Labor Woes

I am worried.

There is a situation at work that I don’t feel emotionally prepared for. It engages my want-to-escape mode. Most of my co-workers have dealt with it, but some have been fired because of the depredations and malicious rumors created by an older colleague.

This guy has been working in the company since forever. He is firmly entrenched in his position, and has actually been ready to retire for years. Yet he remains.

I entered the company as a temp to help him on a special project. Two weeks turned into two years and counting, and eventually I turned into a regular employee.

The thing is, this guy likes to have someone to boss around, and since I was hired to be just that, he feels entitled to make me do his stuff. He introduces me to people as his “assistant”. Good goddess! The Managers of the company don’t have assistants!

Every chance he gets, he makes a mention of how “he hired me”.

And, no, he didn’t!

The company temp-hired me to help him out in a special project; then real-hired me to work in something else, unrelated to him.

Now, I don’t have the time to do his work for him. I am not paid to make copies for him, or to redact his correspondence, or to simply listen to the stupid sexist jokes he tells. (How do you say “virgin” in German? Gudentight! Got it? Good and tight!)
And he is taking this badly. He feels I am being disrespectful.

He has complained to my boss (who knows him already, so he isn’t taking it too seriously) and to the boss of my boss (who doesn’t, so he might be doing some damage.)

I tend to not complain to my boss, because I feel that being manager must be at times a bit like being a schoolteacher. “Miss! He is pulling my hair!”

He must be beyond tired of listening to complains from both costumers and employees. I try not to add to his blood pressure. I really like my manager. I have had some really horrid bosses in the past, and I appreciate what a luxury it is to actually like your boss.

And there is the thing about the sexual harassment.

They tell me that he has caused three girls before me to be fired. All the three had in common was that they did not respond to his sexual innuendos.

So three girls before me lost their jobs to this idiot because they did not document his behavior.

But he has sent me e-mails asking me out. I remember last October, as I was working on the geisha costume, he was quite insistent on taking me out for lunch. He kept telling me that my costume was pretty sexy (Ummm… not.). And once, he went as far as telling me that he thought I was gorgeous or something like that. I maneuvered and mentioned my dear, dear husband. (Have I mentioned that I love him very much?) Then he went all weepy, and said that now that he was old, no one found him attractive. I mentioned his wife. That particular conversation, I printed and showed it to a coworker and to my husband.

Coworker said to use it against him.

Husband said to tolerate it; it was inoffensive.

I should have listened to her.

I quickly went through my e-mails yesterday, after one incident when he went all belligerent on me, and searched for my own harassing history.
FUUUUUUDGE!

I don’t have proof. I lost the e-mails when I closed my temporary outside e-mail account in favor of the permanent company one. I don’t even remember what the address was, so I can’t have it reopened. I have no proof!

And now I have lost it! Goddamit!!!

Damn all these e-mail changes!

Now he has been attacking me behind my back. I have been warned by sympathetic coworkers. And I feel like a sitting duck, unable to respond, defenseless and vulnerable.

I am not made for this! My personality makes it hard for me to engage in workplace guerrilla warfare. All this intriguing behind people’s backs, all these conspiracies.