Did you know that the HR executives at NBC had their offices in the middle of the newsroom staff–and those offices were glass?
How comfortable would you be, going to file a complaint about a co-worker if you had to do so in a glass office? If you were going to complain about sexual harassment from the company star, say, Matt Laurer, would you feel comfortable doing so in a glass office, where people could see you? 45 percent of us report crying at work, reports my Inc. Colleague, Heather R. Huhman. Might you feel like crying if you had to report something traumatic? Might you not want to do that in a glass office?
Might you be afraid of causing drama by reporting something? People see you walk in, cry, and walk out. They know something is up. Even if the HR manager pulled the blinds, it’s all kinds of obvious.
But, here’s the deal. The reporting employee isn’t the cause of the drama. The harasser is. In this case, Matt Lauer caused the drama. But we don’t see that.
So many people (especially women) are afraid of causing drama so they keep their mouths shut when they would prefer to speak up.
To keep reading, click here: The Victim Did Not Cause the Drama
Perhaps Matt Lauer should have had a glass office, instead of a button under his desk allowing him to lock the door, preventing the escape of his targeted victims.
Great article putting the point across that victim didn’t cause the drama. It brings up how hard it is to report something you feel uncomfortable with as they don’t make it easy to do so. It reminded me of that statement if you see something say something. I myself hesitate to say something if setting makes me uncomfortable. Let me put it in a situation I just had to report. —-I take daily walks as per doctors orders so after awhile I get to notice things around me in the scenery in better detail. Over the last 5-6 months, I know what car is part of the neighborhood and who drives it. I also noticed license plates and I noticed a car left without plates but the same plates were now on another car. I figured at first, the owner planned to junk car, but it was just left over the winter and finally in the spring, an energetic traffic patrol ticketed the vehicle. I noticed the owner check the ticket and left it on the vehicle. Again I ignored it, figuring if vehicle was ticketed enough it would get towed. But within the last two weeks another car has been parked and left with no plates, so I wrote in on the Next Door app asking for help and got a number to call into which I did and made an over the phone report. But making that report could have been made sooner if reporting could be done without identifying myself.
We need to take the fear out of trying to make a effort to report something that makes us uncomfortable. I am not one of those cry wolf people either but I hesitate because I don’t like to be made ashame asking for help.
It is difficult when the company protects the offender and HR is helpless.
I hate headlines like, “Man killed wife because she burned the steak.”
No. Man killed wife because he’s a killer. She did not cause her own death.
It is the way women are “trained” in this country – to be the peacemaker, the nurturer, to preserve friendships at all costs, to not make things awkward, or dramatic, or get anyone angry.
We need to get over this willingness to put up with BS at work just to avoid ruffling a few feathers. If I have to cause a little drama or discomfort or a few tears to be shed in order to get someone to stop mistreating me, I have no problem doing that. But yes, a glass HR office (!) makes that infinitely harder.
I’ve always hated this sort of problem.
I was taught, as a teenager, that a woman had the right to say no. That was never in dispute (at least as far as I was concerned). If someone didn’t want to date me, she didn’t want to date me.
But … the first girl I asked out was very nice when she declined. I asked her in private and she declined, also in private. Some minor embarrassment, but no hard feelings. The second girl humiliated me, publicly. Being turned down was bad enough, after I’d worked up the nerve to ask her out, but having her make fun of me (and everyone else making fun of me too) was horrible. I spent far too long suffused with helpless rage. I knew she had the right to turn me down, but did she have to embarrass and humiliate me? It took over a year before I dared ask out a third girl.
Point is, women are scared of having something put in them. And this isn’t an unjustified fear. But men are scared of having something chopped off. We are expected to make the first move, unsure if we’ll be accepted, politely rejected or humiliated. And this isn’t an unjustified fear either. We can be crushed by being rejected violently and yes, it can do long-term damage.
I don’t think women really understand this, any more than men understand female concerns. (In hindsight, I can understand why I didn’t get a real date before I was 19.) Men are very poor at reading women and vice versa. And sometimes this leads to tragedy.
I’m not trying to justify this, because it isn’t right. We all go through this stage and most of us grow out of it. (I am so glad my teenage years are behind me.) But … what most men think, particularly during that stage can be summed up like this; you can reject someone, if you like, but you don’t have to be a b**** about it.
I agree that women do not have to be mean, however….
A man’s biggest concern about a women is being humiliated.
A woman’s biggest concern is about being raped and murdered.
women are scared of having something put in them. … But men are scared of having something chopped off.
And I can count on one hand the number of cases where I know the chopped off has happened (Lorena Bobbitt, 1993). How many women have been raped and murdered in just this year?
oh my goodness! That headline is HORRIBLE! I hope they got blasted to the moon!
Thanks for calling that out.
Great article. I think the point you brought out is really very important. Victims tend to shy away from speaking up because of a fear of rejection, losing their job or whatever the case maybe. In terms of jobs, sadly at the end of the day the victim has lot at stake to loose. No not the harasser, not the company, not the HR. The victim who thinks thrice before bringing up something as an issue.