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Gotta tell you guys this has been in the works for the last 4 or 5 years now, something I’ve worked on here and there but finally decided to complete it when we recently had a big situation with a guy and girl on my job. I won’t get into too many details to maintain their privacy and not sure if they may ever come across this on the Internet or if they’re even on GaG. He was a cool guy and even taught me some things, but did something stupid like others have done. However, she was also wrong but used the situation to her advantage, and made a complaint. Nothing was done about her, but he got disciplined.
So I want to talk about this common issue and give guys the hard core facts about it, to protect yourself and make sure it doesn’t happen to you. Also because you have a lot of guys who think saying or doing things with a female won’t get them in trouble, or that flirting or asking a girl out on the job is harmless, but you need to understand what can happen. And as someone who will honestly tell you that I too have been questioned before when someone was being investigated, I can give you an idea of what goes on in these cases, even if you are innocent. I also include info - from both men and women - about HR and sexual misconduct who have also been in the same situation or witnessed dirt first hand.
This is a bit of a long Take, but I feel it’s necessary.
HR is not your friend
The biggest mistake people make is believing that HR is on their side. It is not. HR’s job is to protect a company from liability and lawsuits. And if that means “disciplining” you or deleting you altogether, they will do that no matter what. Even if you were not entirely at fault in a situation either. I’ve seen it numerous times with co-workers over the years.
They will talk to everyone you’ve come into contact with at work, similar to what government does if you want a very high level job and they comb through your background. HR will talk to those individuals to find out more about you, asking them what their relationship is like with you. They will also look at your track record on the job to see if there is anything there that would help incriminate you as well. And the more negative info they gather from the individuals they talk to, the easier it is for them to do it.
When they interview you, they will want you to tell them everything that happened, and they will nudge you to “try to be as truthful as possible” to make you think that your honesty will work in your favor, when - unfortunately - the more honest you are the more it helps them to work against you. After you’ve told your story, they will try to ask you, “Is that all?” “Is there anything else?” “Are you sure that’s all?” They’re looking for you to tell on yourself and admit more about the situation without them having to directly ask you about it. They want you to tie up those loose ends all on your own so they can have just what they need to get you. Don’t take the bait. The best way to respond when they ask you things like that is: “Is there anything else?” or “If there’s something else, you should be truthful about it.” They really get thrown off by that because they already know they’re lying by pretending they don’t know anything more. Their job is to play psychological games to passively intimidate you.
Also be aware that HR can investigate you and you don't even know it. Enough information or complaints had been brought to them about you for them to quietly investigate, so that later on your manager will call you into the office to “speak to someone” who will interrogate you about things you said or did but had no idea were being recorded or watched.
HR can actually be very serpentine. They can doctor their findings of an investigation and say a person did more than what they really did to pad their decision to discipline you - which you could file a lawsuit for, but HR knows you likely won’t and that winning in court would be hard anyway. They think they can fool you - and they can if you don’t really understand how they operate. The thing to remember is that they are not trying to help you, and when you’re a guy they don’t care if you’re really innocent, they only care about protecting the company and their image. And when you recognize this, you’re better prepared for the situation.
Be very careful not only with what you do but what you say
And not even if it is necessarily to a female on the job. Believe it or not, a lot of the people who you think you can trust at work with your thoughts, jokes, or comments are the complete opposite. People in the workplace are always gossiping, and the guys nowadays are just as bad as the girls. One little statement, comment, joke, or remark that you make - even if it really is innocent or simply a goofy statement about a girl you’re crushing on - can spread like wildfire and before you know it everyone else knows what you said. And to make it 10x worse, your words at that point have already been twisted and meat-processed over and over by others’ mouths into something that totally deviates from your original statement, which can make you look bad as well.
Also be careful about what you say when there are others around you. Even if you’re not talking to them directly, people are always listening and waiting for an opportunity to complain about you or someone else, or they just want to hear a conversation so they can go and tell other people what you said. So be careful what you say to someone or around others. If HR investigates you for something, they’re going to interview not only the people you spoke to directly but also the other ones who were in the room too.
Be careful what you say TO a female
Of course this is a no-brainer. You obviously know that you shouldn’t be saying or doing anything that would be considered inappropriate or cavalier with a woman on the job, and you obviously know that if you have wrongly crossed boundaries with a woman and broken company respect policies that you are without a doubt going to be fired. Sometimes you do get flirty with a woman on the job, or say things to them you probably shouldn’t have, and think they’re cool with it, when they actually are not and went to a manager about it that same day.
Apart from that, you have to be careful even when you’re really saying something very innocent that bears absolutely no direct or inappropriate context.
Nowadays almost anything can be perceived by a woman as some kind of come-on or something that makes her “uncomfortable.” This has happened to me as well, and it always seemed to be the women who really weren’t my type that thought I was doing more than what they wanted to take me at face value for. One time I asked a girl what she thought about a popular place in her area, if she liked it as much as everyone else seemed to. I later on found out from others that she went around saying how that felt “weird” and uncomfortable. An average question you would ask anybody in any social situation, male or female, and would not be perceived as something inappropriate. Even other co-workers thought it was stupid for her to make a big deal of it. But it gets worse: there were guys on that job - even older ones - who would make clearly suggestive passes at her…but what she didn’t find offensive or cringey. Those are the types of women who can be very troublesome.
Men can be bullied in these situations too
What’s horrible is that when you are a guy, the world is stacked against you. You’ll have even other men suggesting you “must’ve done something” to make her feel that way, or said it in a way that she took wrong. Because we live in a culture now where it’s acceptable for a woman to think anything someone says or does is threatening her safety or respect, even when it really is the furthest thing from it, and this is reinforced by people and a corporate system who choose to empathize with it.
To make it worse, we teach women that it's okay to use microaggressions at work towards men. If she all of a sudden doesn't want to talk to you anymore, physically starts avoiding you, gives you glares, or makes a complete show of ignoring you and your existence, and you don't even know why or what you said, we teach women that it's okay to use that kind of inappropriate communication and behavior, and teach men to just accept it and don't say anything for fear that it'll come back on you.
You do have females who will try to shame and defame you to others for her misperception, so that she can get people on her side to validate her, or to even hate you - if they’re weak enough to be influenced like that. Not only is it control and manipulation, but this in itself is a form of workplace bullying and misconduct, but females are very rarely disciplined for this. As a guy, you’re literally told to just ignore it and let it go away, even though deep down it bothers you and makes your own work environment toxic and unpleasant.
Women too can be serpentine about sexual harassment
I’m not going to sit here and say that no men have knowingly sexually harassed women at work, or that no men are guilty. That would be ridiculous, because there are definitely men who have done some really over-the-top shit to women employees - and I’ve known some who got fired for shit that I have no idea how in the world they thought they could get away with.
But, what people don’t want to talk about is that there are also a lot of women who are dirty about sexual harassment and will weaponize that whenever they want, even if they're the guilty party. Why? Because they know the system is going to validate and support them. There are women who have sex with a co-worker or boss, but tomorrow they’re angry and want to get rid of him, so all they have to do is tell HR he did something inappropriate and he’s done. Women who want to take something casual a male co-worker said to her and complain about it, just because they feel entitled or want to show they can have something done about a situation. Women who may have even said or done something inappropriate with you but they know you aren’t going to find it offensive as a man or say anything, so they get away with it, but know that if you do the same thing back, they’ve got you.
Then you have the women with simpy guys who like them and get jealous when they see another co-worker is flirting with her or showing a confidence he wishes he had, so he’ll tell her to go complain about it. Other women will go to HR about a guy she finds unattractive making her “uncomfortable,” but a dude she thinks is hot and does the exact same thing the unattractive guy does - or pushes the envelope even more than him - won’t get complained about. You can’t say one guy is violating your respect simply because you’re not attracted to him, but not maintaining the same company principles of appropriate behavior with a guy you think is hot.
There are also women who come into a new job literally looking or waiting for a reason to complain about a guy - or multiple guys - for just about anything. From a dude giving a simple “Good morning,” to the guy helping her clean up the lunch she dropped all over the floor and he’s trying to be funny to break the ice or lighten the mood of the situation.
Some females also use microaggressions and wear frowns on their faces and won’t speak to anyone as a message for guys not to, but not because she’s “protecting herself” but because she wants to be adversarial and knows it. Other times, they actually are already looking at you and are waiting for you to see it so they can glare at you to make you uncomfortable and wonder what you did. These kinds of women are trying to have manipulative control over a work environment, or are trying to see if they can get rich by filing a lawsuit against the company. Believe me when I say, they do exist.
Then the absolute worst which I have seen numerous times: women who have slept with every living creature at work and get away with everything they do because if they get fired, they're going to blow the whistle on the company and the managers they had sex with. So management and HR will protect her. The really horrible part? If women ever get disciplined for their inappropriate behaviors, most times a company will give her a tap on the wrist or simply transfer her to another office, building, etc. but a male will be fired for the exact same thing she did. I've seen it.
We’d rather not shed light on that
Most people don’t talk about those things, and especially those feminists. They only want you to continually believe that all women are innocent in workplace conduct situations, and that all women are under threat of men who can’t keep their words and hands to themselves. They will never have the conversation about low life women who want to weaponize workplace inappropriateness when it suits them. And they are actually no less common than guys who really are guilty of harassment, we just don’t talk about them, and corporate systems are set up to protect women so that companies don’t get lawsuits even if she is being dirty about her claims. Women know this and exploit it all the time.
Just be careful
Which of course is a no-brainer. But I want any guys out there to have a better idea of these situations and how to keep staying safe, or to even learn better for next time if you have been disciplined for sexual harassment/inappropriate behavior.
Maybe you even feel bad or ashamed for what you did. Those are normal feelings you have to work through. Everyone does something completely stupid in their lives at one point or another. The good news is that in some ways you are better now for it because the situation really taught you something, even if it was the hard way, even if it did result in you losing your job. Might be tough to think about right now, but in the long run it’ll matter.
Namaste, and good luck.
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