“I was very excited to get this job because it was long I was looking, you know. So, I was over the moon. But then shortly after I started to get this funny vibes, you know. I really can’t explain it, but I was just feeling uncomfortable around my manager. But of course I try to blow it off because I needed the job.”
The words of a young woman who said she was recently forced to resign the job she had been at for only a few months because of “harassment” and “vindictiveness” by her immediate manager and the failure of management to act fairly.
“In the end I just had to leave because it became so unbearable to work there anymore,” she told me sadly as she recounted the months she spent at the established non-profit organisation.
“The first incident for me was just after I started working there and he made a remark to me. He didn’t call me in for anything important, but was asking me like why I look at him that way. I didn’t know what he was talking about. And then he smiled, it was not just the smile it was like something in the smile that made me feel uncomfortable and I just walked out the office.
“It was after that, like people start telling me that I should be careful around him. They like see me going into the office and they come and warn me but nobody would tell me exactly what it was.
“It was only long after like, I hear about him harassing women and I started to like stay as far away from him as possible. I would do my work and so on but if I don’t have to interact with him I wouldn’t. I just try to stay away from this man.
“But then one day he called me into his office and telling me, ‘I heard you in a relationship with someone and I don’t like this. I don’t like you spending lunch with him and hanging out with him after 4:30. It is a distraction’. To say I was shocked is putting it mildly and I just walked out the office without saying anything because for me there was nothing to say.”
Troubled by what the manager told her, the woman said, she decided to approach the head of the organisation.
“I went and asked him if there is anything in the company policy that forbids employees from having relationships and he said no and that what employees do after they knock off is their business. So I told him what the manager told me and he told me that he had no right to say such things to me,” she said.
“He then asked me if the manager ever coerced me or do anything inappropriate to me, like physical…. I told him no but the fact that he was asking made me realise that the management knew this man was doing things and was not taking actions against him. He basically told me that they have heard things about this manager but that they had no evidence.
“Shortly after they had like a confrontation because they told the manager what I said and I was right there and he said I lied on him. He said he did not say anything like that to me but I insisted that is what he told me,” she recalled.
“After that meeting the manager became vindictive, he had a staff meeting and he excluded me from the meeting. It was six of us in the department and only I was not invited to the meeting. He refused to give me any work to do for two days and I went back to the CEO and he told me that the manager should not be doing that. But even though he said that nothing was done about it and he basically continued being vindictive.
“I had a final meeting with the CEO and the Human Resources Manager and they told me that there is not enough evidence to take the matter further because it is my word against his and that I had to remember that he was a senior manager in the organisation,” the woman said, sounding angry.
“I tried talking to the Human Resources Manager by herself because I felt,being a woman, she would understand but she was of no help. Is like these people know what this man does, but nobody is doing anything. He has been at the organisation like forever and it is like nothing can be done to him.
“I don’t think it is fair what he is doing and getting away with it. He does not hire men in his department… I was told that another woman complained about his behaviour and she was promoted and nothing else was heard about it. Another woman also complained and nothing was done and she later resigned but later came back as a supervisor.
“I was very upset about how they treated me and what was happening in the department and I just resigned. I was making no sense and now I have to be looking for another job because of nothing I did.”
I asked her if she believed she should have remained on the job and fought.
“Maybe I should but to tell you the truth it was getting to me. You are going to work and not getting anything to do and management was doing nothing about it. So it became stressful,” she answered.
“The management also gave me the option of going to the Ministry of Labour but Labour say there is nothing they can do,” she continued.
Another employee who still works at the organisation confirmed to me the behaviour of the manager.
“You have other senior people who know about the issues but they say and do just the minimum so it is like if his actions are condoned,” she told me.
“I am tired of his behaviour and when I heard this young woman was forced to resign it did not sit well with me. Two other females confided in me that they were humiliated by this man; they were basically fat shamed by this man and their self-esteem dropped. Why must he be allowed to continue to do these things?” she asked, not expecting an answer.
“It is because of him the work place now get a sexual harassment policy but I don’t think they are taking it seriously. That man needs to be let go. He is not doing good for the morale of the employees,” she added.
Sexual and other forms of harassment go uncheck in many organisation,s especially if the perpetrator wields a lot of power, which is often the case. I can only hope that this sister finds a new job soon and one with which she is comfortable.
