Workplace Harassment - Blog Posts

Now that’s some equality that we can agree on.

You have the right to work in a place that is free from harassment and bullying. Know your rights. Civil Rights Act Title VII for anyone in the US. And for anyone in California, the far superior FEHA. https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964 https://www.dor.ca.gov/Home/FairEmploymentAct

The Cost of Staying

Sometimes it’s not that you didn’t want the job.

It’s that you wanted it too much. And now you're floating down some corporate river. Toward the wrong end of The Waterfall (TM).

You worked too hard. Put up with too much. Got good at things you never thought you’d be good at. Found your rhythm. Found your people. Maybe even started to believe you belonged there.

And then it changed.

Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was always like this and you just finally let yourself admit that the cost was too high.

That staying meant watching someone else get away with it. That staying meant shrinking a little bit each day. That staying meant carrying your own silence like it was professionalism. Like it was maturity. Like it was strength.

But here’s the truth no one wants to put on a poster: Sometimes leaving is the only way to protect yourself.

And that doesn’t mean you failed. It doesn’t mean you weren’t strong enough. It means the place wasn’t safe enough.

And maybe that’s not the ending you deserved, but it’s not the end of your story either (the waterfall).

"They're not harassing you. That’s just how they talk." Oh okay. I’ll just rewire my nervous system so it understands context.

dancing in my storm, may 2025

Surrender the Snail

Career change (nervous breakdown optional)

Feels like a Friday post. But you can on Saturday too if you want.

Either way, you want to chase the hat.

NGL leaving my job after was terrifying.

No backup plan and no health benefits. Just me, a spiked nervous system, a trashcan LinkedIn bio I abandoned circa 2017 with honours.

I spent the first two weeks crying, I did that. Then reorganizing my fridge, using a lot of Windex around the house, checking my email like a raccoon checking dumpster locks. Nothing came. And sigh.

No word from HR. But the world didn’t end. My old boss didn’t send an apology or even a passive-aggressive emoji. Just hot red radish silencio ad absurdum. For a while.

And then something weird happened.

I started sleeping again. My shoulders unclenched for the first time in six years. One day I laughed. Can you / I believe it? Like really laughed. And it was not a coping mechanism sliding into an entropic spat of sob sobs.

It turns out walking away from a place that gaslights you into thinking you were the problem can be the best career move you have ever made.

I’m still broke and scared and still always figuring it out. But at least now when I cry, it’s not because I’m being slowly turned into spirals of flesh-coloured chaff in the old pencil grinder gig 'conomy, know what I mean?

Anyways, freedom’s weird. I think I want to hesitatingly and forcefully recommend it.

“Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.” Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“You’re so calm during conflict.”

No babe, that’s dissociation. We all bring our talents to the table...

 She didn’t quit the job. She just slowly stopped showing up in her own body.

Some people won’t believe you until you break. Break anyway, if you need to. You don’t owe anyone your composure.

“So much of coming to terms with hard things from the past seems to be about believing our own accounts, having our memories confirmed by those who were there and honoured by those who weren’t.” — Sarah Polley, Run Towards the Danger

“Justice," she said. "I've heard that word. It's a cold world. I tried it out," she said, still speaking in that low voice. "I wrote it down. I wrote it down several times and always it looked like a damn cold lie to me. There is no justice.” — Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

They asked if I wanted to file a complaint. I said no I’m trying to stay employed, not enter The Hunger Games.

You don’t have to be perfect to be harmed.

Maybe you’d had a drink. Maybe you laughed along. Maybe you told them they were cute once. Maybe you texted back. Maybe you said yes to one thing, but not to what happened next.

Maybe you tried to be polite when you should have run. Maybe you didn’t run because you were scared. Or tired. Or frozen.

None of that means it wasn’t harassment. None of that means it was your fault.

“It’s not brave to have boundaries

it’s just basic hygiene for your soul.”

-Jenny Slate

To Anyone Who’s Still Carrying It

You don’t get over it in a straight line. You just don’t. And anyone who tells you different hasn’t been through it or hasn’t faced it yet.

Harassment doesn’t always leave bruises you can point to. It gets under the skin in quieter ways. It makes you second-guess what you heard, how you felt, what you wore, what you said. It can turn a job into a minefield and your own instincts into something you stop trusting.

And it doesn’t end the day you leave the job, or file the report, or speak the truth out loud. Sometimes it lingers. In your body. In your sleep. In how you walk into new rooms.

But here’s what I know: healing doesn’t have to look heroic. It’s not always confrontation or closure. Sometimes it’s just getting through the day without that weight taking over. Sometimes it’s finding one person who listens. Sometimes it’s deciding to stay. Or leave. Or try again.

Whatever it looks like --- that’s valid. You’re allowed to move forward without explaining why it hurt or proving that it did.

It was real. You’re not imagining it. And you are absolutely not alone.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

He said I was a real asset to the team but the way he said “asset” made me want to wash my hands.

Twice.

You said thank you.

With a smile so dry it might’ve caught fire.

My body is not your debate.

“You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding.”

Falling Through The Floor

I took the cheque home and folded it in half. Then again. Then again. Until it was a sharp little square I could press into my palm. It didn’t feel like money. It felt like silence.

The job was good. Rare these days for someone like me. And when he leaned too close and said too much - breath hot and stale with knowing - I only smiled.

Afterward, I kept working. Of course I did.

At the end of the week the cheque came, same as always. it felt heavier this time. Like hush money.

And I took it anyway. Because that’s what you do when the alternative is falling through the floor.

Boss: "Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We'll circle back..."

Me:

“There is nothing you can throw at me that I cannot metabolize, no matter how painful or unfair or unjust."

-Maggie Nelson

Fred "touch me not" Gruber finally got let go after his third reprimand.

Dance of the Forest Nymphs by Warren B Davis

When she reported it they told her she was brave

Then they made her remote

HR calmly studying "the policy"...

Me (the cat) making sense of what happened

Notice me (fraidy cat) still perched on the company's shoulders

(I need money to be fed)

((ugh / rearr))

Clémentine Dondey (French, Unknown Birth Date, c. Early 19th Century) - A Soothsayer studying a Book of Necromancy, 1847, Paintings: Oil on Canvas

Harassment doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it whispers. Sometimes it laughs. And sometimes it just watches to see if you’ll flinch...