, and he doesn’t know about the stuff that went down at my last job either.

I probably messed up a deal, though I can’t say I’m that mad because I don’t really want to work with that jerk.

AITA for how I reacted? And then snapped at my boss?

This was most definitely not her fault.

Did Redditors agree?

This user thinks her response was completely understandable.

The boss clearly lost the plot here.

The last thing you should do in a harassment case is blame the victim.

The boss is gleaning all the wrong takeaways from this.

This comment wasn’t appropriate anywhere — especially not the workplace.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.