Being Sexually Harassed at Work! Please Help!!!

[33girl]

I said in one of my earlier posts that she should definitely keep the old texts, etc for legal purposes - I also said I'm dumb as a post and don't know how to do that.

I also got the impression that she's in a cube farm. My point is that for many jobs all you have to provide is ONE emergency number where you can be reached, whether or not it is a phone under your name. You do NOT have to give your cell, pager, private email, etc etc. We give up WAY too much of our private lives to work and have only ourselves to blame when shitty people take advantage. This has nothing to do with the OP - this is in general. Private life is private life and work is work.

IMO it sounds like this is part of the overall company culture and she's going to get zero satisfaction from anyone in HR or elsewhere, no matter how high up.

[Boro]

IMO it sounds like this is part of the overall company culture and she's going to get zero satisfaction from anyone in HR or elsewhere, no matter how high up.

I'll bet the HR toad goes back and reports the conversation to her boss.

Gucci Model, I know the economy is bad, but no job is worth this. Are you looking for a new job?

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Gucci Model

To give you an idea of how often he calls, last night I have missed calls from him at 10:48 p.m., 11:07 p.m., 11:12 p.m., 1:37a.m., 2:21 a.m. and 3:14 a.m. He didn't leave any voicemails, however. I also received 6 texts from him between 8:35 p.m. and 1:58 a.m. In the past, he has somehow blocked his number so it shows up as "unknown" so I also no longer answer calls from unknown or restricted numbers.

! I mean, really, !

I did set up an appointment with a lawyer to get advice and make sure I'm handling everything properly.

Fantastic!!

Originally Posted by VandalSquirrel

Changing your number is a huge hassle, and anyone who wants to harass you will find out your new number, guaranteed. In fact being unreachable can cause the abuser/stalker to escalate their behavior, and tipping them off may cause more issues. If this guy is as scary as we think, don't you think he's going to realize her number has changed and all of a sudden he can't reach her, and then ask her for her number? What then?

On this aspect of it, I'm pretty much in agreement with you, and this is a major reason why. I think it has the potential to make things worse, not better.

But again, the OP's lawyer will be in the best position to advise her about it.

[VandalSquirrel]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

! I mean, really, !

Fantastic!!

On this aspect of it, I'm pretty much in agreement with you, and this is a major reason why. I think it has the potential to make things worse, not better.

But again, the OP's lawyer will be in the best position to advise her about it.

Thanks. Sadly I am speaking from experience. After saying "this isn't going to happen anymore, don't contact me, we can't work it out" was worse than what had been happening. People (men and women) who are stalkers, abusers, and harassers will go to extreme methods to terrorize and manipulate to hurt and control the other person. Often it is turned around to where the perpetrator makes it look like the victim is really the perpetrator. My breaking point was having false police reports filed against me that made me look like I was victimizing him, so I couldn't even count on the police to make me feel safe and help me. Thankfully I had enough evidence and people to back me up he finally stopped. I know he is still doing stuff and keeping tabs on me, but it isn't as obvious and people are on to him.

The only part I blame on myself is that I let shame control me into not telling people who needed to know and could help me. These people count on embarrassment and shame of their victims. I'm a highly educated independent woman, with friends and family who are involved in my life, and that just made it worse to admit I "let this happen to me" but there wasn't a "let" involved, sometimes it just happens no matter how we protect ourselves. I genuinely thought he wasn't stupid enough to take it that far but the fact is these people aren't stupid, they are highly intelligent, charming, and diabolical which make them so good at affecting people. I learned so much about technology and how to spoof my phone number for calls and texts, fake my email address, and get onto my home wireless network (my idiot roommate didn't see anything wrong with letting him check his email and gave him the password).

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I said in one of my earlier posts that she should definitely keep the old texts, etc for legal purposes - I also said I'm dumb as a post and don't know how to do that.

I also got the impression that she's in a cube farm. My point is that for many jobs all you have to provide is ONE emergency number where you can be reached, whether or not it is a phone under your name. You do NOT have to give your cell, pager, private email, etc etc. We give up WAY too much of our private lives to work and have only ourselves to blame when shitty people take advantage. This has nothing to do with the OP - this is in general. Private life is private life and work is work.

I wasn't suggesting that you were wrong. I was sharing my experience where I did erase harassing messages and got the WTF? look from the police; hopefully I won't be harassed/stalked by a friend's crazy ex, but if I do I won't erase his messages!

You're right in saying that private life is private life; some of us, however, have jobs where we're not in the office all the time during business hours and need to be contacted. I'm all over the city at construction sites during the day--how could my company not have a cell phone/BlackBerry number for me? It's not as if my boss or even another co-worker is calling me on a Sunday night just to chat or harass me. One of my good friends is an executive assistant--we've been out on a Saturday night and she gets calls from her boss regarding a major deal that's going to go through on Monday. He tries not to do it, but sometimes it can't be avoided. Again, I'm just sharing my experiences, that it's not always easy to just "turn off" your cell phone in some professions.

[33girl]

Agreed that there are some jobs where you're offsite a good deal of the time - but if you have one of those, the company needs to sport you a cell phone, 100% on their dime. I sure as hell am not going to use up my personal minutes on whether or not the building on the cover of the Power Point presentation should have a green or blue welcome mat in front of it.

If you give people an inch they will take a mile. It's nice to think that everyone would be kind and considerate about things like that, but sadly, that's too often not the case - not even getting to things like sexual harassment. Then again, I'm sure my opinion at present is colored by some of the douchebags I've been working with recently who think everyone is there for their amusement or to do their bidding.