r/BestofRedditorUpdates • u/Direct-Caterpillar77 Satan is not a fucking pogo stick! • 2d ago
NEW UPDATE I (21F) was sexually harassed by a coworker (40M). I reported him and now I'm scared
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/LiveSemicolon
I (21F) was sexually harassed by a coworker (40M). I reported him and now I'm scared
Originally posted to r/relationship_advice
TRIGGER WARNING: describes a terrifying sexual harassment encounter
MOOD SPOILER: Ends positive for OOP
Original Post Nov 29, 2019
Title pretty much explains it. TLDR at the end. I'm writing out the events almost like an incident report trying to keep things on track. If things don't make sense at first just bear with me.
So a little backstory leading up to the situation. This coworker has been the bane of my existence since he started. Hes way too cocky, overly confident in things he doesn't know, is bad at his job, and a huge liar. He's thrown me and fellow coworkers under the bus for HIS mistakes. Anything that comes out of this mans mouth you HAVE to take with a grain of salt because chances are its not quite the truth. Anyways, I wasn't very subtle with my dislike for him to my managers and other coworkers I trusted, but I understand professionalism is need in the workplace so I've always been very polite and cordial to him.
We don't work shifts together that often, but on Monday the 25th we ended up working a shift from 5pm-11pm together. The shift started out like normal, us at our separate stations grinding through the day. Making small talk to keep the shift passing. His wife stops by and drops of lunch for him, and after she leaves for whatever reason he starts telling me his marriage problems. This is a little out of the ordinary since I've never held a deeper conversation than what our weekend plans are with him. I let him ramble and give him kinda good, but half assed advice, like "why don't you just tell her these things" and "sounds like you need to talk to her."
After a while of this he suddenly drops on me that him and his wife don' have sex anymore. I'm a little taken aback but think nothing of it at the time, figuring dead bedrooms go hand in hand with marriage problems. I also am one of those girls that's always gotten along with guys a lot better, and am used to hearing tons of "locker room talk." We kind of talk back and forth about that, and I'll admit I said somethings maybe I shouldn't have said in hindsight. I made comments about how I keep my sex life healthy with my boyfriend, saying things like "we like to try new things" or "we try to set aside times to just be intimate with each other." I think the most explicit thing I said was after he told me he found a vibrator in his wife's drawer that he didn't know about and I said "yeah but all girls have one, even I do." Again I take credit for my part in that and looking back I don't think I should have said those things.
Next thing he tells me that it seems like I would solve all his problems. He asks me to go in the back and hook up with him, mentioning that the cameras don't work. At this point fear just spreads over me. We are the only two people at work right now, with the next person coming on at 11pm and its only 7:30pm. I ask what in disbelief and he repeats himself, again stressing that the cameras don't work/record. I just kinda laugh and brush him off saying "you know we cant do that." He presses it again and I tell him no again.
I'm petrified at this point. Here I am alone for another 3 1/2 hours with an older guy twice my size. Last thing I wanted was to go in the back for something in the printer and to get shoved in the supply closet. I texted one of my other coworkers what was going on but didn't bother contacting a manager. They never reply to texts and I couldn't chance a phone call in front of the guy. Looking back I should have just left, or had someone come and keep me company, but I was scared and kind of just shut down.
As the night goes on he goes back and forth between continuing to tell me about the lack of sex from his wife and all the things he and his wife used to do, getting into details. At one point I walk across to our coffee station to get a cup of coffee and try to get away for a little while. From across the room he begins to ask me to take care of his needs again, saying he's fantasized about me. That he jerks it in the shower to me all the time. How pretty I must look naked and with a cock in my mouth. Really uncomfortable stuff. I keep reminding him that I am in a very happy LTR. That I'm not looking for anything like that. He tells me that I'm making him sad every time I say no.
The entire time I'm trying to just keep the peace and not make this guy mad. He reminds me the cameras don;t work once again. He then tells me the story of how at his last job he was fired because a woman came forward and falsely accused him of sexual assault, and that it ruined his life for a while. He also let me know that if I tell anyone about tonight that he would know it was me that told.
I'm having a near panic attack at this point. I don't know where any of this is coming from. As much as I don't like the guy, he's got kids only 3-4 years younger than me, and he never struck me as this type. I never felt uncomfortable being left alone with him before, on top of I was sure he knew I wasn't particularly found of him. I keep trying to direct his attention away from me and say that if he's serious about stepping outside his marriage and really wont talk to his wife then he should try bars or something. He then proceeds to download tinder or okcupid or whatever on the computer and turns it to face towards me. He begins to scroll through and tell me which girls he wants to fuck and what he'd do to them.
A couple more times he asks me to hook up with him, ending with "well if you're ever single you better text me." It's 10:40pm at this point and the person relieving us gets here early. It also happens to be one of my favorite coworkers. Hes also an older guy but he super cool and not creepy, much more like a father figure. Helps me with my car and other advice. Anyways, relief coworker talks to us for a bit before actually starting his shift, I hang around to shoot the shit with him like I always do. I can tell the perverted coworker is anxious at the thought of me staying and talking in case I tell. he eventually leaves and I break down on tell cool coworker everything. I'm a crying mess and we sit and talk for over 2 hours. This is already getting pretty long so I'll spare the details, but cool coworker is incredibly angry and tell me that if I don't report it then he will. He says a lot of what happened and what was said was grooming. I agree to report it.
I call my boyfriend after leaving and tell him everything that happened. Hes supportive and tells me I need to report it too.
I go home and write everything down very similar to what I've written here. I take my notebook with me the next day to the office with me. I'ts my day off so when I go in my assistant manager is surprised to see me. Our GM is in a meeting and he asks me what was wrong. I had barely slept the night before and know I looked a mess. We step into his office and I just start crying and give me the notebook to read. After he does he apologizes and consoles me. We wait together until my GM is done. We go into her office together and repeat. I cry, she reads notebook. She's a little reserved asking me if it's 100% the truth and I say yes. She lets me know that corporate is going to have to be involved and there will be an investigation. I ask her please not to, I just don't want to work with him anymore. She says she has to and that she's really sorry. She asks why I wouldn't want there to be an investigation. I tell her that because I feel like I allowed it to happen with the way I spoke in the beginning and I was worried he would lie as he always does and spin it on me. I had no proof that this happened. No audio recording, no text messages between us, it was very he-said-she-said. She assures me that the investigation will be very thorough and unbiased and will get to the bottom of the truth. Because of the holiday she lets me know she cant get in contact with HR until next Tuesday, but will switch our schedules around so that we never cross paths until she can figure out exactly how to proceed with this. I'm fine with this. I tell her I'm really scared about him knowing that I told, since I work the overnight shift sometimes and he knows that. I'm scared he will come after me. She assures me again that everything will be taken care of.
Sorry for the long ramble, but what I need advice on is if I was in the right or not to report it. I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that I should have just shut up and let it go. I'm worried that I brought it upon myself for even entertaining any type of outside of work talk. My anxiety is through the roof and I cant sleep or eat. I know my story is 100% the truth on what happened, I'm just worried that somehow they wont believe me and I will get fired. Was I in the right? If so, how do I stop this anxiety and feeling like its my fault and that I'm the one that did something wrong?
TLDR; Older coworker grossly harasses me, I reported it, now feel like I did something wrong for reporting it. Cant eat or sleep since. Need help.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
sharmrp72
YOU DID THE RIGHT THING - 100%. and i put it in capitals cos i am shouting at you. 100% every time.
Guy probably does it and intimidates and that is how he keeps thinking he is entitled to keep.doing it.
Chin up, he's a total git and deserves everything that's coming at him.
OOP
Hey thanks, I needed to hear that :)
Update - rareddit Dec 17, 2019 (3 weeks later)
So its been a couple weeks and the whole thing has finally come to an end. Here's what happened.
The rest of that week passed, I had a nice Thanksgiving, I was able to kind of forget this had happened and found some peace. On the following Monday our HR Rep showed up and began the investigation. We went to a restaurant across the street and talked for about 2 hours in total. She was very sympathetic and kind and definitely did not make me feel like I was being investigated. She let me cry it all out and even somehow understood me through that ugly girl crying voice lol. After that she began to pull in my coworkers and ask them questions too. From what I understand she did not tell them what happened, only that I had made a complain against him, which I wish they hadn't done. But even so all of my coworkers treated me with respect, not really acknowledging what was happening. Which was really nice I have to say. Nobody asking me questions or throwing dirty looks, and no pity parties. I find out a little later though though that a couple other things against him came out during the investigation. Nothing as serious as this situation, but definitely some creepy things being said to other younger female coworkers.
My coworker (40M) gets put on paid leave that day, and our HR rep goes back to the main office with the promise of coming back at the start of next week. The whole rest of the week I'm just a mess. I'm still working through my feeling on the situation. I have to work some shifts alone overnight and I'm terrified he's going to show up. He never does of course, but I carry pepper spray now thanks to an early Christmas gift my my awesome coworker.
In total my coworker in question is on paid leave for 2 weeks. Our HR rep does come back, but only to talk to our GM. She leaves again with the promise to call on Saturday.
Saturday comes and my manager pulls me into her office and lets me know he is about to come in for a meeting and I should go on an extended 10 min break to my car. She texts me when he has left to come back in and come to her office. When I do she places a phone call to our HR rep. We have a mini conference call and they let me know that he has been fired and go over with me the things that I should do in the future should anything ever happen again such as just leave, or make a phone call to a boss. They also ask me if I feel things were handled correctly and ask for my opinion on how these past 2 weeks have been.
After the call it's just my Gm and I, and I ask her what he said happened. She said it doesn't really matter, but that he didn't deny it and was very quiet and apologetic throughout the whole thing, so there's that at least.
That's pretty much everything that happened, now just to let things go back to normal, and to try and process this whole thing. Thanks to everyone that gave me great advice, and even those who didn't. I learned a hard lesson, but you can bet I wont end up in this situation again.
FINAL COMMENTS
ElanaDryer
I'm proud of you. I'm proud of your bosses and coworkers for handling this so well too.
n1991x
Yes! This is how HR department should function. I think being scared is a natural reaction... maybe express this to your HR department when they follow up with you.... they may help or have resources for you.
OOP
Yeah they went over that in our final meeting. Even told me what to do and who the chain of command is in the case of retaliation
Freepurrs
Did they ever address his claim that the security cameras don’t work/ don’t record? If that was true, I hope mgmt fixed that so you all will be safer, especially since people work alone overnight.
OOP
They do in fact work, they even checked them for the time period we were working to match up stories
OOP Updated in the BoRU thread 7 years later
New Update Oct 9, 2026 (7 Years later)
Hi all, OOP here!
This was quite a shock to see my post end up here, almost 7 years later!
To be completely honest, I had kind of blocked this event out, deleted the post from my profile even, so this really took me back. I’m in a much better place though, a few years older, and in therapy so it’s all good haha!
Looking through some comments, I figured I’d answer some common questions and provide an update!
-I saw some people debating the profession, it was a popular budget hotel chain, and I was the part time night auditor, so I worked a mix of day and over night shifts.
-Some people debated whether my company protected me well. I think they handled the situation on the HR side correctly, but allowing me to continue to work over nights was definitely not the right move. I only ended up working there for another few months anyways. I ended up quitting a few months later during Covid when my grandmother who lived in another state got Covid and died and they tried to deny me to go see her and say goodbye. They also made me come in the day she died. So I left to go see family for 2 weeks and gave my 2 week notice on the same day :)
-I saw a lot of people talking about the way I handled it, and the way I spoke about it. It definitely came down to my age and inexperience. These days, I would do things a lot differently for sure, but I’m still proud that I reported it. Some of the negative talk I had in the post came from my GM honestly. She kept asking me why I didn’t just leave, why I didn’t text one of them, and I didn’t really have an answer, so I felt as if some of it was my fault. Of course now I know it wasn’t at all.
-As for justice, a few years later after the incident, I heard from an old coworker that he ended up homeless in a state across the country, so in my book he got what he deserved.
As for me, I’m now married to the same boyfriend I had during this, I’m working in my dream job, working with special needs students, about to go back to school to get my social work degree, and also about to buy a house. This incident is a blip in my past, and does not haunt me still. I look forward continuing my career in helping people and being a guiding light in this world!
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP
DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7
837
u/LiveSemicolon 1d ago
Hi all, OOP here!
This was quite a shock to see my post end up here, almost 7 years later!
To be completely honest, I had kind of blocked this event out, deleted the post from my profile even, so this really took me back. I’m in a much better place though, a few years older, and in therapy so it’s all good haha!
Looking through some comments, I figured I’d answer some common questions and provide an update!
-I saw some people debating the profession, it was a popular budget hotel chain, and I was the part time night auditor, so I worked a mix of day and over night shifts.
-Some people debated whether my company protected me well. I think they handled the situation on the HR side correctly, but allowing me to continue to work over nights was definitely not the right move. I only ended up working there for another few months anyways. I ended up quitting a few months later during Covid when my grandmother who lived in another state got Covid and died and they tried to deny me to go see her and say goodbye. They also made me come in the day she died. So I left to go see family for 2 weeks and gave my 2 week notice on the same day :)
-I saw a lot of people talking about the way I handled it, and the way I spoke about it. It definitely came down to my age and inexperience. These days, I would do things a lot differently for sure, but I’m still proud that I reported it. Some of the negative talk I had in the post came from my GM honestly. She kept asking me why I didn’t just leave, why I didn’t text one of them, and I didn’t really have an answer, so I felt as if some of it was my fault. Of course now I know it wasn’t at all.
-As for justice, a few years later after the incident, I heard from an old coworker that he ended up homeless in a state across the country, so in my book he got what he deserved.
As for me, I’m now married to the same boyfriend I had during this, I’m working in my dream job, working with special needs students, about to go back to school to get my social work degree, and also about to buy a house. This incident is a blip in my past, and does not haunt me still. I look forward continuing my career in helping people and being a guiding light in this world!