Work experiences you couldn't move past easily?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who put a TW on their post for sexual assault - what happened to you was terrible and wrong and it sounds like this individual was enabled by people around him who probably also knew it was wrong but didn’t want to jeopardize their own positions. I’m so sorry that happened to you, and that it caused you so much pain and led to you leaving a job you loved. Feeling powerless is such a terrible feeling. Thank you for sharing. You are strong, resilient, and powerful.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

When I was a college intern, my dept had an employee who was based in an office abroad but regularly came to dc for work. I looked up to him a lot as he had the career I wanted and his background and career path was so both impressive and fascinating. He was so nice to me and gave me a lot of time when he was in town in terms of giving me tips and stories about the work we did. I saw him as an older brother.

Prior to an evening work event that we were going to attend straight from work, we walked past the apartment bldg where the company owned an apt where ees stayed when they were in town. He told me to come up with him as he forgot something and I stupidly didn’t think anything of it.

At the apt, he confessed his love for me. Thankfully, he didn’t try to force himself on me. I told him he was like a brother to me and pretended nothing happened and proceeded to continue to have a professional relationship with him bc I rally wanted his connections.

I was 19 at that time and this was over 20 years ago. I was so naive. He was married so I assumed his attention to me was platonic. I probably was also distracted by the fact that I’ve always been the smart one and not particularly seen as attractive. So I assumed his attention to me was bc I was super smart and with a lot of potential in our field.

I think I lost a lot of my confidence in my intelligence and abilities bc of that incident. I’ve worked hard to gain my confidence again and I’ve done well for myself albeit not in that field anymore and after going a different route professionally.

I was a first generation college student and didn’t really know anyone growing up in a 9-5 or professional job so really had no one giving me warning tips or telling me what was appropriate or not appropriate behavior. I do think this generation can recognize and call out this behavior better than I did but I do occasionally share that story to other young ppl.

[Anonymous]

Manager mocked me for crying when I learned DH was in a plane crash.