It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.
Remember the letter-writer trying to decide if her coworker was harassing her or just annoying? Here’s the update.
I was away from my desk the day my question was posted so didn’t get to interact with the commentariat but I did go thru and read all the comments. Thanks all for your advice!
It got worse before it got better.
Early August, Joe asked me what I wanted my nickname to be as he was going to give me a nickname. I replied, “I don’t do nicknames at work.”
Later that month, he said to another one of my coworkers, “Too bad ‘LetterWriter’ doesn’t have any sisters.”
End of August, he started calling me “Hotshot.” I asked him to stop and reiterated that I “don’t do nicknames at work.” He continued calling me “Hotshot” behind my back when he thought I wasn’t present. I asked him to stop and told him he could call me by my name. It was uncomfortable. I then heard from a few teammates that he continued using this nickname when I wasn’t present.
Around that point, some coworkers from a previous job reached out and asked me to apply at their company. I got the job and, during my resignation, I laid all this out for my boss Friday afternoon.
To my boss’s credit, there was an HR investigation started within four hours, they had me work from home Monday, and Joe was suspended that Monday pending investigation.
He was suspended my entire notice period and I never saw him again. They fired him for cause about four days after I left the company.
I feel bad that he’s most likely in a hard financial position in a less than great job market. I honestly didn’t think much was going to come of my complaint, but HR spoke to everyone on the team and the other gals so perhaps I didn’t have the only complaints. All I can do is trust their process and hope he’s doing okay.
Thanks again to all the commentators!
