Step 1: start documenting

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence,

I work at a small nonprofit of about 20 people, most of whom are under age 35. Our president is a big personality and often tries to treat employees as friends, whether they like it or not. She makes jokes that are highly inappropriate and she bullies our more timid employees. Last week she took things to a whole new level. In an attempt to scare a female employee who’s been the victim of some of her bullying, she snuck up behind her and planned to give the employee a soft tug on her skirt. What actually happened was that the employee’s skirt came off her waist and exposed her underwear. Immediately afterward the president repeatedly told the depantsed employee “not to tell anyone.” The employee did go to speak to a high-ranking executive officer about this and the bullying. Later that day the executive went into the president’s office and, leaving the door open so we could all hear, casually brought it up. The president has profusely apologized to the employee, but as far as anyone can tell she has received no disciplinary action. Would it be wrong to tattle about something that didn’t happen to me? Or should I just butt out of what is not my business?

—Caught With My Pants Down at Work

banana468

Do not add to office gossip.  What you CAN do is speak up and then document.   Be assertive when the pres makes comments that are out of line and write those down. 

charlotte989875

Did you see this happen? If so yes you can (and should) report what you saw. If you didn’t, report whatever you do see directly immediately and encourage others to do the same. 

climbingsingle

Damn, that is messed up. I would have to speak up. 

short+sassy

I need more info to property answer this question but, overall, I'd say that the LW shouldn't add to the fodder unless it was something that happened recently.  My two big questions would be is the LW the other "victim's" supervisor?  Does the LW know if the other "victim(s)" want their story told?

To an extent, I feel like incidents should stand on their own.  So if the LW didn't think it was important enough previously...and obviously the victim(s) didn't choose to speak up...then it isn't the LW's business to say anything now.

I'm giving a lot of extra background because it is next level.

Here's a real life example of my points.  I used to be the assistant manager at a big gas station/convenience store.  The manager (T) was a real piece of work.  I'd briefly worked at a different store with him while I was waiting for my new store to open.  It was a glorious almost two years when my store opened and I was under a different manager who wasn't a nightmare, bullying, HR scandal waiting to happen.

Then there was a class-action harassment case brought against him and the company, by many of the employees at his store.  So obviously he was fired right?  Wrong.  He was moved out of his store and to my store instead (sigh).  And MY manager was fired, because he wasn't as high producing as T.

Then the day came...like out of a management book...when I had an employee take me aside to speak to me about T.  T was the only store manager for our store and I was the only assistant manager (one level down).  He had placed a sign on the freezer door and she asked him a question about it.  He rudely and sarcastically replied back, "Can't you read, puta?"  "Puta", in Spanish, basically means "whore/slut".  T isn't Hispanic nor does he speak Spanish.  But this employee is Hispanic and bilingual.

Very clever of him to discriminate against both her gender and her race with one word//s.  I expressed to her how sickened I was to hear this and asked if she wanted my help reporting this to HR.  She told me she didn't want to bother because she was about to give her notice anyway for other reasons.  I asked her if it was okay if I reported it to HR.  She told me that was fine.  So I did.

2-3 weeks later...not our local HR person...but an HR person from Atlanta came to our store and had short, private interviews with everyone.  No one was ever told why, but I could only assume it had to do with what I reported.  T's name was never mentioned by this HR person, at least not in my interview, but I did repeat what I had been told by that employee.  Unfortunately, she had already left for another job and was no longer working there at the time of these interviews.

As far as I know, nothing happened to T.  But he must have known or could have just taken a really good guess as to who ratted him out.  He made my working there more unbearable and started writing me up for nonsense, inconsequential things, which he'd never done before.  He outlasted me.  I finally had enough, though more from the exhausting hours/bad schedule than him, and gave my notice.

This was the one time his anger problem worked out for me, lmao.  He was so PO'ed when I gave him my two-week notice, that he crumpled it into a ball.  Threw it on the floor.  And told me I should just leave.  I told him sure and started to collect my things, clock out, etc.  I also...ever so casually, when he wasn't looking...picked up my notice off the floor and kept it.  Then filed for unemployment a few days later.  Something I wouldn't have been entitled to do if he'd just let me given my notice and work the next two weeks, instead of throwing a hissy fit.