...to all of you. All of you that reached out to me in the past 24 hours, those of you that called me, outraged and ready to fight for my honor. Those of you who pulled me aside and gave me advice, those of you who sat with me at dinner and sympathized with me.
Special thanks to Luke, Leslie, Seth, and Phil who called armed with an arsenal of compliments about how rad I am. Luke was especially sweet/funny/ridiculously awesome when he got on the line. "Who am I tracking down and castrating? Because we -- Phil and Seth are here -- love you and think you're beautiful and would like to do naughty things to you in the confessional or whatever it is you Catholic School girls do, but Phil, Seth, and I would never dream of actually saying that we want to do naughty things to you because we have too much respect for you."
I want to reiterate that I'm fine. All of this went down a while back and I've had time to recover, get over it, move on, etc. But the fact that this is now happening again to a fellow coworker brought my WHITE HOT RAGE back to the surface.
I wrote that entry because you need to know that it happens, it happens all the time. It often goes ignored. Because, just like when it happened to me, the girl would rather not go through the humiliation of having to report it. I didn't report it to his manager or to our HR rep -- my manager did, on my behalf. Because the complaint came "second hand," he walked away with a slap on the wrist. It didn't matter that both his manager and the HR rep had witnessed part of his harassment, that they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he said those wretched things to me. Because I didn't report it properly, it didn't hold the gravitas.
It's a flawed system, because even if it happened to me again tomorrow, I wouldn't talk to our HR rep about it -- I just don't feel comfortable with him. But I would talk to his manager about it. Because now I know better. It's fucked up because when you've been through something like this, the last thing you feel like doing is going through your employment paperwork to find out what the proper chain of command is. I spoke to my manager because logically that seemed to make sense to me. And because I felt comfortable talking to her. But even working up the courage to talk to her took me 3 days. Because you feel so embarrassed, gross, and weird. Because you don't want to be "that girl." Because you just want to forget and not have to fuckin' deal anymore.
Anyway. That's why I wrote it. And rest assured, I'm helping my coworker as best I can. I've reported it to a manager and I've told my coworker exactly what happened to me. I've encouraged her to make her own complaint -- even if her complaint is just "He creeps me out and several times he's done X,Y,Z and it makes me feel ooky." I know where she's coming from -- she feels as though the things he's said/done could be interpreted as innocent. Which it very well could be.
But I don't trust him.
And as sure as I am that the sky is blue and the grass is green, I am sure his intentions toward her are not innocent. Because I know his type -- and she fits right into it. Because I know how he interacts with other employees and this is off the mark. Bottom line: he's a terminal scuzzball, with no help of recovery. And that weird uncomfortable feeling she gets, well, it's not wrong.
And I guess that's my point. Girls -- trust your gut. Please. Listen to that little voice inside of you and risk being impolite or bitchy or whatever. Trust your intuition, because really, it's your best defense. You have that little voice for a reason.
And then, even though you feel awful, and ugly, and ashamed: Report it. Report it, report it, report it. Trust me. Report it.
Special thanks to Luke, Leslie, Seth, and Phil who called armed with an arsenal of compliments about how rad I am. Luke was especially sweet/funny/ridiculously awesome when he got on the line. "Who am I tracking down and castrating? Because we -- Phil and Seth are here -- love you and think you're beautiful and would like to do naughty things to you in the confessional or whatever it is you Catholic School girls do, but Phil, Seth, and I would never dream of actually saying that we want to do naughty things to you because we have too much respect for you."
I want to reiterate that I'm fine. All of this went down a while back and I've had time to recover, get over it, move on, etc. But the fact that this is now happening again to a fellow coworker brought my WHITE HOT RAGE back to the surface.
I wrote that entry because you need to know that it happens, it happens all the time. It often goes ignored. Because, just like when it happened to me, the girl would rather not go through the humiliation of having to report it. I didn't report it to his manager or to our HR rep -- my manager did, on my behalf. Because the complaint came "second hand," he walked away with a slap on the wrist. It didn't matter that both his manager and the HR rep had witnessed part of his harassment, that they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he said those wretched things to me. Because I didn't report it properly, it didn't hold the gravitas.
It's a flawed system, because even if it happened to me again tomorrow, I wouldn't talk to our HR rep about it -- I just don't feel comfortable with him. But I would talk to his manager about it. Because now I know better. It's fucked up because when you've been through something like this, the last thing you feel like doing is going through your employment paperwork to find out what the proper chain of command is. I spoke to my manager because logically that seemed to make sense to me. And because I felt comfortable talking to her. But even working up the courage to talk to her took me 3 days. Because you feel so embarrassed, gross, and weird. Because you don't want to be "that girl." Because you just want to forget and not have to fuckin' deal anymore.
Anyway. That's why I wrote it. And rest assured, I'm helping my coworker as best I can. I've reported it to a manager and I've told my coworker exactly what happened to me. I've encouraged her to make her own complaint -- even if her complaint is just "He creeps me out and several times he's done X,Y,Z and it makes me feel ooky." I know where she's coming from -- she feels as though the things he's said/done could be interpreted as innocent. Which it very well could be.
But I don't trust him.
And as sure as I am that the sky is blue and the grass is green, I am sure his intentions toward her are not innocent. Because I know his type -- and she fits right into it. Because I know how he interacts with other employees and this is off the mark. Bottom line: he's a terminal scuzzball, with no help of recovery. And that weird uncomfortable feeling she gets, well, it's not wrong.
And I guess that's my point. Girls -- trust your gut. Please. Listen to that little voice inside of you and risk being impolite or bitchy or whatever. Trust your intuition, because really, it's your best defense. You have that little voice for a reason.
And then, even though you feel awful, and ugly, and ashamed: Report it. Report it, report it, report it. Trust me. Report it.
3 Comments:
WTF?
Not to make you feel worse, but your company successfully bluffed you. Once any manager at the company knows about sexual harassment, the company is legally on notice and must investigate. But now the statute of limitations has run out ... if it happens again, contact HR or any other manager and if you don't like what you hear, call the EEOC.
Hmmm.... 3 male co-workers fired since this post went up. Just saying...
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