Sexual Harassment Soapbox

I was having a great day until about 4 pm when I called my lawyer to ask him about something regarding the status of my case. I won't bore you with the details, but needless to say I got a little testy and now I'm in a pissy mood. I even ditched my Pilates class and workout to come home, pout, listen to my iPod and fix myself some comfort food.

I lodged a formal complaint against Jackass yesterday. Apparently, he went into HR on Tuesday morning and talked to our HR guy (who, incidentally really likes me, as most people at my job do), who then requested that I write down an account of everything happened. After I'd written everything up my boss, H, and I then went in and talked to HR guy. I got the whole speech about howI shouldn't have to put up with this type of harassment, blah blah blah. Everyone nodded their heads and agreed Jackass had, indeed, been a jackass and if anything else happened I shouldn't hesitate to come to HR guy and we would then "deal with Jackass in the appropriate manner". In other words, his ass will be fired.

What I found a little, well, disturbing was a series of comments H made regarding what would have been the appropriate manner for Jackass to ask me out and how this was a 'generational thing'. According to her, part of the problem with this "whole thing" was the difference between how my generation deals with "this sort of situation" and the way H and Jackass's generation deals with it. H said, "If he had said something like this to me, I would have, you know...blown it off [insert wild hand wave here]. But your generation [nod to me] doesn't deal with it that way...which you shouldn't. Jackass [okay, that's not his real name, I'll admit it], needs to learn how to control himself."

Color me stupid, but I think part of the reason why Jackass still has a fucking job at Pearson is because of a general belittling, oh-it's-not-that-serious feeling towards sexual harassment, as H expressed, there. I absolutely agree with H--a small part of Jackass's problem is that he didn't grow up with SH policies at the work place like I did. But the other, larger part of the problem, the part that I think caused him to open his fucking mouth, is that he a) honestly does think what he did was inappropriate and b) he's never been called on it even though he's acted inappropriately towards other women at at least two different jobs. It's attitudes like H's, not to mention the attitude of the other supervisor on my project who led to him thinking it was okay to say that to me.

The other highly suspect thing H said was, "it totally would have been different had he asked you out in the parking lot at work, alone, than doing it like he did at work in front of everyone." When I made the comment that, yeah it totally would have been different, it would have creeped me out even more to have him approach me in a parking lot alone, she said, "Oh no, that would have been some guy just asking you out. That would have been okay."

Um, I beg to differ. I've had people ask me out before outside of work and when I've turned them down, our work relationship has either turned sour or really strained. I'm not saying you can't date someone you work with (God knows I've dated plenty of my co-workers; my last relationship was with a man that was my boss), but you have to be very careful how you approach that person. Asking someone, say, to go to a party, or out with a bunch of people is a way to spend time with that person and not run the risk of either a) rejection, b) seeing if that person is truly interested and c) avoiding charges of SH.

I don't want to crucify this guy, but, really, if I don't take the higher ground here and make this about him acting and saying things that are inappropriate in a professional setting he'll simply keep doing it. History has proven that. I hate being the example as well as making an example of another person in order to prove a point but I feel like in this situation I need to see this through to the end.