Sexual Harassment Stories and Experiences

Nikki, Connecticut

     I just started a new job at a large agency. Within a couple of weeks I noticed a male coworker constantly walking by my office and staring in. At first I thought, “OK, you’re a woman, men stare” or “OK, you’re new, people are curious as to who you are.” But then I noticed that this walking by my office and staring in was always in conjunction with his carrying a camera. (His position did not require him to have a camera in office.)

     This continued until I was there for a month- then a month and half… now, I realized it was getting weird. Most of all I noticed it was making me feel extremely uncomfortable.

     One day as I was walking back to my office, I heard a click. I quickly turned around to see what the noise was and saw this co-worker had just taken a photo of my backside. I was so nervous and confused I wasn’t sure of what to do- so I didn’t say anything for a couple days.

     During this time, this co-worker continued to stare at me, follow me through the hallways, and watch me from corners in the office – always with his camera in hand. 

     It wasn’t until another female co-worker shortly thereafter happened to mention how he made her feel uncomfortable by lurking through the hallways and taking photos of other women that I really became nervous and uncomfortable with the situation and knew I had to do something.

     I wrote a formal complaint to my immediate supervisor. This complaint was submitted to HR and I was called in to meet with the director of HR. Apparently, I wasn’t the only woman to experience this type of harassment from this co-worker. Other women had come forward as well in recent days expressing their concern of his photo-taking and stalking.

     What I remember most of this situation was how alone I felt at first and how nervous I felt to complain to someone, especially because this was a new job and I didn’t want to “stir up trouble.” I also was nervous because this co-worker was one of the “higher ups” of the company and I thought that if I did complain nothing would happen anyway. 

     Well, I’m glad I did complain because this co-worker had been caught taking photos of other women’s backsides and stalking them too, making it a really uncomfortable environment for many women to work.

     I’m happy to say that this co-worker was terminated the following week after a lengthy investigation into the number of complaints made. If I had never said anything, I would’ve continued to feel uncomfortable and possibly worse, because who knows what the next step was this guy was going to take with one of the women?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 10:36 am and is filed under Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, Stalking, Formal Investigations and Litigation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.