Timeline for Xenophobic email sent by a senior colleague. What's an appropriate reaction?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 27, 2015 at 13:40 | comment | added | Rob Moir | Wow. I think I'm done with this line of thought. | |
| Apr 27, 2015 at 13:01 | comment | added | N C | As for "This is why the best way to win this argument is to not have it in the first place" - great, so instead we should live in a world where people are too scared to speak openly and honestly, or to express humour which could from any possible angle be considered in any way controversial. It sounds like utopia. For robots. | |
| Apr 27, 2015 at 12:21 | comment | added | N C | No, the trouble is that we've collectively created a culture that rewards and encourages people to be willing victims, the result being more and more people pandering to the spineless. We end up with a system where passive-aggressive whingers can have their cake and eat it too by playing The Victim Card™ to garner sympathy and support while at the same time bullying and harassing others. Is getting someone fired over an email OK? I find that offensive. Perhaps you subscribe to the "two wrongs make a right" school of thought and it's OK to offend as long as you were offended first? | |
| Apr 27, 2015 at 12:13 | comment | added | Rob Moir | The trouble with that @NC is that you (or I for that matter) don't get to choose how someone interprets a potentially offensive comment. We don't get to say "this passes some test for offensiveness" (whether based on severity, number of times heard, etc). It's entirely down to the perception of the victim. This is why the best way to win this argument is to not have it in the first place: This is entirely on the person making the remark. They're the one whose consideration is entirely lacking here. | |
| Apr 27, 2015 at 8:30 | comment | added | N C | The difference between a sense of humour and harassment in this instance is simple consideration. If these were a series of sustained comments which clearly went beyond a joke, or if the recipient of the email had expressed their feelings that the comments were inappropriate and the comments continued, that would definitely be harassment, but if you don't speak up to them other than to dramatically escalate everything and make a scapegoat out of someone in the name of all workplace harassment ever with a view to them losing their job, THAT is bullying. Consideration goes both ways. | |
| Apr 26, 2015 at 9:11 | comment | added | Rob Moir | @NC and what do we call a "sense of humour" that makes its jokes at the expense of another person? Harassment and Bullying. Writing off personal comments about another person's background like this as just "a sense of humour" reminds me very much of the culture that used to exist around people using (more overt) racist, or sexist, stereotypes at work. | |
| Apr 24, 2015 at 11:08 | comment | added | N C | No this is not 'harassment', this is 'having a sense of humour'. The disproportionate reaction you are encouraging is harassment. Card-carrying flag-waving wannabe-heroes like yourself are nothing more than bullies who are toxic to society and take away credibility from any real incidents of harassment. | |
| Apr 23, 2015 at 7:53 | history | edited | takacsmark | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 22, 2015 at 17:55 | comment | added | Keith Thompson | I don't think anonymity is an option here. Assuming the senior colleague didn't share the e-mail with anyone else, it's only known to the recipient and anyone the recipient voluntarily shared it with. (And to all of us here, but we don't know who the sender is.) If there were any negative consequences to taking this to HR (which there shouldn't be), those consequences would fall on the recipient of the e-mail. | |
| Apr 22, 2015 at 13:29 | comment | added | user56reinstatemonica8 | re. "this senior person is a threat to the company, its people, its customers and its reputation" - this is true, there are many examples of emails similar to this going viral and causing significant damage to company reputation and staff morale. If the asker hadn't kept their question anonymous, this would probably have already happened. If the company was named and was well-known in Spain, I could imagine this one being featured on Spanish news. | |
| Apr 22, 2015 at 12:16 | comment | added | starsplusplus | @Mark Can you edit your most recent comment into your answer? I thought the same as Taemyr when I read your answer alone. | |
| Apr 22, 2015 at 12:08 | comment | added | takacsmark | Anonymity means that you can submit the issue without highlighting your name or your colleague's name and ask for advise as a first step. Later on, of course, as you say, your colleague will need to be identified, but at that time there will be competent people managing the case making sure that damage on you and others is minimal or none. | |
| Apr 22, 2015 at 11:45 | comment | added | Taemyr | Considering that to be useful the colleuge would need to be identified. This means that anonymity in this case is moot. (Anyone reading about the incident can reason out where the complaint originated) | |
| Apr 22, 2015 at 11:09 | comment | added | Provolone Dolce | @Steve Jessop: You are right, but this is a large multinational bank. They have official channels to deal with this sort of thing. They are required by law anyway. | |
| Apr 22, 2015 at 9:58 | comment | added | gnasher729 | "Many employees work for a company that has an anonymous line". | |
| Apr 22, 2015 at 9:58 | comment | added | takacsmark | I changed it, hope it's better now. | |
| Apr 22, 2015 at 9:57 | history | edited | takacsmark | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 22, 2015 at 9:52 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | "Most companies have an anonymous line to report such incidents" really? Bearing in mind that most companies are small businesses. | |
| Apr 22, 2015 at 8:43 | history | answered | takacsmark | CC BY-SA 3.0 |