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wide_eyed_optimism_
Just pass me the rope
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- Joined
- Oct 2, 2019
- Posts
- 726
Original text since it's deleted:
Today has been one of the hardest days of my life. I quit my job today. What led up to it? I reported a male co-worker for harassing me. I expected my boss of 5 years to believe me, but I was retaliated against.
My boss told me I was a liar and that “no one would believe you”. I was told my boss’s cop friend could privately talk to me and I need to get over the harassment. In fact, it was “my fault” for provoking my co-worker and making him yell at me. This man scared me so much I threw up and was shaking. This was a grown man who knew better, but my boss took his side. My boss took a new employee’s word that hasn’t even been employed for 90 days over mine. I worked there for 5 years without a single complaint!
My boss then told me if I didn’t drop the report or say I was overexaggerating, “things will get bad for you”.
I talked to legal and since it is a small company, my options were limited. Filing suit isn’t always the best option. I was asked by the lawyer, “what do you want”. Honestly, I wanted someone to believe me. This past week was horrible, all I did was report an incident. I did nothing wrong. I essentially was given 2 options: 1. I continue to be harrassed and yelled at by my co-worker and boss and eventually fired. 2. I quit with my head held high and my sanity still in tact.
The support from other women I have received has been overwhelmingly. I’ve heard so many of my teachers, professors, friends, and even my grandma tell me how this has happened to them. I’m lucky I have my parents supporting me financially, but so many women have no where else to go. My gym friend told me she was being sexually harrassed by the boss’s son, but she needed the health insurance for her medical bills. She hugged me and told me, “I’m so proud of you for leaving on your terms and not staying like I did”.
I guess what I’m trying to say here, is to believe women. All I did was make a report and I got retaliated against and quit my job. This is why women don’t report.
Edit. Thank you for all the support. It’s sad that there are so many people that have lived this nightmare, but we are not alone. No one is. I have done my best, I have talked to a lawyer, I talked to the police, and I did the best I could. I know so many of y’all want a fairytale ending where I fight this to the bitter end, but this isn’t a fairy tale. It’s a hard lesson to learn that there will be things in life we don’t want to happen, but will have to accept.
Also, if you want to troll and say how women aren’t allowed to xyz, go spread your poison somewhere else. I’m not going to debate you or argue with you.
Edit 2: I mainly posted this to bring awareness. My friend actually told me she was sexually harrassed and had to stay because her family depended on it. She told me, “this is why women don’t report”. It wasn’t geared towards men are the enemy. In fact, the boss who retaliated against me was/is a woman. If anything it is more on how the laws and reporting in the states need to be fixed so this doesn’t keep on happening. I’ve read literally dozens of comments about how this happened to men and women too. I’m sorry this still happens in 2019. I know many of you want the details on the harassment, but it sadly very descriptive and unsavory what was done and said to me. I have been advised to not talk about it and a part of me doesn’t want to. If you don’t believe me 100%, I get it. At least believe someone enough to investigate.
JFL. Literally everyone involved in this situation in real life is on the guy's side. The boss, the HR rep, coworkers, the cop, the lawyer, all of them, which most likely includes other women, think she's wrong.
Now don't get me wrong, I feel for her. Some people is just skilled at making a coworker look like an idiot until they get fired. In any situation, you can be right or wrong depending on how skilled you are at spinning the narrative, and most of the time the one doing the bullying is the most skilled. I've had that happen to me, and I'm proud to say most of the time I've been smart enough to counter it, though one time they did get me fired and got away with treating me like shit. But well.
My point is, while I do feel for the OP, it's not ok to spin this to make it political. This is something that happens to men too. She should learn to communicate in a way that makes people agree with her and to be able to come up with a narrative of what happened that shows her in a good light, and then she'd actually be able to defend herself in real life against this guy.
Instead, she goes to TwoX and tells the story in a way that is basically "male men man man man man men man male harassment believe women man man man harassment men bad, my women friends believe me, a friend got sexually assaulted", like I literally have no idea what happened exactly. I understand she needs someone to actually support her and maybe that's why she did this, because it's not like she posted the guys name or anything so there's no harm in it. However, this kind of harassment happens to men too, and is done by both men and women, and presenting it in such a way as she did is very unfair to men who went through the same and also had to quit or get fired. But well what do you expect from a foid.