Harassment?

[jess0r]

I work for a small company in Northern VA that was recently purchased by a large international company based in Europe.

I have a coworker who used to be one of my very good friends. In December I made a mistake and it resulted in him having to apologize to a customer. I apologized and offered to talk to the customer and apologize. He blew up! He screamed at me in front of a coworker telling me to 'f off', 'shut the f up', etc. He called me stupid and incompetent and basically reduced me to a puddle of tears.

Since then, he goes out of his way to berate me. He yells at me every time I even open my mouth to speak to him. I’ve tried to reduce all conversation to him to via email, but he’ll call me on the phone just to yell at me! He talks about me to all of my coworkers and his boss telling them how stupid I am and blames me for all of his mistakes. He makes snide remarks about my personal life - saying I'm too fat and my boyfriend won't marry me since I'm giving it up for free.

I approached my boss after the first incident and explained the problem and my desire to move away from his department. My boss said he’d take care of the problem, but he has yet to do anything at all about the situation. Yesterday my boss told me they’re considering making my coworker my BOSS! I wrote a long email to my boss today reiterating the situation and my strong desire to move away from that coworker. I’m concerned I may be fired for writing the email, but I can’t stand another day of coming into such a hostile workplace.

I discussed the situation with another female employee who recommended I contact 2 women who had left the company before I started. I found out he did the same things to them! They complained to the previous management but because nothing was ever done they quit.

Should I even bother trying to pursue a workable situation or should I just suck it up and quit? I’ve been here for less than a year so it may be damaging to my resume that I left after such a short period of time. Despite the situation I really like my job. Thank you.

[cbg]

While I completely understand how miserable the situation must be for you, especially since this used to be a good friend, what you describe does not constitute illegal harassment, is not a hostile work environment under the law, and is not something the company is required to address. How you deal with it is up to you, but it's not something you have any kind of legal recourse for.