I complained about a coworker and I am not sure if I did the right thing?

[roxystars19]

I have an admin who did the following back in May:

- followed me around being "nosy" and would interfere with my work. For example, I would be going through classrooms trying to clean, she would come in 2 minutes later and start telling me what to do. When I said I've got this, she would start doing it for me. I left her to do the work since she had it and returned to my desk to work on something else. She would come back to hers 5 minutes later, saying she would finish that later.

- I asked her to send out an email to new volunteers asking them to arrive 30 minutes before service. She didn't like that and went back and forth between being nice about her disagreement and angry. When I firmly told her no, they had to be there 30 minutes before (just for the first day), she slammed her binder down and she was NOT going to do that. I reported this to my supervisor who said I should just do it myself to keep the admin from getting upset.

- A parent had dropped off some toys and one of those toys was a Tinker Bell doll. I had made a comment about the doll saying that it bothered me that the dress was up so high you would see the dolls underwear. The admin said, "Well it bothers me that she's white." I asked her what she meant by that, she dodged the question by saying she liked the Cinderella doll. I said she is also white. The admin threw the doll back into the box, turned to her desk, slammed her hands against it and said, "ugg!'

-- I am half Native American and half Caucasian. Admin knows this.

- I talked to hr about this, saying that I wasn't comfortable and asked if I could just move desks. HR said absolutely not. And that I could file a harassment report, but then it would come down to who stays and who goes and that we didn't want to go there.

- HR had a therapist and conflict resolution specialist come in to help all of us with this issue. I wasn't the only one complaining about her. This didn't stop the behavior. But HR is asking us to stop complaining.

[CupcakeTheDestroyer]

Sounds like she has tenure. See if you can reach out to everyone who’s complained about her and file a group harassment complaint. There’s safety in numbers and if she does indeed have tenure then they can just send her home with her paycheck and things will be more or less resolved if someone can step into her position temporarily until a replacement is put in.

[Anonymous]

Well, HR exists to prevent the company from being sued due to legal violations, as well as to make sure that company policy is being followed. Since the admin didn't do anything illegal and seemingly did not break policy, there wasn't anything HR could do. So yes, HR is going to ask you to stop complaining, because it literally is not their job to settle personal disputes and they have no power or authority to decide who works together based solely on personality.

Further, this lets the admin know that you filed a complaint, which can make working there more difficult for you going forward. I'd say that yes, it was a mistake to file a complaint with HR. The admin sounds annoying, but there's no rule that says they can't be annoying.

[roxystars19]

So it wouldn't be considered harassment?

[Opinion Owner]

Workplace harassment is unwelcome conduct based on a person's race, color, religion, sex, national origin, older age, disability, or genetic information. Harassment includes: Offensive jokes, objects, or pictures. Name calling. Physical assaults and threats.

Saying that the Tinkerbell doll being white bothered here is borderline, but probably not enough to make a case over. Especially if there weren't others to witness it.

Everything else you talked about has nothing to do with harassment at all.

[roxystars19]

Doesn’t it also include intimidation?

[Opinion Owner]

Were you intimidated? And by what?