Several months back, I started a new job. On my first day, I had a pretty big issue with another employee. I won’t get into it here, because it’s a long story, but to put it simply he tried a bunch of intimidation tactics on me and I didn’t put up with it. Not only did I stand up to him, I reported him to HR the next day. They acted very concerned and absolutely assured me that I would hear back from them within 2 days, no matter what. They stated this multiple times.
I never heard from them.
Independent of HR, I worked it out with management to work remotely, so I haven’t seen the guy since then, and I’ve long since put the incident behind me.
Fast forward to today. I had to talk to another co-worker in the office about something, and she asked me how that whole thing played out. I told her I never heard anything. She said that this guy has a long, documented history of doing this to people, but no one will stand up to him, and his other co-workers always ultimately end up defending him because they think that deep down he’s a good guy, albeit with major flaws.
So what did HR do this time? They required a “bullying in the workplace course.” Not a bad idea, right? Except that they only required one person from each department to attend, and, well . . .
Is he in a protected class or something? Some sort of disability? Or perhaps the class is ‘How to deal with bullies in the workplace.’ meaning they know he’s a douche and they’re giving everyone else tools to deal with him?
Really, I got nuthin. Well, unless he tried to intimidate you into not taking his stapler and you responded by throwing him over a rack of filing cabinets…
That’s because HR does not exist to serve employees of a company. They exist to keep the company out of court. They do not care about you or solving problems. They are merely first-line lawsuit mitigation.
Except by not dealing with it, they leave their company wide open to a harrassment lawsuit. It’s actually the opposite of what corporate self-preservation is about.
My guess? The HR department is poorly staffed, lazy, or incompetent. Keep any and all documentation pertaining to this, even if you have no intention of pursuing it. You never know when they might decide to blame you. If you ever have to deal with this guy again, you might consider seeing a lawyer beforehand.
Yup, HR works to protect the company. Now how that works isn’t always straight forward, and you can report and report and report… Then find what they recorded wasn’t what you reported and they’ve actually named you as the villain in their internal paperwork.
This would be why so many companies here are union shops.
I work in a large teaching hospital. We’re all union members, from nurses to lab techs to physical plant to housekeeping - not all the same union, of course not. But it was scenarios like the above that had the unions voted in.
If it makes you feel better, I thought the “wait for it” kicker would be that they sent YOU to the training. And, no offense, but that would have been classic.
At my current contract, there was a guy who complained to HR about the Smoking Clique - a group of three people (out of a department of six) who do nothing but smoke and talk and laugh all day, usually so loudly that it is difficult for anyone else to work (plus they do a lot of phone work). Guess who was unexpectedly fired a couple of weeks ago. HR departments are not your friend.
Especially on the first day! That is, to be blunt, fucking idiotic, and will brand you a troublemaker from the beginning. It may not be fair, but it’s the way it is.
I would give my first born over to indentured slavery to know the back story. And my daughter, being the nosy person that she is, having inherited that from her mama, wouldn’t fault me for a second.
I’m curious to know why the OP didn’t go to his supervisor FIRST, before opening up a case with HR. I suppose that being “the new guy” might have contributed to that decision.