Terrible day

[Tink]

Sexual harassment here will not only get the offender fired, but is reason to sue the company that employs them if they don't deal with it in a timely manner.

Many years ago when I worked on community owned ambulance service the head of it was sexually harassing myself and 5 other women. Most were reluctant to talk about it until they learned that it was so widespread. We finally all wrote up statements against him, and I called every member of the county EMS board at their homes to report it after the hospital administrator (who was HIS superior) failed to act on it.
The very next morning they gathered in the administrators office, called in the head of the ambulance service and gave him his walking papers. The risk of us suing them over it was too big for them to ignore.

Quite seriously I made a couple long term enemies over that one, but the law was on OUR side and they had no choice but to comply. It turned out the man had also raped his 9 yr old dd during his weekend visitation and he died within a couple years of a cancer in his brain which they figured had caused him to act as he did.

It was a nasty situation, and we felt bad knowing he was "impaired" yet there's no way his actions could be tolerated. He was actually cutting peoples hours when we refused to go parking with him in the ambulance!

[Lindsey]

Oh it's a big offense here too, but everyone tolerates it and I feel (and I think the receptionist, amanda, too) that if we did anything about it there would be backlash.

I just got sent home from work. Completely unrelated. My brother decided to have a party last night. he rang the doorbell at 2:30 before using his keys to get in. I had slept for 3 hours at that point. He partied with a group of people until 5:30 this morning, and my alarm to wake up went off at 6, and I sure didn't sleep in that half hour. I am working on a huge project and I couldn't perform today at all, I think I fell asleep for half a second on my way to work because I jolted awake before I almost hit a car in front of me. I was nodding off at my desk, while my brother and his deadbeat friends with no jobs were all sleeping peacefully here all day. So I got sent home and I feel absolutely sick right now.

[Lindsey]

Also, I'm not sure exactly what is considered sexual harassment. I feel uncomfortable with a lot of things he says. Most of the time it's just his little childish tantrums and swearing constantly. One time, we were playing cards at lunch, and this really nice guy who works in our lab accidently threw his card too far and it went off the edge of the table, so amanda bent over to pick it up. The guy said sorry and my supervisor said "No he's not he really just wanted to see your cleavage!" and everyone laughed and amanda got mad and made a comment about how inappropriate it was. My supervisor laughed it off, but later apologized to her when nobody else was around. It's just so creepy. Amanda is my age, 23, and this guy is 45 with a wife and two small kids. Why would he even think of saying something like that.
This summer after I got my new tattoo on my leg, I was wearing skirts every day because pants rubbed too much on the scabs. My supervisor said "Did you ride your bike to work today? Oh I guess you didn't, you're wearing a skirt." I said "no, I didn't." and he was like "Well I guess there's nothing stopping you from riding in a skirt! You just need to get some panties with motorcycles on them and ride around with your skirt flying up!" then he shouted something like "WOOO-EEEEYYYYY WILD CHILD!" It's just embarassing, and uncomfortable, and I'm sure my face turned red, but I wasn't even looking at him when he said it and I just continued to look away and didn't reply at all.
Another thing that bothers me is that he CONSTANTLY talks about diarrhea and gross stuff. If anyone is sick ever, he always calls them at home to see how they are, and he's like "So do you have a stomach something? nausea? diarrhea?" Like wow, just mind your own business... then he always says first thing in the morning "Yeah I'll get right on this after I go take my morning crap and have a smoke." Come on, he's in a professional office. Is that really necessary to tell everyone? He just bothers me so much!
Tink- I'm glad you stood up for yourself in your situation. When I was a lab tech at this office I got SO much of that stuff from construction sites. There was one guy in particular who always said things like "Oh do a test over here, baby. I'll make a spot for you here baby." But whenever the city construction inspector was around, my name was Lindsey. One day he slipped up and called me baby in front of the inspector (who I had gotten to be pretty close with, I was on his site 2-3 times a day for about 6 months and he almost seemed fatherly to me) and the inspector didn't say a thing and I almost forgot about it. But, he helped me carry my equipment to my truck and when we were out of earshot he said "Don't worry, I'm going to talk to him about his language and if you EVER hear him say that again don't hesitate to charge him. I don't care that he's my employee, he can't be saying that to you. I'll talk to him this time, but if it happens again you let me know, and he'll be gone." He never called me baby again.

[Tink]

Lindsey, maybe you need to get more mouthy yourself and put them in their place as the inappropriate comments are said?
If every time these older guys make a sexual comment to you they got a response that made them sound like old fogies, it wouldn't be fun for them anymore. Maybe let them know they're old enough to be your father and that is SUCH a turn off... Make them not want to get on the topic. A bit of psychology can work if applied correctly.

[judy]

I feel for you honey. It's very hard to be a woman in a "male" profession. People go along with it because they're afraid to make waves, and in this economy, it's hard to be angry at them for it. Your boss sounds like Steve Correll in "The Office."

When I was doing my graduate work in science, my mentor was one of those jerks who had a new 18 year old student every semester. He had some reputation, and so did we (the young women who worked with him). We were known as "Marty's Angel's." I didn't care much - I wasn't sleeping with him. He was married with 2 kids.
I did leave though, after a time because there was no time to get together with him to discuss my graduate work. He was too busy getting you know what. A lot of us left around then.

Point being, everybody gets theirs. By the way, the day his youngest daughter left for college, his wife presented him with divorce papers. She got everything and had had a boyfriend for years. HE NEVER KNEW WHAT HIT HIM!

You just do your job and wait it out. He'll get his.