Business is Business... Leave the personal stuff at HOME!

I am in a situation where one employee has gone to HR to complain about me. Her complain is that she can not work, because she "claims" that I am engaged to her Ex husband and that my "unethical" behavior affects her job preformance. She has no proof that I am engaged to her Ex husband. She told HR that her ex has "admitted" the he was engaged to me and because we work on the same floor this affects her,(HE has not admitted anything to her!).She has her department backing her up.

HR has not contacted me or her EX husband. They have however, contacted our managers. Her ex-husband and I work in the same dept. I have a feeling that her department is pressuring HR to do something about me.

My manager does not have a problem with my work. I am an excellent worker, I have been with the company for 3 years and I have never recieved a complaint about my work preformance. I just recieved a promotion about 6 months ago and I now work directly for the director of my deptartment. I'm worried that HR is getting pressure from her department, therefore HR may go to my boss's boss to pressure him to do something about me.

I do not bother this woman. I personally think that this has nothing to do with business. I feel that this is personal and should stay out of the work place. She is upset that her marriage has failed and is looking to blame others for her failure.

Do I have a case if I do get terminated? If so, how do I go about protecting myself and proving myself?

Thank you,

1 answer  |  asked Feb 28, 2003 09:39 AM [EST]  |  applies to New York

Answers (1)

David M. Lira
Jealous Ex-Spouse

I probably will need more information to tell whether you have a case. FOr steps on protecting yourself, feel free to call me for a consultation. (I do charge an initial consultation fee.)

Your situation reminds me of another situation I once handled. In that case, the husband and wife were still married, and worked for the same employer. The wife was very much the jealous type. Whenever a man was assigned to work with her husband, she was fine, but, whenever a woman was assigned to her husband, she would go nuts, creating all kinds of problems for that woman. The husband, incidentally, was a gentleman, who everybody enjoyed working with.

In my mind, this situation involved illegal sexual harassment, even though the harasser and harassee were both woman, and even though there was no hint of homosexuality. The reason for my conclusion is that the wife harassed the women assigned to her husband only because they were woman. That made the harassment gender based, and illegal.

posted by David M. Lira  |  Feb 28, 2003 3:39 PM [EST]

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