Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Victim of an unfounded harrasement accusation. Your thoughts?

146 pointsfjfkdjfjfjd138 comments

Seeing top HN link about sexual harassment in SV https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14673777 and my recent experience facilitated this posting.

I will try my best to keep this post brief, so please ask in the comments about details I left out.

Swift action has been taken against me by management, due to an accusation by an anonymous female co-worker. All management could tell me is that I made this person "feel uncomfortable", I am guessing in a sexual way. My desk was moved across the building away from where my immediate co-workers sit, and I was told to be not talk to women at the office unless absolutely necessary regarding business matters.

The extent of my non-work-related conversation with female employees has been saying hello/goodbye and making small talk on occasion (How long have you been with the company? Do you have travel plans for this summer? Are you doing anything fun this weekend?) I realize some of these questions could be viewed as hitting on someone, but that was not my intention, and believe that question was cleared up once they responded to me that they were going to see their boyfriend/girlfriend.

I am a male in my mid-20s on an internship ending in a few months. (The company has told me they do not have the budget to hire me full-time or extend my internship.) In the grand scheme of things, I understand this is small potatoes. But what has kept me up at night is the worry that I could be accused of sexual harassment or rape in the future leading to job loss or criminal charges.

I am frankly quite scared of talking to or approaching any women in my office, even for a work-related purpose. This is not a good long-term strategy, and I am not sure how to proceed. I would love your thoughts or advice on this topic. Thanks in advance!

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It's certainly a phenomenon that exists, we've all seen and heard of false accusations to damage people's reputation, business, and such. "Scandals" have been around since humans have, it's gossip, it's libel, it's whatever you call it.

Question: did they provide you with any substantial evidence?

Anyway, ultimately your case and many others is why the law is at it's very core based on an innocent until proven guilty paradigm. Once you take that principle away, you put all the power in the accuser and none in the accused, which is objectionably unjust.

I've recently seen a few very disturbing comments on HN and from similar people (above-average education, born into privileged conditions, politically left, etc.), who naively believe that this is a bad or somewhat ineffective paradigm, and that we should "just believe" rape accusations, because ???? shrug. It disheartens me that some people can be so blindly ignorant about the law and human nature. We only need to take a short walk down history lane to explicitly see that if you give one side of anything human-related an enormous amount of power (like in this case if accusers are believed before evidence), there will be many who abuse it. It is human nature, and the law prevents it from reining free and causing utter chaos.

In your case, by the sounds of it they did not present to you any form of evidence (right?) to show you your misconduct. No sexually harassing text transcripts, no internal email transcripts, no witnesses, nothing. What this is is chaos and injustice, under the guise of some very malformed concepts of "progressiveness", and it's unfortunately ever-more prevalent.

No substatial evidence was provided. After being told that I made a woman feel uncomfortable, I immediately apologized for any harm I would have caused. I then asked if its possible to know what I said or did that caused this discomfort to insure I do not repeat an offending action. Management said they could not divulge this information for privacy reasons. So at this point, I feel there is really no evidence other than the testimony of one person.

Wow. That's disturbing!

It happens all the time. I've been in a similar situation. Denied a promo because of anonymous feedback from someone who said I had "communication issues". Probably not sexual in that situation as I never hit on anyone at work or had any desire to, more likely I asked them to (re)do their work and they took it personally given the context at the time. Nobody would tell me what I'd said, or to who, or what I should do with such feedback.

My actual communication skills were not the issue, mind. The company frequently asked me to write and give presentations, either in public conferences or to the rest of the firm.

Anonymous accusations that sink careers are a plague of the modern workplace and are entirely due to a culture of "always believe the victim".

" I feel there is really no evidence other than the testimony of one person"

There is not even the testimony of that person. They don't told you what she say, they don't allow you to confront her.

For all that you know they could be making up all the thing. I don't think this is the case, but it's a possibility when everything is done in the dark.

Don't take this as advice, please, because I can't predict the results, but in your position I think I would feel compelled to confront them. Maybe with the help of some worker representative if that it's available to you. What I would avoid is to confront the woman, that could backfire very fast.

Bring a slander case against them. Happens all the time.

Not judging you but it could just be that you might come across as """creepy""" (notice the three pairs of quotes here). The issue is that you're in a hyper sensitive environment with hyper sensitive people. If you try and initiate a conversation with certain women (even to be polite because you dgaf about them) that dislike you, it can be considered """pushy""" and/or """creepy""" (even though there's no objective proof that you were trying to force their hand) but if you're the tall, confident, handsome guy from marketing then you're "such a player". So yeah, my advice to you is stay extremely professional for the remainder of your time there, try not to burn bridges with the company, stay courteous, work hard and most importantly find a job somewhere else. Also, learn about social dynamics. If you're socially awkward you'll be more at risk of being accused of rape (whatever its definition of the day is). Not to mention the increasing pressure that lies on HR and management as a result of the fear of being labeled the next Uber.

Thanks for your commend and advice! Definitely looking forward to keeping my head low and seeing how much more I can accomplish in these next few months I have left. I believe I fall into the socially-awkward/inexperienced category. Are there any resources you could suggest to learn more about social dynamics?

Practice, practice, practice. But not on the female co-workers that you like.

yeah that. Also try and engage in social activites outside of work (could be charity or whatever you're into). The goal is that you get used to human interactions with low stakes and that you get out of your own head. For example, go to a gym and be a regular member there, you'll eventually get to know the staff and be more optimistic about speaking to others (not to mention the immense benefits on health / body image and the effects it has on your level of confidence). Talk to the ugly barista at starbucks (joke about how she's spelt your name wrong, after a while ask her how she's doing, then ask her name), smile more if you don't already. And just work your way up from there. Being a software engineer is actually a massive advantage in the social field because you have an analytical mind so you can develop the best judgement on what to do and calibrate your behaviour to others. If you share offices with other companies, talk to them during their break if they're having a quick smoke outside (that's what I used to do) eventually they'll start to invite you to bars and coffee shops and other events. You'll then expand your social circles, you'll go out more, speak to more women (attractive or not) and you'll soon realise that the sad person who accused you is actually not worth speaking to. (I was going to say something else, but I wanna keep my karma init </south london accent>)

I'm bookmarking your comment! Thanks for your advice! I definitely could use a gym membership. And when I meet such new people, I'll try to find conversation topics that would be very unlikely to be taken the wrong way (as I have now learned, It's better not to ask people about their weekend plans as this could be viewed as hitting on them).

Asking about weekend plans (or about the previous weekend) is a pretty standard office smalltalk in the UK, but I think it's considered quite intrusive in the US.. so also depends on where you are

Observe, watch. And be aware that these things aren't really fair or systematic. Like the guy says, exactly the same behaviour can be interpreted as creepy or giggle-inducing depending on whether the guy doing it is attractive, confident, successful etc.

You sound like you're not confident and as you're an intern, you're not financially successful either. So the bar for you to be not """creepy""" to use ops phrasing is a sadly a lot higher.

Frankly I'd suggest watching a lot of comedy shows and soaps. Your issue probably isn't anything you specifically did, it sounds like you just need to get better at small talk so attempts to be sociable come off as suitably casual. Women like guys who are relaxed, confident, funny and whose conversations are a little bit surprising (but in a good way). Nobody can teach you that with conventional methods but watching how well scripted characters do it on TV can help you get into the groove.

> I'd suggest watching a lot of comedy shows and soaps

Those (at least the ones I watch) are full of sexual innuendo. Not exactly the kind of humor you would want to "learn" if you come off as a creepy sexual predator.

You have described exact reason why I completely disrespect third-wave feminism, political correctness culture and other derivatives of left-wing politics.

I hear that. I've had to deal with self centered / entitled people on numerous occasions and if I wasn't socially equipped to deal with that kind of BS, I honestly don't know where I'd be right now.

I've concluded over the years that I must give off some sort of creepy vibe at tmes. It's wierd, it seems to be situational or based on the other party, because it's only happens about 95% of the time. I've found that I just seem to make some women uncomfortable.

Sometimes it's been justified, and I've learned what not to do, like sitting to close to a lab partner in college. But then other times, I'm still mystified to this day; like why was asking a co-worker if she was still running half marathons a reason for her to respond "how do you know that? why do you care?" in an an accusatory manner. I concluded, maybe I'm not the only wierd one, in that case.

At the end of the day, you only control yourself. I figured out early on to concentrate on conducting myself in a professional manner, and keep small talk to a minimum. Work isn't for making friends. Friendships will arise, but I'm always very cautious at work.

Well said! I will definitely keep the workplace for working especially during the rest of this internship.

I'm going to expand on your comment a bit with regards to the whole "creepiness" thing. I think it's very important to realize just how difficult it can sometimes be to manage professional and personal relationships. I think one of the ways we tend to learn social interaction is by observing others and emulating what we see. This doesn't always lead to good outcomes. I think most people like to imagine that rules, and I don't necessarily mean rules laid out by corporate HR, but social rules, are applied equally to everyone. I don't believe this to be the case at all. Social norms can be very subjectively applied based on the people interacting.

I'll be perfectly blunt, there are a number of things about me(I'm short, skinny, not particularly attractive, definitely not smart, not exactly charismatic, a long list of other things I'm sure) that make me a rather low status person, at least if we are basing it on somewhat superficial standards. I've worked with people before who were all the things that I'm not, and had I emulated their behavior, I'm quite certain it would have come across as creepy or harassing rather fun-loving or joking. This doesn't mean that you should try to get away with as much as you can based on your perceived status, but instead that you should always be aware that very different rules may apply to you based on how others view you. It's not exactly fair, but there isn't really much that can be done aside from trying your best to be a good person.

Also, for clarity that "you" wasn't you specifically, just a general "you".

> like why was asking a co-worker if she was still running half marathons a reason for her to respond "how do you know that? why do you care?" in an an accusatory manner

Well, the devil is in the details. How do you know that she runs half marathons?

Do you know it because 2 years ago she posted it to Facebook and you've gone through all her old Facebook posts and know that she once ran half-marathons? Creepy.

Or, do you know it because 6 months ago you were having a conversation with her and she brought up that she runs half-marathons, but she's now forgotten that conversation. Not creepy, she just has a bad memory.

And there's quite a wide range of alternatives in here, ranging from "not creepy at all" to "extrememly creepy".

you have established a rapport where you talk about weekend activities, and she has mentioned half marathons to you in particular