One of our largest customers has several team members who visit our facility. Some of these team members are delightful, and others are not. One (who is most definitely not) visits only once a year; yesterday, he made that visit unexpectedly. I (the boss/small business owner) was absent, and our other manager was temporarily off-site. This person wrongly perceived a process error with an order, became irate, and yelled at my relatively new and inexperienced 25-year-old assistant. This person was accompanied by another of this customer’s team – a guy I respect and trust, and he apologized to my assistant several times. I am livid. Yelling at any of my team members is unacceptable regardless of the circumstance, but I am particularly protective of my assistant. I am one of very few women in a male-dominated industry, and so is my assistant. To put this in perspective, my assistant and I are the only women in my business. All of our customer liaison teams are men. All of our vendors are men. Guys like this one bullied me in the early years of my career, and I am loathe to let this go. If this guy yelled at me, I would defend myself immediately and let it go. If they yelled at my manager, who has been in this business a long time and can stick up for himself, I would let it go. I’m taking this more personally than I would otherwise, and I don’t know how to handle it. Please keep in mind that this is one of our biggest customers. I put up with a lot of nit-picking from them because their checks are large. My assistant couldn’t stick up for herself (as I couldn’t in my early days), and I wasn’t there. I want her to know that people can’t treat her that way and get away without something being said…at least not with me in charge. But, really as a small vendor, what can I do?