Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

[MissFM]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

This is of no practical help - just an irrelevant expression of appreciation.

Your writing is phenomenal, really very beautiful despite its harrowing content. Or maybe it is that you are able to write from the heart to the heart. No help to you in this situation but a very sincere thank you.

Personally I believe that love and art are the only things that really matter so please excuse this outburst!

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

Sorry but I think in this situation you have to go in, face the music, defend yourself as well as you possibly can and then pray that you keep your job, which like Eloise I do believe that will happen, but you must, must in future be careful and harden your heart to such situations and not go there again.
I'm sorry I can't add much more, but you know you've been a bit daft, and that she's taken advantage of your good nature, just try not to let it happen again, especially with young girls.

[GettingScrewed]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

It has become apparent, even to a well-meaning fool like myself who can only stubbornly believe in everyone’s benign and charitable nature despite a lifetime’s worth of evidence to suggest otherwise, that I will have no fans in the disciplinary room. On previous life experience, people want to keep themselves out of such matters. I fear the truth is that I am a conviction waiting to happen. She herself has commented in the past that I am "too nice". I guess I was still doing little things for her up until this point of contention.

The worst thing is my employer in this case is a closer personal friend. I've known him for over 8 years and I consider him family. I know he has a responsibility to investigate but I am sure she is fully aware that this has strained my friendship with him.

On a personal level, why did I continue to do things I did for her? I suppose I have a self-confessed Superman complex, whereby if I see someone in need, I kinda have to help them. She knows this about me and has commented it on it many times. I perhaps also suffer from 1920’s educational psychologist Edward Thorndike’s ‘Halo Effect’, I constantly allowed a single positive attribute to override and shine a bright blinding light over the negatives.



She and I have always had more in common than we have ever had to argue about. In the novel Paradise Lost, God says to Devil “you need me, and I need you” So perhaps she stopped needing me first. But as I have proved, in the workplace or on a night out, I do not need her anymore. My intention was to move on.



Thanks to all that have commented so far…thanks to MissFM for her kind words and Bill-K for agreeing. My confidence is down at this point, and just when I was getting it back on track, so any little support in nice.


Thanks to Sapphire for saying she’ll bump it up…


Thanks to all.

[Eloise01]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

I am afraid that there is little advice to offer. This is the reason why perosnal relationships of any kind, and the workplace, do not mix. I know somebody will be along any minute to tell me how they married the love of their life after meeting them in the workplace and still work with them, or their best friend is their manager, or whatever. yes it happens. So, unfortunately, does your story and myriads of others about how their personal relationship turned sour, and oddly, the "witesses against" or the accuser, or both, are more often than not the former friend/ significant other.

That said, all you can do is tell the truth and hope that the employer sees that she is being untruthful and manipulative. If you have any witnesses to any of these events described, you should get statements from them (if they are others employees, you will need the employers permission to speak to them - or ask the employer to). However, I think that you need to be aware that you may not be dismissed, but that you also may not come out of this unscathed. This is the second complaint she appears to have made - you mention that shifts were changed as a result of a previous statement from her about her concerns. Employers do tend to become very wary when second complaints come in. And inevitably, I am afraid, it is quite likely that questions will be asked about why an older man got himself into this situation with someone so much younger and emotionally immature, and why, if you could see the direction this was going and the problem with the working relationship as a result, you did not raise it sooner with your manager. I think, at the very least, you must prepare for some pretty serious questions being asked, and some rather uncomfortable ones. I am not sure how you got this involved with the girl, and whether it was purely a result of a working relationship - but you need to acknowledge that no matter how much you may of come to care about her, professionally your choices were poor. In a sense, although I understand what you were doing and why was well intentioned, it really is quite right that your were a manager, not her friend and not her counsellor. Discussing personal relationship and so on was inappropriate and very bad judgement. As was buying her gifts. I know that she was over age when you first met her - but a few years younger, quite literally, and this can be called grooming. Unless you treat all of your staff in this way (and if you do - you shouldn't), again, it raises questions about your motivation.

As I said, I am quite sure that you had good intentions, but you now know, quite literally, that good intentions pave the way to hell. Hopefully, your employer will know you well enough to realsie that this was poor judgement and poorly thought out good intentions. As such, on that basis, I think leniency would be a riot act that you would never forget for the rest of your working life - but it may be that she is believed or partially believed. After all, they believed her once already when they changed the shifts, so it may not be a step too far that they will believe that you have acted inappropriately towards her. I am afraid that is something nobody can predict. But good luck.

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

I'm flagging this up to someone who I think will be able to give you some excellent advice on this.

[Bill-K]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

Hi and welcome to you, GS. Like MissFM, I can't help or advise as regards Employment Law, but this really does look as though this girl thought she 'owned' you, and has only just realised she never did, and that you looked out for her and looked after her of your own free will. That realisation will have come as quite a shock to her, I guess, and she is reacting very badly to it. I doubt if she is thinking rationally, and if you are to defend yourself at a hearing, then that is something which you might need to be aware of. As long as you can remain calm and rational, then that should be to your advantage. Ensure that you remain truthful, and her exaggerations may well prove to be her undoing. If she is weaving a tangled web of deceit, then she will be putting herself in a dangerous position, and is likely to trip herself up. If any of her accusations can be completely disproved, then there is also perhaps the possibility that she is guilty of libel or slander. I hope someone advises her of that.

The way I see it, she has a right to make a complaint to your employer, and you of course have a right to defend yourself against that complaint. Your employer has a duty to hear both sides of the story and to make a fair and proper decision on the evidence provided. So far, nobody has technically done anything wrong as far as your employer is concerned. It will be during and after the hearing that any wrongdoing will need to be considered - so - I think your best bet is to stay cool and make your defence clear and concise.

I also agree withMissFM that your skill with words will stand you in good stead. The issues are emotive, and I believe your quietly emotive statement should show your employer who is the more reliable - both as a witness, and as an employee. I hope I've helped a little, at least.

[MissFM]

Re: Accused of Harassment and Bullying...Please help.

Not got the legal skill to help I'm afraid - but huge, huge sympathy. Someone will be along who has that skill I'm sure.

And by the way you write like an Angel.