Wednesday, June 10, 2009

S.H.

I was subjected to a Sexual Harrassment Training class today at work. Let's put aside the fact that I work in an office with only heterosexual males, I went into the training with an open mind. I came away really annoyed at my company's policies regarding SH.
The trainer spent 90% of the time focusing on the male harrassing female scenarios, when it is my belief that a strong woman in a corporate setting is much more dangerous with regard to SH. She knows that in today's society, management is much less likely to believe a woman has harrassed a man, so she could more easily get away with it.
But anyway, there were two examples that specifically frosted my tailfeathers. The trainer said that if an employee came to her and said "I wanted you to be aware that ___ has harrassed me. I don't want you to take any action towards him/her, but I just wanted you to know." In our company, as a manager, she is REQUIRED to file a report against the accused, because she has been made aware of the SH incident. Even if the accuser specifically asks that no action be taken, the manager is not allowed to use personal judgement, and must file a report. That's stupid!
The other example is that we are all "strongly encouraged" to report incidents of SH that we witness, even if it does not involve us directly. WTF?? How can you sufficiently determine if someone else has been harrassed? Suppose you are raised in a rather strict environment were certain touching is inappropriate, and you happened to see one co-worker touch another in a way that YOU feel is inappropriate, but the other two involved have no issue with it at all. How are you going to TELL someone that they are a victim of SH when they don't feel offended??
The final straw, for me, was this lil tidbit. If someone has filed an SH claim against you, you aren't allowed to even say "Why didn't you just come to me and say that you were offended," because our company views that as a potential threat to the accuser. So, to me, that says that instead of talking things out and resolving the matter in a quiet "adult" fashion, your first course of action should be to run like a tattle-tale whenever you see something that might be interpreted as SH. Sheesh!!

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