WORKPLACE POWER PLAYS

What’s a Little Sexual Harassment Between Friends?

I don’t believe this will ever end

Thirty years ago, my red hair and I stepped into an elevator at work with a handful of colleagues and friends. In lieu of wishing me a good morning, and in front of the entire audience, one of them said, “You know, Red, I’ve been meaning to ask you — does the carpet match the drapes?”

This man was third in command of the city I worked for and probably made 10 times more money than I did. I knew him well since I had the responsibility of keeping tabs on his department’s finances and personnel.

The memory is an uncomfortable haze now, but I think my response was to laugh nervously, look at him funny, and say nothing. I needed to get off of that elevator. I didn’t want anyone to see how red my face had become.

Later, I found out that one of the women on the elevator with me complained to Human Resources about his remarks, claiming sexual harassment.

I never reported him and only discussed the incident with close friends at work in a gossipy sort of way. My silence on the subject was wrapped around the need to keep my job. By then, I was the sole breadwinner in my family and this man held a fair amount of power. He had the City Council in his back pocket and I was terrified of retaliation.

Later, before a meeting we attended together, this man made cruel remarks about the woman who complained on my behalf and whispered that he was grateful that I would never do something like that. As if I were a co-conspirator, he said, “We have a good relationship, don’t we, Red? We understand each other.”

Looking back, I felt ashamed. He had used his position to keep me in my place. I felt there was nothing I could do but put up with him.

This was all before we had zero-tolerance sexual harassment policies, not that those have done much good in my opinion. I don’t think anything has changed.

This whole memory came flooding back a few days ago after a conversation with my neighbor’s daughter about something similar that happened to her at work. She is a new mom in her thirties, youthfully energetic, healthy, and hopeful.

And she has a stalker.

The stalker in question works with her at a prominent hospital in the area. They are both nurses and although they don’t work in the same unit, they share the same shift. He seeks her out any time he can.

It’s not just what he says to her about how beautiful she is, how she should leave her husband, or how he just knows her body will snap back after childbirth. He follows her to her car at night in a ruse of faux chivalry. She has started carrying pepper spray in her bag as a precaution.

She has told this man many times that she is not interested and that he is bothering her. When she does, he stops the behavior for a hot minute, then starts up again a few days later. The worst part is that this man is married with two teenage children.

What pisses me off the most, though, is the reaction from her immediate supervisor. This supervisor is close to retirement and doesn’t want to rock the boat during his last year at work. His response to her complaint was this:

He’s a 20-year employee. You don’t want to ruin his life, do you? Can’t you make it work? Besides, if he were younger and more good-looking, is this how you’d react?

My young friend finally complained to Human Resources before going out on maternity leave. She has since learned that they gave her stalker a slap on the wrist and will assign him a different shift in the future. At least she won’t be at the hospital with him anymore, but she’s worried about what her supervisor will think once she returns to work.

My friend has reason to worry. She’d like to be promoted one day but understands that complainers, even those with legitimate issues, aren’t offered many opportunities.

I remember that the woman who went to Human Resources after the elevator incident left the city a few years later. I ran into her at a conference some time after that and she told me that she felt she’d been shoved into a corner after making the complaint.

She told me she loved the city we worked for but felt siloed by management. She understood that she had to leave in order to gain a promotion and still felt angry about it.

In contrast, the man who harassed me in the elevator was promoted to the number two spot a few years later. I didn’t have to work with him much after that, which was a blessing, but I also felt siloed. Not as a complainer, but as someone to sexually harass. Someone who shouldn’t be taken seriously.

In over thirty years of working for various government entities, I only saw one person fired for sexual harassment. That person landed on his feet in one month’s time because he was pals with the City Manager, who was pals with another City Manager, who offered him a job. He did not take a cut in pay or position and, by all accounts, carried on as usual.

I hear stories like these from my daughters, their friends, and female acquaintances. Things don’t feel any different than they did when I was younger and it makes me sad that another generation of young women has to go through what I did.

To be fair, just as it was back in my day, it’s only a handful of objectionable men who do this. Most men are kind and caring. I married a good one and, hopefully, raised my son to be respectful.

But, it’s the objectionable types that make an uncomfortable lasting impression. They are the ones who make women afraid, cautious, and angry. They are the ones that should be stopped, but no one seems interested in stopping them.

Want to know the truth? This crap is still happening to me. Just the other day, in the grocery store parking lot, an old codger suggestively winked at me, called me Red, and said something about splitting retirement checks.

Although I like to think of myself as well-preserved, I am now over sixty. I thought, at the very least, this age would bring relief from these encounters. But, I guess nothing will stop an entitled aggressor.

So, just as I did in the past, I looked at him funny, ignored the remark, and got in my car to drive away.