Is this sexual harassment?

**Incognito** · 10th-November-2008

O.k.. there's a man at my work (not a fellow employee, but a person who is there for chemical dependency treatment- I work at an in-patient drug rehab), and often he sneaks up behind me silently, getting very close, and then pulls my hair to get my attention. When I turn around, he's standing so close to me that his face is only a couple of inches away from mine. (It's funny but I never hear him coming up behind me like that!) Anyway, also, when he passes by me in the hallway, he almost always passes by so closely that he "accidentally" touches or brushes his hand across my...behind...the halls are wide enough that this really wouldn't happen unless it were intentional, particularly more than once. He also stares at me, follows me around, and makes flirtatious comments...sometimes sexual ones. Nothing vulgar, but just the same.....is this sexual harassment? Or is it only sexual harassment if it bothers me? The thing is...it doesn't bother me (maybe it should...I'm thinking if he did this to other female managers they wouldn't be as complacent about it as I am.)

There was a woman staying there who used to make it a point to touch (actually grab) , my behind every chance she got, as well. And to be honest, it really bugged me. She persisted even after it was known to her that her advances weren't welcomed. I suppose that's the key difference....harassment is unwanted repeated sexual advances? Don't get me wrong, I don't want this guy to keep touching me like that...I see a very real possibility that my ignoring it might amount to him believing it is welcomed, or that others might see this behavior of his and assume there's something "going on" between us which could cost me my job.

Every now and then it makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable, but nothing like when the woman was doing similar stuff...somehow it was so much easier to tell the woman to stop than it is to tell this man.

**Percy** · 10th-November-2008

Of course it is sexual harrassment.

But what do you expect of a druggy?

It would be considered ludicrous for a soldier complain of an unsafe workplace when an IED goes off near his truck. And it is ludicrous to even think about 'sexual harrassment' in a drug rehab centre.

I can understand you being irked, even upset, but that goes with the job. It is better than being shot at or blown up.

If you put yourself in an 'occasion of sin', expect to be sinned against.

And button that blouse !

**Incognito** · 10th-November-2008

Certain situations do come with the territory.

Recently a female house manager was fired for engaging in a sexual relationship with one of our male patients. She claimed she did not know it was wrong because the sex was "consensual." Later she recanted and said they never had sex at all. According to WA state law, since she had supervisory control over him, they were not married, and he was a patient, she is guilty of rape in the second degree. I suppose she's lucky she only got fired. (Of course she doesn't see it that way...she was quite outraged.) The poor guy she slept with...well he graduated from treatment and they both immediately married. They'd only known each other less than a month. Now he's back in treatment again (no big surprise) and she's sleeping around with other guys, for financial gain. One of the guys she's cheating on him with is paying some of her court fines from previous brushes with the law. I wish someone had prosecuted her for the rape charge...but apparently no one could prove the two had sex without one of them being willing to admit it, and both denied it, of course. I feel really sorry for the guy....he just signed himself off to a crazy, sociopathic woman with four kids all from different fathers...and I imagine he's going to be in treatment of one kind or another for a long, long time.

**Incognito** · 10th-November-2008

What else is crazy about that situation: that twenty four year old woman was hired despite having 12 previous assault charges on her criminal record...and it was something that the person who hired her knew about when she was hired. They do thorough background checks...amazing...hiring someone with that sort of past to work in a supervisory position over chemcially dependent individuals. It makes me so angry..I just don't understand it at all. Now the woman harasses the facility: makes threatening phone calls to employees, etc...and though I've suggested a restraining order, no one in authority is doing anything about getting one. It's really nuts.

**Percy** · 10th-November-2008

I just don't understand it at all.

Really, Tera? You don't understand it?

The 'helping' industry and its attendant 'professionals' at all levels, has been taken over by feminism and sentimenality. Only women are considered 'empathetic' enough and are sacred. Men in the game are considered to be only pretending of course, but given a pass for trying.

If a chap had sex with a female 'patient' his arse would be allocated to Hairy George in 'C' Block. But a woman - well, she was probably abused at 12 and her daddy bought her a choclate icecream instead of a strawberry one that she asked for when she was 15. The bastard!

I have no doubt that you, as an individual, are of good heart and serious intent, but expect to be surrounded by rent-seeking scum whose presence alongside you is only because they don't scrub up well enough to be an expert witness in a court where they can charge $250 an hour instead of $13.86.

**Incognito** · 10th-November-2008

That woman had 12 previous assaults on MEN...how could anyone honestly believe that she'd be "empathetic" toward men? That's craziness! ..It violates common sense (as well as professionalism and ethics) to hire such a person to supervise people with diminished mental, emotional, and psychological capacity. It defies reason.

**Percy** · 10th-November-2008

Yep.

I can't argue with that.

**Marx** · 10th-November-2008

Yeah I'd say it was 'technically' harassment, but if it's not offending - then it's not harassment.

**shaazam** · 10th-November-2008

"Recently a female house manager was fired for engaging in a sexual relationship with one of our male patients"

yikes !

how about hep C and AIDS virus

shows how strong emotion trumps common sense every time

**Aug9th-LiveOrDie** · 11th-November-2008

he is trying to get close to you cuz he thinks your hippie ass is the one with the shrooms

**Incognito** · 11th-November-2008

I have to say, overall, I love my job and I love the guys I work with. They're so funny! My office is right next to the guys' living area...(the place they all congregate when not in therapy sessions...) and I can hear everything they say from my office since only one thin wall separates us. Some of the funniest stuff I've ever heard comes from over there...I've heard a group of guys singing Janet Jackson's "Control" ...and "Bad to the Bone" and heard many a conversation about women...lol

They make me smile every day.

**Aug9th-LiveOrDie** · 11th-November-2008

I remember last year when I was washing dishes at le madeliene, this old school black chick was the busser and I was the dishwasher and we used to sing marvi gaye and tammi terrell duets(albiet with more enthusiasm than skill)

**Incognito** · 11th-November-2008

Ha ha! I would have loved to hear that!

**Aug9th-LiveOrDie** · 11th-November-2008

another one of my favorite jobs was at winn dixie
you already knew what was going on when 3 or 4 co workers followed me to the freezer to "take inventory"