“I was not interested in him and made that clear, but it was weird because he was directly in charge of my shifts, my clients, and suggesting me for pay raises,” Rachel said in an email. She filed a report with HR, who said they would deal with the matter.
“All of a sudden I started getting fewer shifts, worse clients and lessons, and [was] excluded from meetings that I had been invited to before,” Rachel said. Because it was a temporary job, Rachel didn’t pursue the matter further. (Note: Even with short-term jobs, sometimes the fight for worker rights is worth it, as a teen lifeguard appearing in this column discovered.)
In online comments, Washington Post reader Autumn Leaves 523 described a situation in which an executive seemingly tried to enlist HR in his retaliation efforts. After the reader rebuffed his increasingly aggressive attempts at flirting, the executive went to HR himself, presumably to preempt a harassment complaint. Not long after that, the reader’s manager started reprimanding Autumn Leaves 523 for humming, misdirecting a package, and other minor or made-up infractions.
“I endured bullying, stalking, micromanagement, fabricated write-ups, etc. for four-and-a-half months until I was [terminated] for ‘insufficient performance,’” the reader said. (Note: Even though this reader hadn’t officially lodged their own complaint with HR, the EEOC says in an FAQ that it’s “unlawful” to retaliate against an employee for “resisting sexual advances.”)
Autumn Leaves 523 hired a lawyer and eventually received a settlement, thanks in part to the raise and good review they had received just before the bogus performance complaints began. But perhaps even more crucial was the name of a woman with whom the executive had had an inappropriate relationship, provided by a workplace ally.
A reader from Canada, who asked to be referred to only as “E” to avoid violating a nondisclosure agreement, said she was in essence demoted and ostracized after returning from disability leave to the media outlet where she worked. When the employer denied her the assignments and duties she previously had, E filed a complaint.
But the mistreatment increased. Management looked the other way when others introduced mistakes into E’s work, excluded her from staff meetings and communications, and abruptly canceled a work trip she had planned. When management said they wanted to conduct a performance review — the first one in her many years at the company — “that’s when I knew they wanted to fire me,” E said in an email. “Even though I was a star employee, [I was] out of favor with the bosses.”
E documented her mistreatment, hired an employment lawyer who helped her obtain a settlement and took a job with a rival company.
You may have noticed a common element in these stories: The workers all left the workplaces where the retaliation occurred. That’s not how it should work in an ideal world, but as many readers pointed out — and as I should have mentioned in my previous column — targets of retaliation usually end up finding other jobs, regardless of how their complaints turn out.
“Reporting [discrimination and retaliation], as this reader did, makes your legal claim stronger,” commented attorney Tom Spiggle of Spiggle Law Firm on LinkedIn. “But that said, truth is, nine times out of ten, your days at your employer are numbered. Best to use it as leverage to get a good severance, then find a better employer.”
Why would people who have done nothing wrong end up being the ones to leave? For one thing, filing a complaint disrupts the status quo — especially if your company takes it seriously. Investigating discrimination complaints usually involves interviews with potential witnesses as well as the accused and accuser, which some readers noted could account for the “chill” that last week’s advice-seeker noticed. Even if the colleagues didn’t hold it against the writer, they could be struggling to remain neutral, with a dampening effect on camaraderie.
Another hard truth is that whistleblowers are treated less often as heroes and more as troublemakers. And, of course, the retaliation itself may work as intended, causing emotional distress that makes it impossible for the target to carry on there even if the harassment ends. As Washington Post online commenter FlordaTransplant put it: “This does not mean you failed to do the right thing. [But the reality] is no one is going to say, ‘Oh, gee thanks.’”
So despite the original advice-seeker’s hope that “all will be resolved through mediation,” resolution doesn’t mean things will return to a better version of the way they were before. Standing up for your rights changes everything, including you. And once you have undergone that change, you may find that a job you thought you loved is no longer a good fit. But there’s always the hope that you will be leaving behind a place that has changed for the better.