Don't mess with me!

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I got home from work that fateful friday evening and slumped into my one and only chair and kicked off my only decent pair of shoes in disgust.

My creep of a boss had come onto me big time when the whole team were in the pub celebrating the birth of a child to one of our colleagues. I’d told him in front of everyone else that ‘I’d never be friends with you even if you were the last man on earth’.

That had caused much laughter but the look on his face told me in no uncertain terms that it was time to look for yet another job. This was a shame because for once I’d started to make some friends amongst my workmates. Still it was really only a temporary position.

I looked around my one room apartment with distain. One chair, a bed that had clearly seen better times and a single ancient suitcase that contained a few clothes was the sum total of my worldly goods. I sighed.

At least this was only for a few more months.

A few years previously and in another life, I’d had money and a family. Now I had virtually nothing, well nothing material but in herself I was happy for the first time in my life and with who I was. Well, apart from people like my current boss I was enjoying life being who I wanted to be.

A tear formed in my eyes as I tried to come to grips with the fact I was missing Ellie, the love of my life. She was away at a Convention and wouldn’t be back until next week. I couldn't wait for us to be able to setup home together but we were waiting for my divorce to be finalised before we started living together.

My self-flagellation was rudely interrupted by the trill of my mobile phone.

With some reluctance, I answered it.

“Hello?” I asked letting out a small sigh to myself.

Julie, this is Karen Richardson. I work in the HR department as Wilson’s”

Wilson’s was the company that I worked for.

“Your superior, Mr Austin has lodged a complaint against you for sexual harassment.”

That made me very angry.

“You are kidding right?

“I’m afraid not. Obviously we’d like to get to the bottom on the issue.”

“No, you look here. It is…” I looked at my watch.

“Almost 8pm. There is something wrong if you are already onto this when the incident happened less than an hour ago.”

I’m sorry?” came the voice at the other end of the phone.

“Mr Robert Austin sexually harassed me earlier this evening in a pub full of people. Several people there heard him proposition me. If anything, I should be the one consulting my lawyer.”

“Mr Austin filed his complaint with us yesterday. It relates to an alleged incident last Tuesday in the print room.”

“Why are you calling me this late of a Friday evening?”

I laughed.

“This is very serious. It is no laughing matter,”

“I am very well aware of that. I will see you at nine sharp on Monday Morning.”

Without waiting for her to answer, I hung up the call.

I was fuming. How dare they try to do this to me!

It took me most of the weekend to calm down and plan my approach for Monday. Even though my ‘other half’, Ellie was away at a conference, I called her on Sunday afternoon. To say that I poured my heart out to her would be an understatement. As usual her logical brain came to the rescue and a couple of hours later a long email arrived with just about all the help I would need for the ‘encounter’ the following day.
 
Monday morning arrived and I marched right into the HR Managers Office dead on Nine O’Clock. I hoped that I had a determined look on my face.
“Ah, Ms Robertson. Please sit down,” she said in a slightly dismissive way.

I sat and waited for her to get herself organised. I stared at her all the time. Ellie had said that eye contact was important in situations like this.

Eventually she had gathered all her thoughts together and addressed me.
“As I said to you on Friday, Mr Austin has made a very serious allegation against you. Here at Wilson’s we take sexual equality very seriously and any impropriety is not allowed.”

I smiled back at her.

“I understand where you are coming from. The allegation is indeed serious if it were true. As it is nothing more than a pack of lies then it is serious for him. If you took the opportunity to look at my HR File, you will see that I was not in the office on Tuesday. I was at the hospital all day. I’m sure my Consultant will vouch for me.”

There was a pause as she looked at her file.

“I see that you requested a day off for a hospital visit.”

“That’s right.”

“Sadly, Mr Austin didn’t approve it. His reason is that you didn’t give enough notice.”

“What? He never told me. Anyway, I put in the request six weeks ago. If that is not sufficient notice, then I don’t know what is.”

“He says he did tell you several times and that you propositioned him in order to let him give you the time off.”

“What time of day did this alleged proposition take place?”

There was more rustling of papers.

“At approximately 09:40 in the morning. In his office.”

I smiled. I’d got him.

“If this allegation proves to be false what happens to him?”

“He will be reported and given a written warning.”

“So he gets away with it and I’d get the sack. Is that the state of things we have here?”

She didn’t answer.

“I think I should tell you now that he is making all this up. At 09:34 I boarded the train to London in order to make my 11:00 Hospital Appointment. I also allege that he propositioned me on Friday in full view of at least four other employees of this company. What does he say about that then?”

Without waiting for a reply, I dug into my handbag and pulled out my purse.

It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for.

“Here. This is my credit card receipt from the ticket machine at the railway station near to my home. See the timestamp. As this location is more than thirty miles from here I could hardly be in two places at once now could I?”

“This isn’t proof,” she snapped back at me.

“Oh really? Any Industrial Tribunal will side with me. I have the proof that I wasn’t here.”

She didn’t move.

“He’s obviously got you wrapped around his little finger.”

Her stare got more vicious.

“Why don’t you ask me why I was at the Hospital then?”

“That’s really none of my business even if you were really there.”

“Oh, but it is. It really is. Is he Gay?”

“What has that got to do with the matter in question?”

“It has everything to do with it.”

“Firstly, I don’t fancy men. I never have.  Secondly I was seeing my Gender Reassignment Consultant. I have a date for my Sex Change Operation. I’m a male to female transsexual.”

Her glare turned into a stare of amazement.

“Ask yourself, why would someone who lives as a woman and is shortly to become one and moreover only fancies other women proposition an ugly overweight, apology for a man as he is. Well?”

Her mouth opened but no sound came out of it.

“So, let me summarise the situation. You have an allegation based upon his word only. I have witnesses to him propositioning me a few days later. I have evidence proving that I was nowhere near him when the alleged offense took place.”

Still no sound came out of her mouth.

“When I take this case to the Industrial Tribunal, which side will they come down on eh?”

“Oh, and one final thing. I’m engaged to be married to a QC. She specialises in Employment Law. Now who is going to win?”

“W…what do you want?”

“I could ask for his job but I would not want any job that would mean me licking those MBA Idiots boots who seem to have taken over all the Middle management positions recently. No, my current role is fine for now.
He has to go though. Jim Reynolds would be ideal for his replacement.”

“And if he stays?”

“The company lose in court and gets a whole shed load of bad publicity and he is the one that becomes unemployable.”

“Then no company would employ you. You would be seen as a troublemaker.”

I grinned.

“I don’t care because I’ve got a place at University to study law starting in October. So, do you want to mess with me or not?”

Then I added,

“That is your choice but on the basis of the evidence presented I know what you should do. But the question is, ‘are you woman enough’ to do it. I certainly am.”

I didn’t wait for a reply. I left her fuming.

Mr Austin was escorted from the building less than an hour later. I got a lot of kudos for standing up and being counted.

[The End]

I’ll leave the answers you you dear readers.

This story was originally started in 2010 and was going to be a very different story. However, the issues that our very own Dorothycoleen had recently with getting time off from work made me think again and this is the result. I hope you like it.

[Edit 24-Feb-2016 18:00GMT] I think I have fixed all the 1st person/3rd person fopahs. Samantha

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Comments

nicely done

I wish this hadn't been partially inspired by one of our own but you did a damn fine job with this story.

I'm told STFU more times in a day than most people get told in a lifetime

Funny

I read her giving credit to Dorothy but not a mention of you at all. I personally give all the credit to Samantha as it is very much her story in style and substance.


"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin

Loves this story, as I sat on

Loves this story, as I sat on both sides of the table; having been a Union Shop Steward and a Personnel Management Specialist (HR). Saw it all from both sides, and many different issues, with a lot of different "idiots" involved.
What bothered the management side, was when I was a Shop Steward, it was AFTER I had worked in Personnel for 10 years.
When we had conflicts going on, I would sit there and cite "chapter and verse" to them regarding their requirements under formal Personnel rules and laws. Drove them up the wall, just as shown by this woman HR manager being confronted by our dear Ms. Robertson. Kudos to her for standing up against the bigotry.

Most of us

would not handle this so well, which is why this story was so good. Thanks for writing it.

Such a shame

Sav Sara's picture

This could have been good had it been edited, but switching from 1st to 3rd Person, and with wrong quotation marks, wrong punctuation and all that stuff like that, kinda spoilt it for me.

But a good effort.

I agree

Melanie Brown's picture

I was thinking of saying pretty much the same thing. I kept getting confused with the switching of point of view and unattributed dialog.

Melanie

Sigh

That's what comes of taking a start of a story written in 3rd person and changing it to 1st person.
Sorry for spoiling your read. I felt that I needed to get it published before the episode that inspired the change got forgotten.

Samantha

Changing Person

I've made the editing change from first to third and third to first several times and understand how hard it is to catch everything. I think you where right to post the story when you did, given the circumstances. However, you might consider using the edit function to make those few changes that would make the story flow so much better. The story's premise makes the extra effort worth it.

Angela Rasch (Jill M I)

Agreed with Angie here.

The points of the story are nice, as is the strong nature of your heroine, but a quick run-through to edit and, perhaps, expand on a few elements -- why is her apartment so run-down, for instance? -- would really make this a stand-out little tale.

Melanie E.

I am woman, hear me roar!

Nicely done story. This happens all to often with cis-women, most don't have the fall back and must fold.
The shifting from 1st person to 3rd was a little slowing, but I read through it okay. Sorry it was inspired by one of us.

Karen

Thanks

to everyone who has left kudos for this little tale (despite the faults). This was a first for me in that it hit 100 Kudos points with less than 1000 total reads.
I will have a big smile on my face today. Makes tacking a horrible data migration an awful lot easier.
Thanks again,
Samantha

Get Your Ducks In A Row

joannebarbarella's picture

If you're going to make allegations about someone, try to make sure that your story will stand up. This also shows that HR departments are usually totally untrustworthy.

Good little story.

short and sweet

BarbieLee's picture

Life isn't always fair nor is it easy. I love the stories of good overcomes evil even if life doesn't always work out that way. We read for enjoyment and escape of the realities of life. I liked this one as one more dirt bag takes a hickey big time.

Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl

Rocks have more brains

Jamie Lee's picture

That boss is several loads shy of a full load. Thinking because he's management no one would believe the non-management employee.

But when the employee has proof of his story being a lie, it's time to do exactly what he got. Escorted out of the building.

Management's word is no better or worse than non-management employees'. Like it or not, they are bound by the same rules and regulations as the rest of the employees.

Especially when the non-management employee proves something is true or false.

I saw too much management CYA during the 34 years at my last job. Even when management was wrong. Non-management employees were treated like ignorant rocks, rocks who didn't have a clue about their jobs. Even though those same rocks were the people who kept things running. Management could have fallen into a deep canyon and things would not only continued to run but run smoother.

This story sure brought back memories.

Others have feelings too.

PHB's rule OK!

I too suffered at the hands of PHB's during my 20+ years working for an American Computer Company.
Most of them got the pink slip/P.45 long before me.
Now I'm about to retire after 47 years at work. Enough I say. Begone incompetents.

My sister mate had a guy try

My sister mate had a guy try it on a great
Liverpool Girl Juile was lovely but tough she decked the SOB was sacked but she later with her hubby a lovely guy but quiet ran a second car business. My sister went to her wedding a year before she died some guy had a go at her hubby she punched him out while in full wedding dress at the respection at a bar on the Weston Super Mare seafront. She was a blond bombshell but scared of nothing.I had a mk 2 Granda 2.8 Ghia x on the y reg nice car off she knew how to deal.She move to Spain after my sister died . I thought she was great woman femmine but took no sh.t last i heard got 2 boys.Some women dont take no sh.t and why should they.