Sexual Harassment and the "accused's" version

Paige

I'm dealing with a sexual harassment case right now where the clamaint is accusing the harasser of making verbal comments that are uncomfortable. I talked with the claimant and got her side--comments that were made including him calling her "sweetie," telling her he'd make a good boyfriend, and calling her "honey." She was very concerned about bringing the claim to us because she didn't want to ruin their friendship (they are co-workers as opposed to supervisor/subordinate). According to her--they are very good friends, she has a boyfriend, the comments make her feel uncomfortable.

Fortunately, in this situation, she was willing to sit down with the other person and myself to discuss the situation. He understood what she was talking about; said he wasn't trying to hurt her in any way (which I believe--from what she told me and what others said, his comments were innocent--not trying to stalk her, not threatening her, etc.); and he'll be more careful. In response to calling her "sweetie,"--"Oh-I call all my girl (space) friends sweetie." (By the way, we are talking about 2 college students here). As they were getting up to leave, he asked her something about What about when you ask me to give you a hug? That put an interesting spin on things, and at that point I got the impression that there was a little more to this.

So, the "harasser" went to his supervisor and gave his side of the story and it sounds like there are some strong double standards here--she'll go to him when she's down and complain about her boyfriend, she'll ask for hugs, she'll joke around with him, but when he does it in return, she's offended.

What can we say to her?

Rexxies

Did you sit them both down together after you got her side of it or did you talk to him second and then sit them down together? I'm a little confused. If you talked to each separately and then sat them down together, was it your feeling that they resolved the issues?

You may need to close the loop on this situation, possibly in the vein of, I was a little surprised at the end of the discussion to hear that you had asked so-and-so for hugs. Is that true? And, is it happening at work? If she answers yes, you should indicate to her that it's giving the wrong impression to the other person and this may in fact be leading him to make comments about being her boyfriend...she really needs to stop that behavior. You can't accuse someone of harassment because he's calling her sweetie and honey and then turn around and ask him to hug you--that is a double standard in my opinion.

If you're not sure of all this, I would ck w/your attorney. But I'm not sure you can just let that go...she's asking for physical comfort from someone and that's as much inappropriate behavior on the job as calling someone sweetie.

Good luck

Rockie

Tell her that she can't have it both ways! She can't "ask" for hugs, comfort, advice, etc and then act "offended" when someone calls her "honey", "sweetie", etc. I would wonder what her motives are? Is she looking for a case, trying to build a case against this guy or what.

If I was the guy, I would give this gal a wide berth. I advise employees that you have to be careful who you are "friends" with. Today's friendship can easily turn into tomorrow's sexual harassment lawsuit if someone gets disgruntled, fired, etc.

I see this a lot when I have a complaint about too much "sex talk" in the workplace. I investigated one of these a couple of years ago where people in a small office were having birthday cakes with phallic symbol candles on them. (Didn't know such things existed!). Anyway, this one person took issue with that and all the "sex talk" that went on in the office. I found out later,she was right in the middle of all of this, laughing, engaging in this talk, etc. She just got angry when she was disciplined for something and thought she could get back at the supervisor by filing a "complaint" I simply told her that she could not be a willing participant and then file a complaint against the others.