Ask a Manager, Update: "is this guy harassing me or just annoying?

[minoanmiss]

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!

Comments

[minoanmiss]

The reason I tagged this WTF is bbecause of the ensuring discussion. I admire LW's compassion in feeling bad for Joe's unemployment. Some of the commenters, not so much.

Here's a commend admonishing us for our ghoulishness in celebrating this soutcome:

I don’t know. I get where you’re coming from, but not everyone likes that feeling of gleeful celebration when something bad happens to someone, even if it’s warranted.

There are a lot of bad people out there doing bad stuff, and I don’t really feel happy when they get their comeuppance. I feel sad for their loved ones, sad for the lives they lived that led them to make these choices, sad for our society that created the conditions that led to whatever it was they did. If I start celebrating bad things happening to people, even if those people are terrible people, I feel like I lose a bit of my own humanity.

FFS. I do think someone (probably multiple someonse) getting out from a bad situation is worth celebrating, and being as that someone was deliberately causing the bad situation and it took his downfall to end it, hooray for his downfall!

Oh no a man faces consequences for bad behavior. How tragic.

[conuly]

LW is entitled to feel however she wants to feel about this, but I gotta say, if Joe didn't want to be fired Joe should've kept it in his pants.

[topaz_eyes]

All I can do is trust their process and hope he’s doing okay.

While I commend LW's compassion, imho it's misplaced. Someone like Joe will simply start up the same bs at his next job, if he thinks he can get away with it. Meanwhile, Joe's harassment basically forced LW out of her workplace, since she took another job to get away from it. Had that new job fallen through, LW would be in a precarious financial position.

[full_metal_ox]

From the 19 August 2025 post:

• (Joe) Made the comment, “I wouldn’t want to go up against you guys,” referring to me and the other woman in our group

And then proceeded to get smacked by Apollo’s Dodgeball of Prophecy.

Fotti intorno e trova fuori.

[firecat]

I feel like I lose a bit of my own humanity.

What? There’s nothing more human than schadenfreude!