Question:
My husband and I recently moved to Alaska. He’s military, and deployed soon after I got a job. Two months ago, I confided in a coworker that I was having marital troubles. She suggested I tell my manager, so he’d be aware I had things weighing on my mind.
I did, and he asked me a lot of questions, some of which I felt embarrassed answering. After that, he asked me for “updates” every couple of days. Then, he asked me to dinner. I thought he was just being kind because he knew I was new to the state and going through a hard time, so initially was placed.
Then he told me he’d made reservations at the Crow’s Nest because he thought I deserved a nice meal, and offered to pick me up at my apartment, I got nervous. I thanked him but told him I’d need to decline.
He asked “why?”
I said I was married and his picking me up at my apartment felt uncomfortable. Because his eyes darkened, I said I’d be okay if he’d take both my coworker and me out to dinner.
He said he was disappointed and told me again about how great the food was at the restaurant.
Later that day, he placed an expensive box of chocolate truffles on my chair. I didn’t know what to do, so I thanked him.
Two weeks later, our company’s managers attended an anti-harassment seminar. Following that, my manager called me into his office and apologized for the dinner invitation and truffles. After that, he stopped speaking to me.
It’s now awkward. He relays all messages to me through my co-worker. I’m still within my first three months at my company and fear I might be fired.
I can’t go to HR because my manager and the head of HR golf every Saturday.
What did I do wrong? What do I do now? I’m scared he’ll fire me.
Answer:
You didn’t do anything wrong. Your manager stepped over the line with his questions and invitation and realized how much jeopardy he’d placed himself in when he attended the seminar.
He now acts inappropriately. He ignores you, potentially to prove to others that he and you have no relationship should any rumors start. He may also be too embarrassed to interact with you. He may hope that, given a cold shoulder, you’ll quit, so the problem he created goes away.
If he fires you, he’ll compound his mistake further, because he’ll have retaliated against you.
You can give him grace and remain silent, however, if you do this, the weird dynamic remains. Worse, he may find performance related reasons to fire you.
Here’s what you do to protect yourself against retaliation. Outline what happened to your Human Resources officer or a senior manager, who can then start a neutral investigation, interviewing you and your manager.
Although you fear the HR manager will turn a blind eye to the evidence you provide, if you write your documentation convincingly, you may leave him no choice but to take your allegations seriously. You may also need to protect yourself by first going to a senior manager above your HR manager and explaining your concern about the golfing buddy relationship.
If you don’t get help in your company, you can present your complaint to the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission or the Alaska State Human Rights Commission. Although companies can fire employees relatively easily during their first months and via employment at will, they can’t safely do so if the true reason stems from illegal sexual harassment.
Before you go forward to either the HR manager or a senior manager, develop your documentation. Effective documentation presents hard-core facts in objective, unemotional terms. If you need to present a subjective issue, describe factually what happened, without including your opinion or conclusions. The best documentation leads a neutral third party to reach the conclusion you’ve drawn.
Although you may worry that you’ll have a “he said/she said” situation, few secrets exist in most workplaces. A good investigator can corroborate your story with what your coworker or other employees say and through thoughtful interviews and nonverbal observation of both you and your manager. Interviewees who tell the truth present themselves differently than do interviewees who shade the truth.
Alternatively, you can sit down with your manager and say, “You reached out to me and now you’re avoiding me. Can we start over and have a productive work relationship?” This approach gives your manager a way to save face. If you take this option, protect yourself by providing a third party the story prior to you potentially being fired, as you’ve done with me, so that if you’re unfairly fired, you have information that shows the firing may be a cover-up to a managerial and an HR problem.
(c) 2022 Lynne Curry
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My mother would have said that she shouldn’t have told him about her marital troubles and that he probably took that as coming on to him. There are people still alive today who also would believe that. Some of them are senior (in terms of position more than of age) managers. I like best the idea of “Can we start over again?” HR might do a good job on the investigation, but they might not. Too often, HR are tools. The HR I saw in government certainly was. Documentation, however, while the events are fresh in this woman’s mind, might also be a good backup. At this point, it would be memos to self–with dates and times.
Alternatively, you can sit down with your manager and say, “You reached out to me and now you’re avoiding me. Can we start over and have a productive work relationship?”
Agree that this would be the more positive way to handle the incident.
Good example that wearing one’s heart on their sleeve at work is a recipe for disaster…..
Great comments, Larry
When an employee has an issue and they want to tell their supervisor about it, they should be able to feel comfortable to divulge whatever facts they feel pertinent for what they are going through. The manager should not take that as an ‘in’ to take advantage. I think he is ashamed and he doesn’t know how to come back from it. I like the suggestion of her making the first move to restore communication using what was noted, it shows good faith, maturity, and professionalism on her part.
As an HR professional I strive to keep be Switzerland – neutral. If employees have the perception that their HR person is “friends” with other managers (whether it is true or not), then many times employees feel like they have no place to go. Professional distance is a good thing. By nature, I’m a friendly person. There was one time I made a friend at work and when I learned that employees wouldn’t come and talk to me about their manager, who was my friend, I began to put some distance between me and that person. Many of us spend more time at work than we do anywhere else and some can get too comfortable.
I heard a saying not long ago – the people that you work with are not your tribe, This has to be true especially for HR professionals. We are the first person an employee should feel they can come to if they can’t go to their manager.
Gina, great comment!