Reply to inappropriate talk in the office...but is it illegal?

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, your assistant is going to either (a) become less and less productive or (b) eventually leave. Something has to change if you want an alternative result. Talk to a lawyer, talk to your HR friends at other firms to see if you can develop a strategy for making the work environment a less hostile one for your assistant.

FWIW here's my experience with a hostile work environment: I used to be an assistant in an office where an elderly secretary's behavior was inappropriate toward me for many months. She'd stare at me - the kind of chilling stare that you see on movie psychopaths - as she went out of her way to pass by my desk numerous times per day until I trained myself to listen for her footstep and managed to turn around or disappear while she passed by. She eventually caught on to that, and changed her stride to a tiptoe, and she'd grin a creepy, triumphant grin when she'd "catch" me before I had the chance to turn around or leave. She followed me to the bathroom, she'd send me emails with a tracking tag, and she'd giggle when I deleted those emails without reading them, etc., etc. She'd been at the firm for years, and had plenty of allies, and I was there for the short term. I didn't see any good outcome to rocking the boat, so I didn't complain. I stuck it out until my planned departure.

I feel horrible for saying this, but when she developed a crush on another woman staff member, and fixated on her for a while, I was so grateful and relieved. She never stopped harassing me, but there was a huge drop-off. The other woman staffer had protections that I didn't have, so the secretary never actually harassed her. It was just clear to everyone, including the woman staffer, that she had a crush on her, and that she was monitoring the staffer's movements pretty closely.

OP, something for you to think about:  people don't usually proactively create a hostile work environment for just one person. I always got the feeling that the secretary at my old office was just a little too practiced in her harassment of me. I suspect she's harassed other people before I arrived, and that she's continued to harass other people after I left.[/quote]

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