When Corporate doesn’t want to deal with a problem, there are many subtle ways for them to turn to victim blaming instead.
Now, I wouldn’t describe myself as a victim. I think “target” is a bit more suitable for my situation. But victim blaming is terminology that most people are already familiar with, so I’m not going to re-create the wheel over it here.
But if you’d like extra insight into victim blaming overall, I found a good article from Very Well Mind which gave this effective definition: Blaming the victim is a phenomenon in which victims of crimes or tragedies are held accountable for what happened to them.
But one thing that happened to me when I started to escalate my issues with my stalker at work… is that I was told to change MY behavior, in order to not provoke any more situations that needs to be escalated. THAT is absolutely victim blaming.
One example that immediately comes to my mind, is that I was actually told to no longer walk by his office anymore.
Nobody ever told him to stop walking by MY office instead. Nobody ever told him to LEAVE.ME.ALONE. You’d think the best solution would be to address the root cause. But no, they didn’t do that.
And if you check out the floorplan I drew up (lol, no it’s not to scale), that’s a big change that I had to accommodate in order to prevent any inconvenience for him. It’s kinda disgusting. And, he actually enjoyed that I had to suffer the consequences of trying to escalate issues with him. It definitely served to be a deterrent for me to try to escalate anything. He experienced no deterrents at all. He was practically giddy over this turn of events, and it only emboldened him to behave even more outrageously towards me because he believed that he was protected.
And he was right.
His behavior later led to the point where he ended up bleeding on my desk and completely got away with it. I posted about it here if you missed it. And he never experienced any consequences for it.
He was protected. Not me.
And me changing my behavior to prevent any more issues didn’t fix anything. Because I wasn’t the problem.
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I wish you weren’t going through this. It is absolutely disgusting that you are being victim blamed. Virtual hugs to you 🙂💕
Aw it’s alright. I’m out of that situation now, so all is ok. This happened to me several years ago, and I’m ready to start talking about it now. I haven’t been able to before.
Wow…
Oh my! This is awful! I’m so sorry as it’s scary and so unfair. Stay safe.
Thank you! I’m safe now. This all happened to me several years ago and I’m MUCH better off these days. 🙂
Still disgusting that they put you through this. They should be ashamed. Good that you are out of there.
Yes, I’m so glad to be out of there too! Unfortunately, I don’t believe they are ashamed. I’ve been waiting to see if karma will get them somehow someday, but nope. Not yet.
That is unfortunate.
How could it be a victims fault if it there is a perpetrator in the first place. It’s just sad that people’s reaction actually tolerates further bad things like this.
Heck no, I will not change just to please other, as long as I am not harming anyone.
Thank you for sharing this. Glad you are okay now. Hugs.
Thanks for your comment. I totally agree with you, that everyone’s reaction absolutely enabled further bad behavior. They gave him no reason to stop.
This is an awesome post, Pepper. My heart goes out to you and I feel your pain. This happens in most workplaces in that HR doesn’t go after the guilty, they go after the person they perceive has the least power and it’s totally backwards.
You did right by speaking out and refusing to tiptoe around that creep. I’m so proud of you for that and I’m glad you held on to your sense of self. ❤
Thanks Cherie! You’re so right about HR behaving backwards. I had to join a few support groups when I was going through this, and I encountered SO MANY other people that had similar experiences with HR. It definitely gave me the much-needed validation that I wasn’t the problem or doing something wrong.
I’m so glad it did. I went through a stint of workplace bullying about 10 years ago. And I saw so many others who were bullied as well. Luckily I was able to walk away from the job confidently, after I told the bullies where they could shove it. But I saw many others who weren’t so lucky. Many lost their jobs and careers.
I’m so glad you got out of there! And I’m jealous you had your moment to tell them to shove it. I never had that moment, but I dream about it alot. 🙂
I understand. I never got to tell my school bullies to stick it, through. But I wrote and published a book about what they did. Oooeee! Talk about a real pisser-offer when they found out about it and a few of them read it! And most of them are still the same lowlifes they were back then.
Just be patient. You’ll run into your bullies sooner or later and they’ll do something stupid. Then you’ll get your chance. I guarantee it. 😁