I worked for a large company and found myself in the middle of sexual abuse problem. The girl accused the supervisor of having touched her. I asked the question that I thought was proper, where did he touch you? She refused to say, so I told her that her accusation wasn’t something we could pursue. We needed to know the details, where was she, when was it, who saw it, where was she touched, was it a full on touch, or grab, or was it something casual like could happen when passing in the hallway. Be specific, sorry but such an accusation has to be taken seriously.
I was ordered to cease and desist that line of reasoning. Her word is law, regardless. If she says he touched her, she was touched and he was to be dealt with by the rules of HR. Any touching is firing. I called Bull Shit. An empty accusation could not be given credence. If I continued then I could leave as well.
I say this because it is the example of rules gone crazy. Whether sexual, or murder, there has to be evidence. And word is the weaker than eye witness, which is so weak as to be useless. After he was fired and I ‘left’ on my own I confronted her. She was angry at him, he hadn’t treated her right? What was that? She felt bad about it, didn’t think that it would go that way. It did, once you let the dogs loose you can’t reign them in.
I know that he never ‘touched’ her in a sexual manner. She knows it too. But the HR department has a gold star for rooting out sexual harassment.
