Colleague Caught Mocking Coworker's Attire

[Anonymous]

If I were the boss I would fire him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He should be. Cruel at best, discriminatory at worst.

How so? Discriminatory against weird people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He should be. Cruel at best, discriminatory at worst.

How so? Discriminatory against weird people?

OP mentioned her mental health and sobriety. Read up on the EEOC.

[Anonymous]

Sad to think a professional person is taking a sneaky picture of another employee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One incident is not a "hostile work environment." And those claims are VERY hard to prove, in any event.

Was he a jerk? Cruel? An a$$? Yes. Should he be disciplined? Yes. FIRED? Come on folks. He's not getting fired unless there is a ban on cameras in the office or related.

This is accurate. He should not do it again but one incident does not constitute a hostile workplace. Him being counseled sounds like the appropriate response at this time. If it escalates, that's another matter.

That doesn't matter and does not apply in a company's internal assessment of the situation. The workplace policy must have a lower standard than the legal standard used in court for obvious reasons.

A company cannot and should not wait until the behavior rises to the level of a legal cause of action for the offended employee -- obviously that would be too late to prevent a hostile workplace from forming, and too late to prevent liability. It may be one act for this guy (we don't actually know that anyway), but he's not alone in creating the total workplace environment, so a company policy cannot tolerate any behavior that would contribute to a hostile environment. They are on notice of his behavior now and must take immediate action to make the conduct stop -- what action is required here depends on facts we don't have, and an assessment of the risk of him doing it again, which we also can't do.

But, they don't have to give him a pass based on legal standards that would be used in court against the company.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One incident is not a "hostile work environment." And those claims are VERY hard to prove, in any event.

Was he a jerk? Cruel? An a$$? Yes. Should he be disciplined? Yes. FIRED? Come on folks. He's not getting fired unless there is a ban on cameras in the office or related.

This is accurate. He should not do it again but one incident does not constitute a hostile workplace. Him being counseled sounds like the appropriate response at this time. If it escalates, that's another matter.

That doesn't matter and does not apply in a company's internal assessment of the situation. The workplace policy must have a lower standard than the legal standard used in court for obvious reasons.

A company cannot and should not wait until the behavior rises to the level of a legal cause of action for the offended employee -- obviously that would be too late to prevent a hostile workplace from forming, and too late to prevent liability. It may be one act for this guy (we don't actually know that anyway), but he's not alone in creating the total workplace environment, so a company policy cannot tolerate any behavior that would contribute to a hostile environment. They are on notice of his behavior now and must take immediate action to make the conduct stop -- what action is required here depends on facts we don't have, and an assessment of the risk of him doing it again, which we also can't do.

But, they don't have to give him a pass based on legal standards that would be used in court against the company.

Say it louder. A lot of folks on this board seem to think you can’t get disciplined or fired for anything short of illegal behavior. Bad behavior is enough.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone talked to the woman / counseled her on her attire? Is there a formalized dress-code?

Years ago I was traveling with a colleague and we saw a person in a power-blue suit that reminded us a bit of something Elvis would wear. My colleague (in designer clothes and shoes / accessories) said to me “that’s why you have to be careful about what you wear to work.” I was in a black Ann Taylor suit and black sling backs from somewhere like Target. I said “oh, I actually didn’t realize my outfit was inappropriate. Thank you. Can you let me know what’s wrong with it?” She backed off and said “I didn’t mean you, I meant “one”” (but she definitely meant me).

By contrast at my job before that I worked with a 20-something intern who wore tank tops (against dress code) regularly. People kept telling her that wasn’t allowed or appropriate but she didn’t stop. I wasn’t aware of anyone making fun of her though - managers tried to help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone talked to the woman / counseled her on her attire? Is there a formalized dress-code?

Years ago I was traveling with a colleague and we saw a person in a power-blue suit that reminded us a bit of something Elvis would wear. My colleague (in designer clothes and shoes / accessories) said to me “that’s why you have to be careful about what you wear to work.” I was in a black Ann Taylor suit and black sling backs from somewhere like Target. I said “oh, I actually didn’t realize my outfit was inappropriate. Thank you. Can you let me know what’s wrong with it?” She backed off and said “I didn’t mean you, I meant “one”” (but she definitely meant me).

By contrast at my job before that I worked with a 20-something intern who wore tank tops (against dress code) regularly. People kept telling her that wasn’t allowed or appropriate but she didn’t stop. I wasn’t aware of anyone making fun of her though - managers tried to help.

Back up. The bolded part did not make any sense. Why on earth would your suit and sling backs be inappropriate? Why were you so sure that she meant you? And what exactly did she mean by it?

[Anonymous]

HR here, I’d find every way possible to fire him….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sad to think a professional person is taking a sneaky picture of another employee.

This. This guy lacks judgment and should
Be fired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone talked to the woman / counseled her on her attire? Is there a formalized dress-code?

Years ago I was traveling with a colleague and we saw a person in a power-blue suit that reminded us a bit of something Elvis would wear. My colleague (in designer clothes and shoes / accessories) said to me “that’s why you have to be careful about what you wear to work.” I was in a black Ann Taylor suit and black sling backs from somewhere like Target. I said “oh, I actually didn’t realize my outfit was inappropriate. Thank you. Can you let me know what’s wrong with it?” She backed off and said “I didn’t mean you, I meant “one”” (but she definitely meant me).

By contrast at my job before that I worked with a 20-something intern who wore tank tops (against dress code) regularly. People kept telling her that wasn’t allowed or appropriate but she didn’t stop. I wasn’t aware of anyone making fun of her though - managers tried to help.

You colleague is a POS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm surprised at how many people think this is a fireable offense. While I totally agree that the guy is an a$$ and used poor judgment, nothing he did appears to be in Title VII territory or a violation of any typical company policy. I work with lots of jerks, and there are plenty of them to be found outside the office. Of course, you can fire someone just because as long as it is not for a prohibited reason but HR usually wants to avoid willy-nilly firing because hiring and training is a pain. Interesting how so many of you would drop the axe over one moment of poor judgment.

Photographing someone and sharing the photos is the kind of “poor judgment” that costs companies a ton of money when the second victim deposes HR/leadership and says “did you know the individual had a history of this behavior”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Texting his wife to describe the outfit as you you did here is one thing. Taking a photo is far worse. He should be seriously disciplined and possibly fired.

Absolutely he should be fired for taking a secret picture that his coworker was not aware of. That is incredibly intrusive.

[Anonymous]

He should be fired for mis-directing electronic communication. I thought we all had that mastered in 2004? Some slight hiccups with video calls gaining popularity in 2020, but now we all know right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone talked to the woman / counseled her on her attire? Is there a formalized dress-code?

Years ago I was traveling with a colleague and we saw a person in a power-blue suit that reminded us a bit of something Elvis would wear. My colleague (in designer clothes and shoes / accessories) said to me “that’s why you have to be careful about what you wear to work.” I was in a black Ann Taylor suit and black sling backs from somewhere like Target. I said “oh, I actually didn’t realize my outfit was inappropriate. Thank you. Can you let me know what’s wrong with it?” She backed off and said “I didn’t mean you, I meant “one”” (but she definitely meant me).

By contrast at my job before that I worked with a 20-something intern who wore tank tops (against dress code) regularly. People kept telling her that wasn’t allowed or appropriate but she didn’t stop. I wasn’t aware of anyone making fun of her though - managers tried to help.

Back up. The bolded part did not make any sense. Why on earth would your suit and sling backs be inappropriate? Why were you so sure that she meant you? And what exactly did she mean by it?

Pp here. Not to make this about me, but she very much was like “you see, Larla, (gesturing at my outfit by waving her hand) this is why…”

Also, on our drive to the site (a few hours in the car) she said “can I ask you something I’ve been wondering about?” When I said yes she said “why don’t you have a bigger rock? I told my DH I wouldn’t marry him unless my ring was worth more than his car.” My engagement ring (which I still love 20 years later) was less than $1000. So we had very different priorities! I got to the point where I just laughed her off in my head or made fun of her comments with my husband.