Why didn't you tell someone when it happened?

[Stonepounder]

44. I am so often embarrassed to be a male.

I can remember an event some 30+ years ago. I witnessed what I considered to be sexual harassment in the workplace. There was this one guy who just loved to wait in the hallway until one of our female co-workers came along and every single damn time he would somehow manage to arrange his 'walk down the corridor' to brush against them.

I reported my concern to HR.

Nothing happened.

I told the women I worked with that I would be more than happy to 'just happen to walk' down the hallway when they needed to go there. At least, in my own little way I tried to push back.

Many years later, I was the victim of a 'harassment complaint' from one of my subordinates. I was working as a contractor at a Postal Service Data Processing Center in California. I have to give kudos to the way the main office handled it. First it was investigated locally. I was interviewed and all of my other direct reports were interviewed. The local office determined that there had been no harassment. The person who had complained wasn't satisfied. So Post Office management get involved and everyone was interviewed again. Again, no harassment. Again the complainant wasn't satisfied. So headquarters of the contracting agency I was working for flew a couple of investigators from their home office in NY out to California and we went through the whole thing all over again. Again the verdict was no harassment. (The person who had complained felt that I had been promoted instead of her 'because I was male - even though I had several years seniority and a proven track record. The Post Office was one of the best 'equal opportunity' jobs I have ever had.)
But, folks, that's how you deal with a harassment complaint.

(A few months later, I heard a programmer [male] dressing down a subordinate [female] for an error in code, telling her it was obviously her mistake, because his code didn't have bugs! I reported the incident to my boss and within an hour, just long enough for them to verify the incident, he was escorted from the building and told his services were no longer required.)

I guess the point of this ramble is that some of us men do try. I'm not sure we always succeed, but we try. I nearly cried when I listened to Michele's speech today. All I can offer is, if any woman needs/wants support I stand ready.