Ruminating on The Hostile Work Environment Complaint

So many thoughts I want to smash together and sculpt the perfect post. I have to just accept I'm going to vomit the words here and it'll be sloppy, but so be it.

Since the outcome of the complaint amounted to a whole-lotta-nada, and has made me look at everyone involved, Tim-the-old-fuck, as well as his boss, I view them both with jaundiced eyes, and devoid of good will.  

I circle back to how this all came to be, how neither one of them, apologized to me. I think of knowing both of these people roughly 15 years, and how neither one of them valued me as a human or as a friend or even as a co-worker sufficiently to even warrant an apology.

The question I ask myself is, "How would they feel if it were their daughter or granddaughter." And then the realization hits me, that perhaps Tim does this to his own daughters and granddaughters, and he doesn't give a shit. They are theirs for the taking. Women exist purely for their pleasure and whim, without question?

This is the 21st Century. I work where I work, so you'd think the standard would be to default to being a paragon of propriety. And in the end, like every other instance in my life where I was harassed or molested--nothing happened to the person(s) who perpetrated this shit upon me.

Within a year or so of my complaint, we had an EEOC type meeting on harassment, and there was one slide in the powerpoint presentation, wherein EVERY. SINGLE. BULLETPOINT. was pertinent to my complaint. I resented being at this meeting. I resented having to sign a form stating I attended this meeting. It was clear to me, this meeting and the contents of the presentation was not to protect ME, but to protect the "office" where I work.

Me speaking out is not MY problem. 
Me wanting some modicum of acknowledgment or even justice, is not MY problem.

What IS my problem is being raised by two broken people who raised me to expect nothing more than to be broken, too. What no one (even myself!) ever expected was that I'd glue myself back together, and be strong, and be WHOLE, and have standards. This is not my problem.

I have no idea what it will take to break these old, abusive patriarchal behaviors and transgressions. No amount of outing famous, powerful men is going to do this. I haven't wrapped my brain around what it will take, but I know that a tag #MeToo isn't enough. And even men who come forward claiming #MeToo won't be enough either. And this crosses all manner of socio-economic, national, and racial lines too. 

Sharing our stories and examining how common all of this truly is, is good in that it exposes how entrenched this problem is, within families, within our work, within our communities; however, what happens next?

18 Days Later: Yet Another Update On the Harassment Complaint

It took three months for this to fizzle out.

Got a call from "the committee," and of course, they said their investigation did not find enough evidence to support a sexual harassment claim, to which, I replied, "My complaint was never a cut and dry sexual harassment complaint--it was a hostile work environment with sexually inappropriate elements contributing to it."

So, much in the way I had to wait from 12/29's tipping point being met until 1/4 when The-Asshole's supervisor returns from vacation, I now have to wait until 3/28 when The-Asshole's supervisor returns before I can find out what is the next step (if any) regarding the hostile work environment complaint. 

So, I have to wait another week before THAT discussion.

Hurry up and wait, and hope there's a point to all of this.

In the meantime, The-Asshole has been walking around here like the smug-assed Mayor of Mudville.

(Approx.) 31 Days Later: Update on the Harassment Complaint

Progress is at a snail's pace. 

I went all day yesterday thinking that TODAY was going to be THE DAY for my witnesses to give their statements; only to find out this morning that YESTERDAY was THE DAY, and I only found this out when I went to the secretary who sits closest to me (who witnessed the bullshit tipping point on 12/29), and said, "Good luck today," only for her to say, "oh, that was yesterday!" 

WHAT WHAT?

Unsurprisingly the attorney who sits closest to me, who was in his office on 12/29 hasn't mentioned shit to me, and I'm not going to ask him about it either, I like this level of neutrality THE COMMITTEE allows.

But what I am more than a bit disappointed with is the lack of any indication via text, email, or call, from JabippyLoo. 

I guess that tells me all I need to know about who or what I am to her.

And here I sit, I suppose for another 22 days or whenever to hear back from THE COMMITTEE on the outcome of their investigation into the complaint.

As If Coming to The Office Weren't Bad Enough: The Hostile Work Environment Complaint

You'd think this is going to be a post about the Stalker; however, it's not. Well, not directly. Though he is lumped into the "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" kind of theme. 

In the last 13 almost 14 years of my employment, I have a co-irker who is now in his 80s. His overall demeanor varies from brusque and uncooperative to hostile and somewhat sexually inappropriate. I have been holding off on lodging a formal complaint for two very big reasons: 1. I have been secretly hoping he'd retire or expire eventually; and 2. I know others have lodged complaints, for which he was written up and inescapably nothing of any consequence ever happens to him.

Two years ago we relocated to a new office, and at that time I started to formulate a "timeline of inappropriateness." There have been occasions where he has ogled me, and outright harangued me about allowing him to kiss me on the lips. Both of these two scenarios are blatantly sexually inappropriate, and in both cases, I've informed him of such, and attempted to establish BOUNDARIES, which only makes him more hostile or brazen.

During the holiday season when we had a day with a skeleton crew, he came up to my office to intimidate and harass and insult me, when I dared to transfer particular calls to him--which (he has been informed by his boss) IS HIS JOB. Anyway, this occasion in December was my tipping point. And my first order of business on January 4th was to report him to his boss, who has now escalated things to the point where "THE COMMITTEE" that handles such complaints is now involved.

Twenty-two days after I lodged my initial complaint, reps from THE COMMITTEE came to interview me, and I gave them the run down of particular incidents, the one in December which I have a witness, and regarding the "kiss harassment," I have two witnesses who were in attendance at a retirement party we all attended and saw first hand the kiss harassment--which was the second time I informed him again, directly (and this time more forcefully) that if he wants to kiss me, he can do so on my cheek, and that only my husband gets my lips. Anyway...

It's now been close to three weeks since they interviewed me, and though I thought today would be the day they would be interviewing my witnesses, I have to wait ten more days until that happens, and who knows how much longer until this ShitShow or Shituation is resolved.

I'm anxious and full of regret, but not regretting my decision to report him. I'm regretting that it's come to this. Why couldn't he retire? Why couldn't he at a minimum APOLOGIZE, EVER for anything? I think of Jim Carrey's character Fire Marshall Bill on the old In Living Color show, and yes, the character in and of itself is HILARIOUS, but in all seriousness, this person is like an 80 year old cop version of Fire Marshall Bill--and it's far from hilarious. 

When I was regaling the reps from THE COMMITTEE about the day he ogled me when I wore a Grumpy Cat tee shirt and he fixated on the placement of the eyes being right on my tits, and he put his glasses on and zoomed in on my rack so close I thought he'd start motor-boating me (I did a full pantomime for the reps, by the way), they laughed at the outlandishness of it.

Then I went into detail about this fascination with kissing, and the gall and entitlement issues he's got, demanding he gets the lips, when he kisses everything that will stand still, which has all of the allure of sitting on a toilet seat in the ladies loo in Grand Central Terminal--clearly his lips get a lot of action, and of course the obvious hilarious irony of there is no greater way to make someone feel OH SO inclined to allow you to kiss them on the lips than to BULLY THEM.  The last two times he did this, I informed him of the boundary, the last time this happened was at a party, and my personal tipping point was met.  

From 2014 until now, I have pondered everything I'm experiencing, and temper it with the knowledge of previous complaints others have lodged against him. And gradually I have downgraded him from friend, to friendly work acquaintance, to the perv codger with whom, unfortunately, I work. (with whom *NOT* FOR WHOM)

He's ten years older than what my dad would be if he were alive today; and he's ten years younger than my grandfather. I could be either his kid or his grandkid is my point--how would he feel if some pervy codger was doing this to his daughter or granddaughter? 

This is on the baseline of bullshit with my Stalker, and a life time of being bullied, harassed and or abused by my own family.

To be honest, I've verbally articulated my disgust to this pig, and in all other manner of body language and facial countenance etc. It's not my fault he fails at basic communication. 

I've decided I don't give a shit about being nice anymore or being quiet. And the look of utter disgust on his boss' face was just enough validation I needed to know I was doing the right thing in reporting him. Even he said, "He's a bully!" So this is not something unique to me. It's not something I'm imagining.  We're all entitled to a "one off" or a bad day. This asshole's blaring issue is thinking he's curmudgeonly, when he's really cantankerous.

Anyway, the resolution is slow in coming.  I sit and wait. And hope that when it comes time for my witnesses to give their statements that it's enough to bolster my original complaint--perhaps they'll take the opportunity to share other examples of his assholeishness, too? One can only hope.

Abraham Maslow is credited with saying something about how if the only tool you are provided is a hammer, then you start to view every problem as a nail. The issue here is that not every problem can be fixed with a solitary tool.

My problem is, that my parents were victims of bullying, harassment, and abuse all their lives. So no great surprise that they failed to provide the necessary tools for me to navigate this type of problem solving and conflict resolution. And add to it, being a woman, women typically in the past have been raised with the notion of being NICE and being QUIET, which just allows bullies and abusers to continue with their bullying and abusing.  

My mother's mode of dealing with conflict (if she's not the active aggressor) is to be an ostrich with her head in the sand.  My father's mode of dealing with conflict was pretty much rage.

I know I still have work to do; however, I am not sure how to do what needs doing.