Can HR Protect You From A Predator?

#metoo

It happened when I was considering changing careers from retail executive to professional mediator. Wanting to learn more about the industry, I left husband and baby behind to attend a conference of professionals in dispute resolution. It didn't take long to figure out this wasn't for me, but there were still interesting people to meet there, including one high priced attorney who seemed genuinely interested in my desire to better utilize my education and skills in more interesting and meaningful ways.

He suggested we go get a drink so that we could talk about this in greater detail, including names of people he could introduce me to in New York who might help me identify the next step. A networking gold mine! I thought I had hit the jackpot.

The conference bar was packed so he suggested we go to his hotel instead.

No, I didn't see it coming.

I gave no encouragement. I did nothing to invite his attention. I gave no signs of interest of any kind other than that of a woman in her thirties who was eager to be mentored by someone of stature who wanted to help younger talent. I took him at his word.

Fortunately it all became clear in the taxi ride over. I was able to half fend, half fight him off and get away. I've never forgotten what it felt like: as if I were young prey. I felt ashamed of my own guilelessness and idiocy, thinking that someone would want to help me when instead all they really wanted was something intimate from me. As if the assumption on my part made me at fault for being so dumb. I thought I was so smart.

Who was I going to tell? The conference organizer? What could they do about it? They would just tell me to shrug it off as no big deal. Happens all the time. No harm done.

#metoo

It happened during a business trip to India. I was sitting with the President and Senior Vice President of my company in the hotel dining room. I was a key member of the leadership team, I had my Ivy League MBA and it was our first time together in the local market and my first trip abroad with these men. We were having dinner when my boss sat up straight in his chair and exclaimed about a waitress across the room:

"Wow, I didn't know that Indian women had such big breasts! Look at her!"

Had they looked at my breasts and made the same conclusion? A different one? Is that how they talked about me when I wasn't in the room, about which body parts they liked, which they didn't? Was that an okay thing to say out loud? What should I say?

So I spoke up and said: "that makes me really uncomfortable when you speak that way."

That was 1998. When women still blamed themselves for other people's boorish behavior. It was an attempt to get them to apologize without attack, to back off, to show their gentler side, assuming they spoke without thought, forgetting you were there.

It didn't work. Instead, he turned on me, half snarling, half laughing and said:

"What's wrong with you? If you can't handle normal business talk, just leave"

Was it true? Was I the problem? Is this how the world really worked? Was I really that naive? Did I have to join in to belong? I couldn't do that. To walk away would have been worse, so I just sat there, stone silent, cheeks flamed, internally small and weepy, told that if I couldn't handle the ogling of girls I didn't deserve a seat at the table.

It was a privately held division of an Australian company. There was no HR. Besides, my boss's boss, arriving at the New York office after the 24 hour flight from Sydney, strode in saying "the best thing about that flight was that I got to feel up the hostie!"

No point in complaining to him, was there?

#metoo

Years later, now a consultant to a major consumer brands company, a young woman I was working with told me multiple stories about how her boss had humiliated her and other women while during overseas business trips. She begged me for both counsel and to keep it entirely confidential.. He was senior, he was powerful, he had the ear of the CEO and he could make her life hell if the news leaked out and was traced back to her.

It took me five minutes to blow her cover.

They fired him. She got promoted. Times had changed. Laws had been passed. But still...I'm not looking to see predators' scalps dancing on the unemployment line.

I'll be happy when women, as well as men, no longer consider sharing these stories an act of bravery or a momentary social meme. I'll be happy when men call out other men on illegal behavior. Not because they're protecting women, but because it's disgusting, illegal and wrong. Because sex is priceless; harassment and humiliation because of your sex? That can have a very hefty price tag.

I'll be happy when you don't have to go to HR to deal with this because everyone you work with, everyone you know, would never condone or enable this. They would climb on top of their desk, point a finger and say:

If you have an HR department, go. If you don't, go to whomever you need to. If you don't know whom to go to, ask a friend, a family member, some one you trust. This is like killing a vampire: all you need is the light of day. And maybe some garlic.