minoanmiss (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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agonyaunt2020-01-23 05:15 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2020-01-23 05:15 pm
Entry tags:
Ask a Manager: My coworker is telling people my husband has a criminal record
[#2 at the link]
About a year ago, my then-boyfriend came to visit me at work. A new colleague, whom I didn’t know or work with, told several colleagues that he has a criminal record, which she knew because her sister dated him years ago. Her stated reason for telling colleagues: she was worried that he was there for a job interview and she thought the company should know.
I approached my HR manager about the issue — that a colleague had brought in personal, sensitive information and spread it around my workplace. He recommended that I speak with her directly, which I did. I politely and firmly explained that this is not information that is hers to share. He made a mistake in his youth (a minor, non-violent offense, for which he paid very heavily and for which he continues to pay a heavy price). She apologized, the damage had been done, but we moved on and several months ago, I married him.
This week, I learned that this same person approached a family member of mine (the two of them are members of the same religious community), months after the wedding, to tell her about my husband. I have a small family, and they are very important to me. I was livid. What if my family decided to turn their backs on us? This person doesn’t know me or my husband, she doesn’t know what happened with my husband’s transgression, we’ve never done anything to her, and even her sister moved on years ago.
I have no power over this person. Do I have a justification for filing an official complaint with HR? Harassment?
Hostile environment? Anything?
Probably not, I’m sorry. Hostile work environment, in the legal sense, needs to be based on race, sex, religion, disability, or other protected characteristics. It doesn’t rise to the legal level of harassment (which requires that the conduct be severe or pervasive, and also based on protected characteristics like the ones I just named). It’s possible your company has internal policies against gossip or would consider this otherwise problematic, and you could try explaining that your coworker is spreading gossip about you outside of work. But this is someone who shared info that’s factually true with someone she knows in her personal life. It’s not likely to look like a sustained campaign of harassment (even in the non-legal sense). And I suspect that the more you fight it, the bigger deal it’s going to make of something that you’re trying to keep a smaller deal.
Can you instead work on making peace with it? Your husband got in trouble for a minor, non-violent offense in his youth, as have millions of other people. That’s a fact of his life that’s not going away. It’s part of him, part of his history, and part of why he is who he is today. The more you can make peace with it and not see it as a dirty secret to hide, the easier this will probably get.
About a year ago, my then-boyfriend came to visit me at work. A new colleague, whom I didn’t know or work with, told several colleagues that he has a criminal record, which she knew because her sister dated him years ago. Her stated reason for telling colleagues: she was worried that he was there for a job interview and she thought the company should know.
I approached my HR manager about the issue — that a colleague had brought in personal, sensitive information and spread it around my workplace. He recommended that I speak with her directly, which I did. I politely and firmly explained that this is not information that is hers to share. He made a mistake in his youth (a minor, non-violent offense, for which he paid very heavily and for which he continues to pay a heavy price). She apologized, the damage had been done, but we moved on and several months ago, I married him.
This week, I learned that this same person approached a family member of mine (the two of them are members of the same religious community), months after the wedding, to tell her about my husband. I have a small family, and they are very important to me. I was livid. What if my family decided to turn their backs on us? This person doesn’t know me or my husband, she doesn’t know what happened with my husband’s transgression, we’ve never done anything to her, and even her sister moved on years ago.
I have no power over this person. Do I have a justification for filing an official complaint with HR? Harassment?
Hostile environment? Anything?
Probably not, I’m sorry. Hostile work environment, in the legal sense, needs to be based on race, sex, religion, disability, or other protected characteristics. It doesn’t rise to the legal level of harassment (which requires that the conduct be severe or pervasive, and also based on protected characteristics like the ones I just named). It’s possible your company has internal policies against gossip or would consider this otherwise problematic, and you could try explaining that your coworker is spreading gossip about you outside of work. But this is someone who shared info that’s factually true with someone she knows in her personal life. It’s not likely to look like a sustained campaign of harassment (even in the non-legal sense). And I suspect that the more you fight it, the bigger deal it’s going to make of something that you’re trying to keep a smaller deal.
Can you instead work on making peace with it? Your husband got in trouble for a minor, non-violent offense in his youth, as have millions of other people. That’s a fact of his life that’s not going away. It’s part of him, part of his history, and part of why he is who he is today. The more you can make peace with it and not see it as a dirty secret to hide, the easier this will probably get.