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Here is my questions:

1) how in the hell did your friend get her digits in order to text her?

2) I find it curious that if he sent texts to her on his own time, while not at work, how an employer could fire him for those happening if they weren't at work

But who is wrong? Everybody, to some degree.

many states require permission to record audio, if you do not have it the evidence is inadmissable at best, and can be considered harassment or invasion of privacy at worst.

She sounds like a psycho, generally the best thing at work is to ignore that other people have genders.

Do not S where you eat.

Do not F where you work.

and put nothing in writing that could come back at you

and yes you can often get fired for things you do that do not happen at work, esp if they involve people who work at the same place.

 TheMeanDM wrote:
Here is my questions:

1) how in the hell did your friend get her digits in order to text her?

2) I find it curious that if he sent texts to her on his own time, while not at work, how an employer could fire him for those happening if they weren't at work

But who is wrong? Everybody, to some degree.

Outside work has no bearing on if it is illegal harassment or not. If you could not be held responsible for 'outside work' communications then it would be impossible to enforce quid pro quo harassment. If you think employers can't fire you for things done outside work, you will have a very rough employment experience.

I know employers can and do....and I am disheartened that it happens.

 kronk wrote:

 WallofMeat wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
So, you can get fired for talking about sex?

Oh yeah. As far as I understand, the process goes like this. If you are engaging in talk or other behavior of a sexual nature that makes another feel uncomfortable, they are supposed to tell you it makes them uncomfortale and ask you to stop, and inform your supervisor (or communicate their issue through their supervisor). If the behavior continues, you're more than likely going to get fired for it.

Does anyone actually do this?

You bet your ass. Keep your fething mouth shut at work.

A couple guys at my last job (not counting the supermarket which was just work experience), a domestic furniture workshop, frequently watched Porn in their lunch breaks. Luckily, all the girls worked and took their lunch in another room, not on the workshop floor. Otherwise things might have been...awkward.

Mind you, one of the girls, a blonde, had a dirtier mouth than anyone of the men.

 TheMeanDM wrote:

1) how in the hell did your friend get her digits in order to text her?

.

She gave them out to everyone. I politely declined due to not wanting to hear her complain over any time after work.

Found a new job, put in my two weeks, done with this.

Never stick your in crazy, via text or anything. Stay away from her, she'll only drag you down into this mess.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Never stick your in crazy, via text or anything. Stay away from her, she'll only drag you down into this mess.

^ Sound advice (don't think of this as backing down - your m8 was foolish).

I notice people are talking about sensitivity training and handbooks and junk. I have never done any of this - is this like common in the USA?

 WallofMeat wrote:

I notice people are talking about sensitivity training and handbooks and junk. I have never done any of this - is this like common in the USA?

Staff handbook? If you work for anything other than a tiny company in the UK your company will have one. It will form part of your T&C's and will contain various things from your companies H&S policy, to disciplinary, sickness and grievance policies (Including details about harassment at work, which is both a H&S issue and a disciplinary issue) and things like pension schemes and staff benefits. More and more companies don't have a book as such, but an on line version, but it will exist. A good manager should make their staff aware of all of these policies and the expectations of the company and the team anyway. It avoids any misunderstanding should any problems come up.

I've found there's a lot of situations that it just doesn't pay to try and solve. I mean, you do some awesome Magnum PI stuff and catch this woman... and your friend still won't get his job back and maybe you've got a single mother fired. And more likely is that you'll spend time and effort to absolutely no effect at all, or end up just getting yourself associated with this mess.

Best thing is just to move past this. Keep doing your job, and maybe look for a job somewhere else. But don't invest your time and energy in to what is basically a mess out of which no good will come.

 Ouze wrote:
I have found this to absolutely be true. The amount of inappropriate discussion has always tended to be greater in jobs with a younger workforce, rather than break down among gender lines, in my extremely anecdotal experience. Obviously every company culture is a bit different.

I'd say the amount of inappropriate discussion ramps up if the office is dominated by one gender, but it doesn't matter which gender. An office full of boys or an office full of girls are about as likely as each other to start getting a bit risque.

 Steve steveson wrote:

 WallofMeat wrote:

I notice people are talking about sensitivity training and handbooks and junk. I have never done any of this - is this like common in the USA?

Staff handbook? If you work for anything other than a tiny company in the UK your company will have one. It will form part of your T&C's and will contain various things from your companies H&S policy, to disciplinary, sickness and grievance policies (Including details about harassment at work, which is both a H&S issue and a disciplinary issue) and things like pension schemes and staff benefits. More and more companies don't have a book as such, but an on line version, but it will exist. A good manager should make their staff aware of all of these policies and the expectations of the company and the team anyway. It avoids any misunderstanding should any problems come up.

I do work for a small company, but I have worked for larger ones - I thought your rights were just contained in your employment contract? My understanding is that handbooks just contain loop holes for firing people.

Which company do you work for btw? (or like... vague area of work if your uncomfortable with a co name).

You're always heavily disadvantaged as a man when it comes to harassment. She laid a trap and your friend fell into it. He could (and if he wanted the job, should) have taken legal advice.

We had a very similar case a few years ago. One of my employees was accused of sexual harassment - which was strange as he usually was a top-notch employee. So we had a look into it asked around - harassment still is a major issue and to be taken seriously. He told me a very similar story to yours, she making advances on other employees and trying to hit on them during lunch break etc. One evening, she hit on my employee at a bar, got rejected and then claimed having been touched inappropriately. It all got to court and 4 people confirmed his story with her ending up being fired - as it should be.

Never, ever fall into the harassment trap. Always refuse anything and double up with your lawyer to be safe.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Never stick your in crazy, via text or anything. Stay away from her, she'll only drag you down into this mess.

Most men have to learn this platinum level bit of good advice, yours truly included.

 Frazzled wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
Never stick your in crazy, via text or anything. Stay away from her, she'll only drag you down into this mess.

Most men have to learn this platinum level bit of good advice, yours truly included.

Sometimes you have to learn first hand, sadly. But it is one of the best pieces of advice that you younglings should well remember.

 WallofMeat wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:

 WallofMeat wrote:

I notice people are talking about sensitivity training and handbooks and junk. I have never done any of this - is this like common in the USA?

Staff handbook? If you work for anything other than a tiny company in the UK your company will have one. It will form part of your T&C's and will contain various things from your companies H&S policy, to disciplinary, sickness and grievance policies (Including details about harassment at work, which is both a H&S issue and a disciplinary issue) and things like pension schemes and staff benefits. More and more companies don't have a book as such, but an on line version, but it will exist. A good manager should make their staff aware of all of these policies and the expectations of the company and the team anyway. It avoids any misunderstanding should any problems come up.

I do work for a small company, but I have worked for larger ones - I thought your rights were just contained in your employment contract? My understanding is that handbooks just contain loop holes for firing people.

Which company do you work for btw? (or like... vague area of work if your uncomfortable with a co name).

Your contract will normally contain many details of your employment, but the staff handbook will contain a lot of things along side the other things I have mentioned. How to get holiday authorized, sickness reporting processes, dress code, and a myriad of other things that could be changed. A company doesn't want to have to re-issue hundreds, or even thousands, of contracts just because they have decided that sickness forms are now being handled by someone in HR rather than going to an external Occ Health provider, or that updates to next of kin for pensions should now go to the new pension management fund XYZ LLP rather than ABC Ltd. But these do all form part of your contract, and it's not about loop holes, but quite the opposite. Providing clear, consistent rules across the organization. It means no one can say they didn't know the rules from both management and employee side.

I have worked in a wide range of companies, from multinational blue chip companies down to tiny sole ownership, and both in the public and private sector. The biggest was a blue chip with over 10,000 employees, offices in 50something countries and a turnover of over 2 billion. The smallest was the owner and me working part time for him (when I was still at school). Only two have not had a staff handbook. The smallest, but then there was just me and the owner, and a shop employing 10 people I worked in after leaving university. I left that after 8 months, because I was told three weeks before Christmas because the owner that I could not take the weeks leave I had saved up all year on Christmas week off because "there have been too many arguments in the past so I don't let people have that week off". Had there been a staff handbook I would have know and not have booked £80 train tickets to travel half way across the country to see my parents (for the first time in 6 months) on the basis that I had checked and no one else had booked it off.

Everyone else has a staff handbook, and I would guess the companies you have worked for do. You may not have been shown it, but it probably exists somewhere. In one case I was given some updated pages after 2 years (It was a ring bound job that they just sent out replacement pages for when stuff changed) and was only aware of it prior to that because I found a copy in a filing cabinet.

Setting out details of how staff and the company should behave, and making sure everyone is aware of processes and the like is vital. It reduces conflict and means that everyone is aware of what is expected of them, and I would be very worried about any large company that did not have one.

 Sigvatr wrote:
You're always heavily disadvantaged as a man when it comes to harassment. She laid a trap and your friend fell into it. He could (and if he wanted the job, should) have taken legal advice.

He sent her a text saying, basically "I know your desperate. I'll feth you!". Thats not falling in to a trap, thats being monumentally stupid and inappropriate. Even if she was hitting on him sending a text with the type of content he apparently did send was stupid.

 WallofMeat wrote:
I notice people are talking about sensitivity training and handbooks and junk. I have never done any of this - is this like common in the USA?

In every 'professional' job (I work in IT) I've had, there was a handbook, and sexual harrassment training was given annually, and also in response to incidents.

However, when I was in high school, I worked as a porter at a privately-owned pharmacy (wonder if those even exist anymore) and also at a mom-n-pop restaurant, and there was no handbook and no training of this type, IIRC.

 Steve steveson wrote:

 WallofMeat wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:

 WallofMeat wrote:

I notice people are talking about sensitivity training and handbooks and junk. I have never done any of this - is this like common in the USA?

Staff handbook? If you work for anything other than a tiny company in the UK your company will have one. It will form part of your T&C's and will contain various things from your companies H&S policy, to disciplinary, sickness and grievance policies (Including details about harassment at work, which is both a H&S issue and a disciplinary issue) and things like pension schemes and staff benefits. More and more companies don't have a book as such, but an on line version, but it will exist. A good manager should make their staff aware of all of these policies and the expectations of the company and the team anyway. It avoids any misunderstanding should any problems come up.

I do work for a small company, but I have worked for larger ones - I thought your rights were just contained in your employment contract? My understanding is that handbooks just contain loop holes for firing people.

Which company do you work for btw? (or like... vague area of work if your uncomfortable with a co name).

Your contract will normally contain many details of your employment, but the staff handbook will contain a lot of things along side the other things I have mentioned. How to get holiday authorized, sickness reporting processes, dress code, and a myriad of other things that could be changed. A company doesn't want to have to re-issue hundreds, or even thousands, of contracts just because they have decided that sickness forms are now being handled by someone in HR rather than going to an external Occ Health provider, or that updates to next of kin for pensions should now go to the new pension management fund XYZ LLP rather than ABC Ltd. But these do all form part of your contract, and it's not about loop holes, but quite the opposite. Providing clear, consistent rules across the organization. It means no one can say they didn't know the rules from both management and employee side.

I have worked in a wide range of companies, from multinational blue chip companies down to tiny sole ownership, and both in the public and private sector. The biggest was a blue chip with over 10,000 employees, offices in 50something countries and a turnover of over 2 billion. The smallest was the owner and me working part time for him (when I was still at school). Only two have not had a staff handbook. The smallest, but then there was just me and the owner, and a shop employing 10 people I worked in after leaving university. I left that after 8 months, because I was told three weeks before Christmas because the owner that I could not take the weeks leave I had saved up all year on Christmas week off because "there have been too many arguments in the past so I don't let people have that week off". Had there been a staff handbook I would have know and not have booked £80 train tickets to travel half way across the country to see my parents (for the first time in 6 months) on the basis that I had checked and no one else had booked it off.

Everyone else has a staff handbook, and I would guess the companies you have worked for do. You may not have been shown it, but it probably exists somewhere. In one case I was given some updated pages after 2 years (It was a ring bound job that they just sent out replacement pages for when stuff changed) and was only aware of it prior to that because I found a copy in a filing cabinet.

Setting out details of how staff and the company should behave, and making sure everyone is aware of processes and the like is vital. It reduces conflict and means that everyone is aware of what is expected of them, and I would be very worried about any large company that did not have one.

 Sigvatr wrote:
You're always heavily disadvantaged as a man when it comes to harassment. She laid a trap and your friend fell into it. He could (and if he wanted the job, should) have taken legal advice.

He sent her a text saying, basically "I know your desperate. I'll feth you!". Thats not falling in to a trap, thats being monumentally stupid and inappropriate. Even if she was hitting on him sending a text with the type of content he apparently did send was stupid.

Fair comment - *shot in the dark* - are you a management consultant?

 Steve steveson wrote:

He sent her a text saying, basically "I know your desperate. I'll feth you!". Thats not falling in to a trap, thats being monumentally stupid and inappropriate. Even if she was hitting on him sending a text with the type of content he apparently did send was stupid.

Never said it wasn't stupid. In the contrary, it was the worst move possible.

i say go with the advice of what has been said. As someone who has dealt with an unstable female, who almost destroyed their entire academic life, job life, and social life in just a few moments. I can say. Grab everything you can, change departments, put states between you and get the helk out of that situation.

This is one of those few times, where my advice is, run.

This is a situation where you can't win.

People like the women you have described are manipulators they get a small kick out of causing suffering, sowing seeds of discord into peoples lives.

Also because these people are not very good at making lasting genuine relationships in general.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
Never stick your in crazy, via text or anything. Stay away from her, she'll only drag you down into this mess.

Most men have to learn this platinum level bit of good advice, yours truly included.

Sometimes you have to learn first hand, sadly. But it is one of the best pieces of advice that you younglings should well remember.

Where was my advice went I met miss Crazy I'm going to ruin your life forever lady?

Why not try to get her old boss to contact your boss and tell him what the situation is. It might get your friends job back.

Daemonhammer wrote:
Why not try to get her old boss to contact your boss and tell him what the situation is. It might get your friends job back.

Because while it's illegal to say something "bad" about a person during the hiring process, I'd imagine that it's even more so if company B hired company A's former employee... Not to mention, opens up a whole can of worms in regards to civil suits for libel and slander, etc.