Sounded like, when Skald began to advise her to document everything, she refused to listen and said she’d handle things herself. If she’s not even documenting, IMHO, Skald needs to step in. You don’t let someone you care for allow themselves to be abused, and she would recognize this herself, were she in her right mind. She obviously isn’t.
How about calling the cops? There is a crime being committed, after all (assault). Or encouraging her fellow worker who is witnessing this to call the cops?
Do you think people are required to obtain permission from the crime victim before calling 911 to report a crime in progress?
Sexual harassment in the workplace is not a crime. Leaving a dirty magazine is not a crime. Saying offensive things to someone is not a crime. I have not read anything here to suggest a crime has been committed.
If that’s the case, it’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of. I think it might be a mix of both or Asshole first started digging at her re the racial thing (not knowing her own background obviously) and found a great weapon that worked beyond his wildest dreams. This is not about sex or race, IMO, it’s about power and intimidation.
The motive doesn’t matter unless proving it’s racial can up the punishment (which I’m all for). I agree that she needs to (eventually) do something and should be documenting all of this, but it sounds to me like she’s not in place where she can do that, yet. He can’t do it for her, but he can get her the help she needs. Even then, though, it’s up to her to help herself.
In an odd way, this situation (and its responses) reminds me of an addicted spouse. Sure, you shouldn’t enable, but after hiding the car keys and pouring the whiskey down the drain, you can’t stop the drunk from drinking. They have to help themselves. It’s not right that she’s hurting their marriage, but a good marriage can weather this. I also don’t agree with whoever upthread said that spouses should share everything, but that’s another thread…
Yes, it is.
Here, for example, are relevant Indiana statutes.
Here in Minnesota, Statutes 609.749 on HARASSMENT; STALKING; specifically lists:
which would seem to cover repeatedly leaving dirty magazines on her desk.
Most other states have pretty similar laws. He would have to check the specific statutes for whatever state they reside in, but I would be very surprised if their state does not have similar laws.
(I mentioned Assault before, but that applies only if this person has actually touched her. That hasn’t been mentioned so far, so that law wouldn’t apply.)
If somebody doesn’t take action,
. . . or it will continue to escalate. And who knows, perhaps someday he’ll become a Justice sitting on the highest court in the land, while Mrs. Rhymer is branded a conniving liar.
Maybe if Mrs. Rhymer doesn’t follow her harasser from job to job and can keep her facts straight, that might not happen.
Regards,
Shodan
Per the OP’s description of the harassment
It is unlikely that he is leaving porn in full view of everyone, but is rather dropping it surreptitiously or when they are alone. Same for the comments. The only thing she could tag him with (evidence-wise) based on the OP’s description, is if someone actually witnessed him doing any of the offensive things he is charged with, and was willing to testify to that effect.
Without some documented history or other proof of the harassment, all the laws in the world are without force. In these scenarios if a harasser just won’t stop after being told to stop, the victim either has to take charge of the situation and get ready for war, or get ready to quit. There’s not much middle ground.
So what would one do if he/she witnessed a significant other abused right before their eyes, say standing in line at the grocery store? So alone, away at work is supposed to be not quite as bad?
At the very least, as alluded to earlier, dirty tricks should ensue.
Is there anything wrong with sending an anonymous email?
To Dickless,
Look around you. Everyone you work with knows about you and the way you treat some of the employees. Everyone has eyes and ears. People talk, people overhear and people notice. Nearly everyone has a cell phone that records audio, takes pictures and even shoots video, nowadays.
You might see all these people as employees, but more likely as just subordinates. Others might see them simply as witnesses.
Best Regards,
All the people
This is a terrible idea. Someone did this (the harasser was an old boyfriend) where I worked. The management was not pleased that she did it without the courtesy of telling them what was going on.
I hope she doesn’t feel that the only solution to this problem is to confront the asshole. That is what managers and HR departments are for. The simple, non-confrontational solution is for her to collect evidence, go to her manager and present it. Her manager either talks to the guy directly or goes to the right level of management which will convince him it is serious - and notify HR also. The guy gets sat down, without Mrs. Skald there, and told that there is a complaint, informed of the evidence, and told of the consequences if he doesn’t stop. If the makes excuses, he just gets told that it doesn’t matter why he did it, he just needs to stop.
I’m not a lawyer or an HR person, but I believe that people suing without going through channels first don’t have much of a chance.
Skald knows all this, of course.
Well boo hoo hoo.
Any management that permits this kind of hostile work environment doesn’t deserve to “be pleased”. They ought to be pleased that they aren’t a defendant in court over this!
And if they didn’t know that this was going on, then they aren’t doing a very competent job of ‘managing’, are they?
Obviously, this employee, and the other employees who knew about it, all felt that reporting it to management would not result in any effective action.
Sorry about that. 
I couldn’t email Skald from his profile or I would have. I only posted it because it’s such a serious topic (and not like joe wanted to weigh in on “toilet paper: under or over the roll? Part CVIII”). Sorry.
Sure. It’s pretending I respect her wishes while not actually doing so.
We don’t know that. It’s possible she jumped right to calling the cops, without giving managment the opportunity to resolve the situation. Upper management is not aware of all the social dynamics going on within a company…they’re more focused on Bottom Line stuff, how big is it and can we make it bigger. If an employee doesn’t tell them there’s a problem, how are they supposed to know?
No, the managers didn’t know. I sat more closely to her than her manager did, and I didn’t know. And the manager would have taken action. We were actually pretty good about this kind of thing.
Lots of managers give people freedom, and aren’t watching their every move. As part of that deal, you have to tell when something is wrong. You don’t go calling police to the workplace just because you assume that no one will listen.
I know she did because the response to the incident was - please let us know, and if you need to call cops, call security first. They were unhappy about the incident, but they were more unhappy about the lack of trust. The managers were absolutely not jerks.
The guy, by the way, didn’t even work in our center, and I’m not sure how he even got in.
Well, you being someone who loves her, respecting her dysfunctional wishes to remain abused is not required of you. You have to decide what’s more important- to respecting her wish to be in pain, or to put your foot down and demand that she act in her own best interest.
Skald said “Sure. It’s pretending I respect her wishes while not actually doing so” in response to a suggestion he send an anonymous e-mail to the creep. Indeed, that would be a cowardly way to handle this difficult situation.
I’m with the many who don’t think that Skald should march into the office & punch out the asshole. And I don’t think he wants to, either. (Well, the idea may have crossed his mind–but he knows better.)
My 2 cents: No, he shouldn’t just ignore the situation because she asked him to. It’s making her unhappy, which makes him unhappy. Counseling might help–especially since past experience seems to be haunting her. Further discussion & support should be offered. If she wants to handle it, what’s her plan?
But no macho “demanding”…