Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts?

#111

Post by fishnchips » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:05 PM UTC

tom_mellior wrote: post #106

fishnchips wrote: post #32

Those accusations can come from weird places. I was once accused of sexual harassment by a male coworker (I'm a straight male, and a father of two). When summoned by HR to face the victim it turned out that he felt that touching his screen (when explaining something) violated his personal space. Not that it is necessarily relevant to your case but if you feel innocent then you probably are - unless you're a psychopat…

Wow, that's quite extreme. But it doesn't have to be a crazy person like that. Some more everyday activities that might make someone uncomfortable in the workplace even without direct interactions: - wearing T-shirts with scantily clad women in the workplace ( http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/13/living/matt-taylor-shirt-p... ) - wearing other T-shirts deemed inappropriate (heavy metal T-shirts with pentagrams or whatev…

I wouldn't call him crazy, just... peculiar.

Displaying scantily clad women in the workplace in any shape or form would most certainly warrant an HR action. As a manager of an offending individual I'd certainly be the 1st one to react.

Re: Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts?

#112

Post by freeflight » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #110

freeflight wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the question is "What do you do on the weekend", then, of course, people with partners will most likely respond with something involving their partners. How does that imply a problem with the OP, except his inability to magically know the relationship status of his coworkers? Which would be the only ability allowing him to evade such answers to a rather casual question. Maybe he's new in town and looking for pla…

OP has interpreted this as not being g a problem. I'm looking out that if many people felt the need to drop the "I'm not interested in you, and I have a partner so back off" line then maybe there was a problem.

That's the thing with these kinds of situations, whatever the OP original intentions had been, they don't matter anymore as soon as the other party thinks he/she is being "hit on" and feels offended about it.

If the other party is actively looking to be offended, then there's literally nothing one can say/do to make it not worse, just walk out of the situation in silence and take a break.

Re: Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts?

#113

Post by matheist » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

le-mark wrote: post #107

matheist wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there's quite a wide range of alternatives in here, ranging from "not creepy at all" to "extrememly creepy". you have established a rapport where you talk about weekend activities, and she has mentioned half marathons to you in particular "Are you still running half marathons?" Not problematic at all; by standard social conventions you have implicit permission to ask about a topic that was previously deemed accep…

Yeah that all makes a lot of sense; the scenario was: more than acquaintances, worked together for over a year, she was QA on a project I was on, we talked everyday. She was very open about her life, and talked openly about the half marathons. Then I ran into her at a beer meetup with alumni from the same company, I hadn't talked to her in over a year. I was trying to make conversation, so I asked about the half mara…

yeah, that definitely sounds like an appropriate question in that context, then. sounds like the problem isn't with you there :/

Re: Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts?

#114

Post by contingencies » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:40 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #108

julianmarq wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but in practice would turn against him ... How? If he's leaving, exactly what they could do against him for you to say "it would turn against him"? Nothing, of course, that's the point of quitting, but I'm all eyes to your take on it.

Network of people you know and their willingness to work with you again are quite helpful in both getting new jobs and telling you how the workplace really looks like before you go to interview. Also, what is the point of leaving as parent suggested? It is that you get to look like a good guy in the end and she gets to feel bad/look bad in the eyes of the management. If he ends up looking like manipulative asshole, t…

Meh. You can take that stance. However, I don't think the OP is going to come across as manipulative if they have been wrongfully victimized by such a situation. My policy has always been and continues to be "open, honest, and to hell with the social implications." While it's not the snazziest social calibration one can aspire to, and it can burn bridges, long term it creates trust and more importantly removes the need to bother managing such petty issues mentally.

Re: Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts?

#115

Post by chmike » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:52 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #54

chmike wrote: post #43

My brother (manager) has been confronted to a similar situation, except that he was accused of moral harassement. The employee complained about it to the director of human ressource. They reacted swiftly. They hired an independent and specialized company to investigate the matter. The conclusion was that it was a fake accusation. This is the correct behaviour in face of any kind of accusation between employees. This…

What is moral harassment?

I'm suprized you don't know that. We are in europe. This concept is well known here and it is illegal. Moral harrassement is humiliating someone in front of collegues, requesting to complete unachivable tasks, continuously requesting things from someone without leaving him "time to breath" or complete the previous request. And then complaining that the previous task has not been completed, threatening to fire the person or changing his holliday period in last minute to jeorpadized his planned holliday with his familiy, calling the employee for an appointment at the end of the day, let him wait 2 hours and then say the apointment is cancelled, etc. It is psychological torture, but we call it moral harassement because it affects morale and demolishes people psychically. It doesn't leave visible trace but may lead a person to commit suicide when he refuse to give up and resign. Because of lack of traces the employer can deny any responsibility. The victims often commit suicide on the work place because it's the last way they have to show that something is wrong at the workplace and the "work" led them to that.

This kind of torture may be more frequent in europe than USA because it is more difficult to let go an employee due to employee protections. Some manager then use these techniques to push employee to resign. Otherwise, it's just psychpaths who do these things.

France Telcom was a french public company that was privatized. The new management did put a lot of pressure on employe to get rid of some of them. They, for instance, moved them alone in an office in a distance place without any furniture, missions, no phone, no internet, nothing. There were many suicide in that company in that period which is not long ago.

My broder is not in such company. He is in a good company handling employees with respect so as he does.

Re: Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts?

#116

Post by Mz » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 8:01 PM UTC

I don't have any advice for you per se. This sounds like a really, really terrible thing. I am going to link to a previous discussion that I participated in as food for thought. People were trying to give me push back and tell me I was wrong for saying this needed to be investigated even handedly and I asked people "Do you want to work in an environment where women can level accusations and get you summarily fired without so much as asking your side of things?"

So here is that link:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11669429

There is additional related commentary on my website on an easily found piece called Lawyer lawyer lawyer LAWYER lawyer LAWYER. that I am not going to link here. But the point I want to make is that we all need to start doing a better job of building bridges or you can expect more of this sort of thing in the future and it isn't going to do ANYONE any real good. This is not a solution to the problem of sexism.

Re: Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts?

#117

Post by greglindahl » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 8:07 PM UTC

snarfy wrote: post #56

You should ask what you did so that you can avoid doing it again. If they can't tell you why then you know it's all BS company politics. > I was told to be not talk to women at the office unless absolutely necessary regarding business matters. When you are at work you should only be talking about work anyway, regardless of who. I wouldn't take this too harshly.

A clue was provided by HR, and you (and others) do not seem to be paying attention to it.

Re: Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts?

#118

Post by auserperson » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 9:24 PM UTC

RobertoG wrote: post #39

auserperson wrote: post #24

Nobody is accusing you of sexual harassment. They said what they said. You are making some woman uncomfortable. Try to first believe what they said instead of getting paranoid. You are an intern and probably don't have a lot experience on professional behavior. You might be trying to get be friendly but that is coming out as creepy. Stop trying to do small talk if the other people don't start small talk with you neve…

" You are making some woman uncomfortable." So what? nobody makes you feel uncomfortable at your job? If nobody is accusing him of sexual harassment, what is he being accused exactly? It seems like an important point that they forgot to tell him. The guy don't even know about what he is being accused. When that started to be OK? My perception is that the woman complained about him, he is not important in the company…

For sure I would hate working with you

Re: Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts?

#119

Post by watwut » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 9:37 PM UTC

contingencies wrote: post #114

watwut wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Network of people you know and their willingness to work with you again are quite helpful in both getting new jobs and telling you how the workplace really looks like before you go to interview. Also, what is the point of leaving as parent suggested? It is that you get to look like a good guy in the end and she gets to feel bad/look bad in the eyes of the management. If he ends up looking like manipulative asshole, t…

Meh. You can take that stance. However, I don't think the OP is going to come across as manipulative if they have been wrongfully victimized by such a situation. My policy has always been and continues to be "open, honest, and to hell with the social implications." While it's not the snazziest social calibration one can aspire to, and it can burn bridges, long term it creates trust and more importantly removes the ne…

Practicaly, it does not matter whether he was wrongly victimised or not. It is irrelevant whether she wrongly accused him or whether he was collosally out of line. It matters whether he can talk about "formative stage of career" without sounding like a colossal weirdo. Most people can't.

He was looking for advice how to make his situation better. This is not it.

Also, there is big difference between saving mental resources by not thinking about impact of your words and spending effort looking for "a chance to talk to a nontrivial percentage of the staff and explain ...". The latter does not save mental energy. The latter is major project instead. Nor does it build trust. Characterising it as causual "saving energy from managing petty issues" is ridiculous.

Re: Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts?

#120

Post by watwut » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 9:39 PM UTC

chmike wrote: post #115

watwut wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is moral harassment?

I'm suprized you don't know that. We are in europe. This concept is well known here and it is illegal. Moral harrassement is humiliating someone in front of collegues, requesting to complete unachivable tasks, continuously requesting things from someone without leaving him "time to breath" or complete the previous request. And then complaining that the previous task has not been completed, threatening to fire the per…

Different europen countries have different laws. But basically it sounds like a more elaborate bullying.

Thank you for the answer.