I just got counseled for workplace sexual harassment

Status
Not open for further replies.
People throwing the term "bitch" around like it carries no weight is pretty uncomfortable. Glad OP has a level head about the whole thing, whether he is at fault or not.
 
neorej said:
Well, actually, eating a peach is NOT ok, because SOME people MIGHT interpret it as something else. So I asked about a female co-worker eating a banana and how I COULD interpret that as something else. I was correct, eating a banana, sausage or cucumber is also not acceptable in an environment where people might take offense. From that day forth, I banned all types of phallic and yonic edables from the cafeteria.
Click to expand...

/mind blown

oh wait, that can be construed as something else

/mind explodes

there we go
 
Puppet Shadow said:
It might seem unfair, but no. If someone feels threatened, having them talk it out, even with a 3rd party would just make them feel like they are on trial, and would lead to even less people reporting harassment.
Click to expand...

There isn't a threat made when some are actually touching themselves or streaking. They are being sexually offensive but it doesn't constitute a threat.

If you are referring to having them talk directly would have the person feel threatened well I agree with that which is why a 3rd party should be there just to observe unless name calling and other negative forms of communication are making the situation worse. The whole point of the talk is for the two parties to resolve the conflict themselves because it is generally superior if the conflicted parties are able to settle their differences than having a third party do it for them.

This is well documented for children as well as adults.


LiquidMetal14 said:
We all know you did nothing wrong. I'd have a little animosity.

Do us a favor and when she smiles look away and don't even interact with her. I'd be pretty livid as it can strain your hard work on the career path you've chosen.

Take pleasure in ignoring her. Don't feel like you have to walk on egg shells. You did nothing wrong but of course, I guess this means you will have to try and not do that while visible to others since some are sensitive about stupid things.
Click to expand...

This is bad advice. The problem with this being on his record is HR and his bosses fault and not her own for being overly sensitive. Taking part in these actions will only make you stew in your emotions.

If she really does smile at you, think about confronting her. Tell her that she needs to hang out with men more often because she doesn't understand when we might be applying social etiquette and declare that since she jumps to conclusions way too much you'll have to ignore her.

You don't have to confront her but if you choose to avoid that then just move on instead of using passive aggressive behavior as others have suggested,


Joey Fox said:
I don't think that hugging at work is either appropriate or normal in a real profession. Retail, who knows.
Click to expand...

You're not human or lack social skills.
 
Time to get petty and make up something about her and report it.

No, don't do that. But it sounds like with the system in place (not allowed to defend yourself) it can be easily abused like that.
 
Welcome to Rape Culture Hysteria. All of this insane political correctness needs to be directed to stopping actual rape.

heyf00L said:
Time to get petty and make up something about her and report it.

No, don't do that. But it sounds like with the system in place (not allowed to defend yourself) it can be easily abused like that.
Click to expand...

He's a guy, the deck is stacked against us men in this one area of our lives (well, and divorce court). But don't fool yourself, it's still best to be a guy in our society.
 
neorej said:
I had a female co-worker file a sexual harassment claim against me for eating a peach at my desk while she was present in the room. She thought it was innuendo. I was enjoying mah fruit.

My boss took it seriously and told me he would send me to a sexual harassment course. I told him that they work by the hour and he's paying for it, so I'll run every single possible and potetially viable action I perform during the day by them to have a list in writing of acceptable behavior in the workplace. He tried my bluff, and he ended up with a bill for 400 hours of work on a 6 hour course. He was not happy. Neither was I.
Click to expand...

I am locking this away into my memory box. Useful to know when am rank and file or management.
 
Beer Monkey said:
Welcome to Rape Culture Hysteria. All of this insane political correctness needs to be directed to stopping actual rape.



He's a guy, the deck is stacked against us men in this one area of our lives (well, and divorce court). But don't fool yourself, it's still best to be a guy in our society.
Click to expand...

Oh boy...
 
4532853252_22d27e8642.jpg
Click to expand...
Made me think of this. OP, the whole thing is ridiculous, you didn`t deserve to get your day ruined like that.
 
If this happened to me and the woman ever came near or tried to talk to me again I would say " You've put me in a position where I am now one misunderstanding away from ruining my career. Please stay away from me." Direct, polite, and it shows the position you've been put in.

This situation presented in the OP and false rape accusations are some of my worst nightmares, socially. I get anxiety just thinking about them.
 
keeblerdrow said:
If this happened to me and the woman ever came near or tried to talk to me again I would say " You've put me in a position where I am now one misunderstanding away from ruining my career. Please stay away from me." Direct, polite, and it shows the position you've been put in.

This situation presented in the OP and false rape accusations are some of my worst nightmares, socially. I get anxiety just thinking about them.
Click to expand...

lol and what would she say?
 
keeblerdrow said:
If this happened to me and the woman ever came near or tried to talk to me again I would say " You've put me in a position where I am now one misunderstanding away from ruining my career. Please stay away from me." Direct, polite, and it shows the position you've been put in.
Click to expand...

Except alienating someone like that can be construed as retaliation.
 
keeblerdrow said:
If this happened to me and the woman ever came near or tried to talk to me again I would say " You've put me in a position where I am now one misunderstanding away from ruining my career. Please stay away from me." Direct, polite, and it shows the position you've been put in.

This situation presented in the OP and false rape accusations are some of my worst nightmares, socially. I get anxiety just thinking about them.
Click to expand...

If you did that after being written up for sexual harassment it would be grounds for being fired.
 
Try and file a complaint of sexual harassment against her.
Why did she smile at you? It must have made you feel uncomfortable. Alternatively, make up a bogus story against her.
 
wildfire said:
If she really does smile at you, think about confronting her. Tell her that she needs to hang out with men more often because she doesn't understand when we might be applying social etiquette and declare that since she jumps to conclusions way too much you'll have to ignore her.
Click to expand...
If you were my employee and I heard you did this I would fire you immediately.
 
Man, some of the comments here are insane and a lot of the recommendations that some people are throwing out there of what I should do to retaliate against this woman are just plain stupid.

And, you know, illegal.
 
Joey Fox said:
I don't think that hugging at work is either appropriate or normal in a real profession. Retail, who knows.
Click to expand...

you obviously haven't worked in a job where the majority of workers are hispanic and older female.

KISSES AND HUGS AND PASTRY GIFTS JUST FOR SHOWING UP ON MONDAY!
 
wildfire said:
Then you are part of the problem.


You can't handle people addressing issues like adults.
Click to expand...

What you advise would put the company in a bad position if it went unaddressed. Your actions would indicate you do not understand how to work in a professional environment, and do not know what is appropriate to say to coworkers who have expressed a grievance with you. You would be a liability to the workplace and I would have little recourse but to let you go.
 
Bazza said:
You sound like a wuss OP, you did nothing wrong and nothing should be on your record. How big is the company, if it was me I would write and complain about how you have been unjustly accused of some kind of sexual harassment and threaten to sue.
Click to expand...

Lol, Jesus man. smh


Anyway back OT:
I got to admit that reading some of the stories freak me out a bit. As a manager I always have to be watchful of myself and filter myself, it does kinda suck not being able to just be a person, but it comes with the job so whatever, I accept it.
Though with that said I have a hard time dimming down my compassion for people. Last week I found out one of my reports was diagnosed with stage 4 thyroid cancer, I had to address my team about it and break the news. One by one I brought them into my office and softly broke the news. As I informed this one woman she began sobbing hard, I felt so cold sitting on the other side of my desk as she wept that I grabbed a chair beside her. Without thinking I put my arm around her, gave her a hug and just let her cry on my shoulder. At that moment I became extremely conflicted, do I comfort someone so emotionally distraught or do I ignore her need due to fear of sexual harassment accusation?

Sometimes it is near impossible to know the right thing to do.
 
Aside from the immorality of 'eye for an eye', trying to file a retaliatory sexual harassment claim is naive.

I'm pretty sure if you go into the office and say "Well, SHE was looking at me first!" your supervisor is going to lose any respect he had for you, and it will end up just more grief for you in the future.
 
Nephtis said:
Don't blindly think that all women have gone through traumatic experiences though. She could in fact have simply been a bitch.
Click to expand...
It doesn't matter what her deal is or what his deal is. You can only control your own actions, not people's perceptions of them, nor what they will do with those perceptions. In a professional environment, you need to be careful of doing things that can be misinterpreted.

For example, I can interpret that you're trying to have a rational conversation here. Or, I can interpret that you're being misogynistic and think that women who don't comply with your version of events are bitches. You can't control my interpretation. You can't control if I'm going to report you to a mod and say that you're calling all women bitches. You can't control if a mod is going to come along and tell me to chillax or tell you to take a hike. All you can control is what you typed in your message above, which is frankly easy to interpret all sorts of ways, as you've been called out by Not, ishibear, lexi, etc.

I know several hundred posts have gone past and on NeoGAF, that makes this reply kind of stale, but because I know the general age level of folks on this board and that they are either just starting careers or are about to start careers, I want to reply to you to emphasize that this is sexual harassment sensitivity 101. If you guys are going to just hang out in a back office where no one ever interacts with you, whatever, but most people don't have those jobs. Most people have to interact with people in workplaces, and those places have protocols, regardless if you are going to be part of a corporate setting, in a small office, or in the government/military. This is one of those things y'all really need to get a handle on before you go out and start popping off at the mouth and stepping on your dicks in front of people who can limit your ability to continue to put food on the table: You need to put your brain in the front of the train that is your life.

P44 said:
I'm just really uncomfortable with what is really a one sided system, and yeah majority of harassment cases are going to be in that direction so to speak, but really now, let's be fair, let's have some mediation, some attempt to work out what happened rather than take somebody at their word the second they make the accusation, that's a dangerous precedent regardless of what has happened.
Click to expand...
Yes, it's a one-sided system, but not the side you think it is. It's been established to limit the employer's liability against suit for having a hostile workplace. It's not set up to make anyone feel better about themselves.
 
APF said:
What you advise would put the company in a bad position if it went unaddressed. Your actions would indicate you do not understand how to work in a professional environment, and do not know what is appropriate to say to coworkers who have expressed a grievance with you. You would be a liability to the workplace and I would have little recourse but to let you go.
Click to expand...



You clearly are part of the problem. Jumping to conclusions without taking into context by isolating the parts that matter to you. Hooray for kneejerk reactions.

wildfire said:
This part aggravates me the most because you should be able to talk to the people who have a problem with you. A neutral third party may be needed to monitor that meeting but that's what HR should be for, conflict resolution.
Click to expand...

wildfire said:
There isn't a threat made when some are actually touching themselves or streaking. They are being sexually offensive but it doesn't constitute a threat.

If you are referring to having them talk directly would have the person feel threatened well I agree with that which is why a 3rd party should be there just to observe unless name calling and other negative forms of communication are making the situation worse. The whole point of the talk is for the two parties to resolve the conflict themselves because it is generally superior if the conflicted parties are able to settle their differences than having a third party do it for them.

This is well documented for children as well as adults.
Click to expand...




wildfire said:
This is bad advice. The problem with this being on his record is HR and his bosses fault and not her own for being overly sensitive. Taking part in these actions will only make you stew in your emotions.

If she really does smile at you, think about confronting her. Tell her that she needs to hang out with men more often because she doesn't understand when we might be applying social etiquette and declare that since she jumps to conclusions way too much you'll have to ignore her.

You don't have to confront her but if you choose to avoid that then just move on instead of using passive aggressive behavior as others have suggested,
Click to expand...

So in short my advice is confront a person if they are making a signal that they might be approachable.

You don't have to confront them.

If management is getting involved they should just be mediators initially and giving all involved parties the opportunity to talk civilly with each other because studies have shown if you can do this without micromanaging the conflict resolution itself you get better results because it is the involved parties that negotiated a solution on their terms instead of the management or parents (I first started reading about these type of things for dealing with children and expanded on that afterwards) who have ZERO clue about the vague internal differences that matter most to each individual.

But please continue employing bad management techniques. If you worked for me and continued to do so I would be forced to limit your promotion options.
 
Sucks that the OP was automatically guilty of sexual harassment just based on one report. That system sounds like it can be abused if someone wants another person from the workplace to be fired. 2 sexual harassment reports, without evidence even, can send your work enemy packing. Kinda scary actually.

Anyways, I used to have a pair of khakis that had a loose zipper and would naturally unzip itself little by little over the course of the day. I had to do a hand check every hour or so to raise the zipper back up a bit, otherwise it would continue to go down. I wouldn't have lasted very long in your workplace with those khakis, but I outgrew them.
 
GungHo said:
It doesn't matter what her deal is or what his deal is. You can only control your own actions, not people's perceptions of them, nor what they will do with those perceptions. In a professional environment, you need to be careful of doing things that can be misinterpreted.

For example, I can interpret that you're trying to have a rational conversation here. Or, I can interpret that you're being misogynistic and think that women who don't comply with your version of events are bitches. You can't control my interpretation. You can't control if I'm going to report you to a mod and say that you're calling all women bitches. You can't control if a mod is going to come along and tell me to chillax or tell you to take a hike. All you can control is what you typed in your message above, which is frankly easy to interpret all sorts of ways, as you've been called out by Not, ishibear, lexi, etc.

I know several hundred posts have gone past and on NeoGAF, that makes this reply kind of stale, but because I know the general age level of folks on this board and that they are either just starting careers or are about to start careers, I want to reply to you to emphasize that this is sexual harassment sensitivity 101. If you guys are going to just hang out in a back office where no one ever interacts with you, whatever, but most people don't have those jobs. Most people have to interact with people in workplaces, and those places have protocols, regardless if you are going to be part of a corporate setting, in a small office, or in the government/military. This is one of those things y'all really need to get a handle on before you go out and start popping off at the mouth and stepping on your dicks in front of people who can limit your ability to continue to put food on the table: You need to put your brain in the front of the train that is your life.
Click to expand...

I find it awesome that your avatar is about to throw a stone. If you were so inclined to 'call me out' as you say, you'd realize that I was

1)pointing out that throwing a blanket statement that the woman must have gone through a traumatic experience by default is wrong. She could have just been a bitch about it. I did not initially call her a bitch (even if I did think she was). It is a fact that people, regardless of gender, are, and do, abuse the system. The possibility is not unrealistic.

2) I later said that in the context of OP's initial post, it would not be wrong or unreasonable to think that she was a bitch given what happened, also noted by my statement that women that have in fact experienced horrible things don't typically react by smiling (or grinning? smirking?) as she allegedly did in this case. I also said that thinking all women are bitches is unfair. But in this particular case, I don't see anything wrong with people thinking she was.

I advocated for a safe environment for everyone regardless of gender. what happened in this case was just unfortunate, and sadly, it's really bad when even when you present your side of the issue, it's ignored and it already put a bad mark on OP. Although he chooses not to, I said he should fight it out, but go through the proper channels and not directly with the woman in question.
 
GungHo said:
In a professional environment, you need to be careful of doing things that can be misinterpreted.
Click to expand...
Anything can be "misinterpreted" if you just try hard enough. So I think this isn't really helpful advice.

Also, just because one feels offended doesn't mean he or she is in the right.
 
wildfire said:
You clearly are part of the problem. Jumping to conclusions without taking into context by isolating the parts that matter to you. Hooray for kneejerk reactions.
Click to expand...
Uh, you mean I took issue with something you advised? Ok you got me. You said: "Tell her that she needs to hang out with men more often" which regardless of whether you felt she appeared "approachable" would be just about the worst possible thing you could say in this situation.
 
I always get paranoid at the gym at work because I do this ab exercise where I'm lying on my back, knees bent upwards like in a resting crunch position, and then I lift my pelvic area up. I think most knows its a workout routine hopefully.
 
Nephtis said:
I find it awesome that your avatar is about to throw a stone. If you were so inclined to 'call me out' as you say
Click to expand...
So, let me clarify... I don't know your head and I'm not accusing you of thinking all women are bitches. What I am saying is that your statement can be (mis)interpreted that way (which is obvious, since you were called out by others), and while I did read your follow ups, often times you either don't get a chance to make those follow ups, or no one reads them or calls them into account because they're significantly pissed off about how they (mis)interpreted something that already was passed along. GAF should be a pretty good representation of how hard it is to walk back from making an asinine statement. Additionally, my reply was intended to not strictly be a message to you, personally, but to the readership, who, again, are young people who are starting careers and who might not really understand that they are walking into a headache.

Irminsul said:
Also, just because one feels offended doesn't mean he or she is in the right.
Click to expand...
It doesn't matter whether or not they're right. All that matters is whether or not a third party, in this case, the employer, decides that whatever story they heard was actionable. In the OP's case, all that mattered was the report, and that was enough to get him written up. This isn't just something that happens in the military.
 
Girl fishing for that pipe and got uppity when you didn't comply.

Good job handling it, OP. Sorry it had to happen, but give it a month and no one will give a shit.
 
GungHo said:
So, let me clarify... I don't know your head and I'm not accusing you of thinking all women are bitches. What I am saying is that your statement can be (mis)interpreted that way (which is obvious, since you were called out by others), and while I did read your follow ups, often times you either don't get a chance to make those follow ups, or no one reads them or calls them into account because they're significantly pissed off about how they (mis)interpreted something that already was passed along. GAF should be a pretty good representation of how hard it is to walk back from making an asinine statement. Additionally, my reply was intended to not strictly be a message to you, personally, but to the readership, who, again, are young people who are starting careers and who might not really understand that they are walking into
Click to expand...

Having read your clarification, I can see your point, and I don't disagree with it. I do apologize if I was overly defensive, bit it did feel like I was being singled out.
 
Bazza said:
Was said slightly jokingly but then what would you call someone who did nothing wrong yet takes the punishment without a fight?

OP seems far too laid back for what is quite a serious allegation.
Click to expand...

Let me ask you this. If you're coming out of the bathroom fiddling with your pants zipper in a professional work environment and someone (who might not even have seen you leave the bathroom) though it was inappropriate for you to do that in a public space are they really in the wrong?

In no way, shape, or form did I ever say that she accused me or alleged that she was sexual harassed. The first mention of sexual harassment came from my boss and if people had an inkling of what that word and everything it entails when dealing with the military, they would also see that my boss also was not in the wrong.

A wuss for being level-headed and not escalating a situation that doesn't need escalating? She is not even permanent staff but an employee of another company that's working here on a temporary basis.

Blasty said:
This won't go on your permanent record unless you get a second informal counseling?
Click to expand...

Yup. My boss would have to do a formal counseling the second time around (for the same offense). In a situation like this, flags would be raised and there would be an investigation into my conduct. Given the facts I think I would be safe from any punishment but military investigations are never fun.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

  • Locked
DEI in your workplace
0
1K
Herbspiceguy replied
Just how popular would you say Dick Tracy got?
34
1K
MrCunningham replied
MrBeast, Amazon Sued by Contestants on ‘Beast Games’ Competition Show, Including Allegations of Sexual Harassment
News 
25
3K
DKehoe replied
  • Locked
I just want to thank you, Americans
1
753
Digital-Aftertaste replied
I thought I got the spice off of my hands…
46
2K
kevboard replied
Top Bottom