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When I was in college I was a team lead at Best Buy for a while. I was in charge of a mostly female team of cashiers, and I was alone with them in the cash offi

When I was in college I was a team lead at Best Buy for a while. I was in charge of a mostly female team of cashiers, and I was alone with them in the cash office frequently while they counted their tills. I made one of the cashiers mad by reprimanding her, and she decided to get back at me by claiming that I grabbed her and shook her while we were in the cash office. I never touched her, and luckily we still had video from the day she claimed it happened. After my manager reviewed the tape with her, it was clear she was lying, so she dropped her claim. Despite what we might wish, society treats men and women differently, and women are viewed as being particularly vulnerable. If a man had accused me of something similar, no one would have cared. When a woman accused me, without that video, I would have been fired. It's a complex situation. In many cases, people don't believe women when they really are assaulted, or they're force to share the blame when they're blameless. But in other cases the pendulum swings too far in the opposite direction. Like many things it's primarily a function of the relative power of the victim and the accuser. A powerful man can get away with harassing much less powerful women. But a relatively powerless man will quickly find himself in a world of hurt with just the hint of an allegation. A company doesn't want to fire their CEO without hard proof (or at least a lot of bad press), but they'll drop a low level employee quick just to avoid the slight possibility of looking like they aren't taking sexual harassment seriously. I'm not going to let that experience keep me from being alone with a women at work--I don't think I'm very likely to run into another women like that again and avoiding being alone with a women in a modern workplace is just too difficult. But I do understand the rationale driving people to be cautious. I do want to make it clear that I think that the vast majority of times when a women reports assault or harassment, they're telling the truth. But I do think that in some situations where we've started to completely shift the burden of proof to the accused (some employers, certain colleges etc..), we run the risk of creating perverse incentives and punishing an awful lot of innocent people.

bobwaycott 9y ago
Oddly enough, I also experienced some weirdness at Best Buy. Worked on the early version of the geek squad (back in 2001 before they had cars and it was just a bunch of computer nerds at a counter). Female store manager made some pretty overt advances, which I declined. I’d had a scheduled vacation the next week. Came back from vacation to learn I’d been fired for inappropriate behavior with the female manager, by the female manager. Nobody wanted to listen to my side of the story or take it seriously. She was still there years later when I happened to go in to buy something.
- vfulco 9y ago
  Plenty of double standards to which the thought police never recognize. Had a friend working on Wall St. at a firm with a zero tolerance policy (aka no chance whatsoever to explain the accused's side of the story, as in HR shows you the door with a box of your stuff immediately). One of his junior womyn analysts couldn't handle the workload. Her attention to detail was also severely lacking. Knowing she was at risk of losing her job, two weeks before reviews, she pulled the sexual harassment card which got my friend, who was a star performer (as in top 1% of the entire IB staff) and fast tracker to senior mgmt, fired. I've known him for 20+ years and he wouldn't ever cross the line between work and pleasure. She lasted another couple of months until more people saw the writing on the wall then she was blown out. But yea, it's a white, male, patriarchal, rape culture and nothing else.
Inconel 9y ago
Your point about having video evidence brings up an interesting question for me, how does the HN community generally feel about pervasive workplace surveillance? It seems based on some of the articles I've read about harassment, that many times people will only feel comfortable coming forward when they have hard evidence such as texts, emails, video, etc against the perpetrators. Seeing as we, in the US at least, seem to be fairly comfortable with having a pervasive surveillance state(lets ignore for a second whether this is rational, I personally believe the pendulum has swung way too far to the side of surveillance) due to the threat of terrorism, maybe we should also embrace this in our professional lives. I personally think harassment in the workplace probably affects the day to day lives of more Americans than terrorism does. Is it time to institute these kinds of surveillance practices in the workplace? Maybe have 24 hour video/audio surveillance at work, disallow off work socializing between employees holding differing levels of seniority, only allow approved, and recorded, methods of communication? For the record, I'm not sure how I would feel about such things, I'm leaning towards it being fraught with all sorts of negative unintended consequences, so if its a stupid idea please let me know, I'm simply curious to hear some opinions. Edited for clarity.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- harrisi 9y ago
  I think having constant surveillance can have a negative impact on work life. I know that when discussions moved to Slack at my work place there was a very different way to communicate due to us knowing our conversations may be read. Not that there were any instances of harassment, but sometimes it can be relieving to tell a coworker that your boss is a dick. It can help get feelings out before they build up. I do see some value in surveillance, such as the GP's instance (whether or not it's true -- it's a reasonably plausible story). I, however, don't think that constant surveillance that upper management has free reign over is good. I did have an idea about this. Is there a way to have a file (such as video/audio) encrypted in such a way that it can only be decrypted with multiple keys? In GP's case, GP and the employee that made the accusation? That way you can still feel safe(-ish) that your small slacking off won't risk your job, while allowing for evidence in serious situations such as GP's.
jacquesm 9y ago
> After my manager reviewed the tape with her, it was clear she was lying, so she dropped her claim. That should not have been the end of that story. Filing a false claim like that damages you and damages other people who actually have been the subject of such harassment by making it easier to claim for perps they made it all up.
abandonliberty 9y ago
>they'll drop a low level employee quick just to avoid the slight possibility of looking like they aren't taking sexual harassment seriously. I've seen a manager vanish in response to an accusation. Under normal circumstances, it would take the company weeks to update the employee listing, but an allegation of sexual harassment? poof

bobwaycott 9y ago

Oddly enough, I also experienced some weirdness at Best Buy. Worked on the early version of the geek squad (back in 2001 before they had cars and it was just a bunch of computer nerds at a counter). Female store manager made some pretty overt advances, which I declined. I’d had a scheduled vacation the next week. Came back from vacation to learn I’d been fired for inappropriate behavior with the female manager, by the female manager. Nobody wanted to listen to my side of the story or take it seriously. She was still there years later when I happened to go in to buy something.

vfulco 9y ago
Plenty of double standards to which the thought police never recognize. Had a friend working on Wall St. at a firm with a zero tolerance policy (aka no chance whatsoever to explain the accused's side of the story, as in HR shows you the door with a box of your stuff immediately). One of his junior womyn analysts couldn't handle the workload. Her attention to detail was also severely lacking. Knowing she was at risk of losing her job, two weeks before reviews, she pulled the sexual harassment card which got my friend, who was a star performer (as in top 1% of the entire IB staff) and fast tracker to senior mgmt, fired. I've known him for 20+ years and he wouldn't ever cross the line between work and pleasure. She lasted another couple of months until more people saw the writing on the wall then she was blown out. But yea, it's a white, male, patriarchal, rape culture and nothing else.

Inconel 9y ago

Your point about having video evidence brings up an interesting question for me, how does the HN community generally feel about pervasive workplace surveillance? It seems based on some of the articles I've read about harassment, that many times people will only feel comfortable coming forward when they have hard evidence such as texts, emails, video, etc against the perpetrators. Seeing as we, in the US at least, seem to be fairly comfortable with having a pervasive surveillance state(lets ignore for a second whether this is rational, I personally believe the pendulum has swung way too far to the side of surveillance) due to the threat of terrorism, maybe we should also embrace this in our professional lives. I personally think harassment in the workplace probably affects the day to day lives of more Americans than terrorism does. Is it time to institute these kinds of surveillance practices in the workplace? Maybe have 24 hour video/audio surveillance at work, disallow off work socializing between employees holding differing levels of seniority, only allow approved, and recorded, methods of communication? For the record, I'm not sure how I would feel about such things, I'm leaning towards it being fraught with all sorts of negative unintended consequences, so if its a stupid idea please let me know, I'm simply curious to hear some opinions. Edited for clarity.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
harrisi 9y ago
I think having constant surveillance can have a negative impact on work life. I know that when discussions moved to Slack at my work place there was a very different way to communicate due to us knowing our conversations may be read. Not that there were any instances of harassment, but sometimes it can be relieving to tell a coworker that your boss is a dick. It can help get feelings out before they build up. I do see some value in surveillance, such as the GP's instance (whether or not it's true -- it's a reasonably plausible story). I, however, don't think that constant surveillance that upper management has free reign over is good. I did have an idea about this. Is there a way to have a file (such as video/audio) encrypted in such a way that it can only be decrypted with multiple keys? In GP's case, GP and the employee that made the accusation? That way you can still feel safe(-ish) that your small slacking off won't risk your job, while allowing for evidence in serious situations such as GP's.

jacquesm 9y ago

> After my manager reviewed the tape with her, it was clear she was lying, so she dropped her claim. That should not have been the end of that story. Filing a false claim like that damages you and damages other people who actually have been the subject of such harassment by making it easier to claim for perps they made it all up.

abandonliberty 9y ago

>they'll drop a low level employee quick just to avoid the slight possibility of looking like they aren't taking sexual harassment seriously. I've seen a manager vanish in response to an accusation. Under normal circumstances, it would take the company weeks to update the employee listing, but an allegation of sexual harassment? poof