All too often when a marginalized person is harassed in the workplace, it becomes the victim’s job to smooth things over. But everyone has their limits, and one Redditor’s homophobic co-worker recently went so over the line that he snapped and told him off.
The Redditor, who goes by the name Right_Jack77 on the site, wondered if he’d taken things a bit too far in his altercation with his colleague. So he took his story to the AITA (Am I The A**hole) subReddit to get some perspective from neutral strangers.
The OP (Original Poster) asked:
“AITA for telling a homophobic colleague that I wouldn’t touch him with someone else’s pole no matter how desperate I was.”
The OP explained:
“The transition with the new company is going well for the most part.”
“My role in the transition has been on boarding all the old company employees (those who are staying) to the new company and closing out all the books for the old company and transitioning all the vendors and customer to the new company.”
“This is going well for the most part.”
“My last day is February 26, 2021 and if I get done sooner all the better and I’ll get an additional bonus with my severance package from the new company.”
“Steaming a long yeah I’m ready to be gone and happy to move on so I’m doing what I can to get done sooner than later.”
“However the main problem I’m having is that one of the people with the new company that I’m working with is pretty awful. Homophobic straight who when we work together makes it a point to reaffirm his hetrosexualness to me all the time.”
“The week before last my husband had a major heart attack. It was terrible and I was afraid that I was really going to lose him.”
“I missed a few days work obviously and nobody had any problems with this and my soon to be old boss was right there with me if I needed anything without any questions.”
“My first day back in office I had a stack of work that needed to get done and I was in a bad mood from lack of sleep and just being stressed out and overwhelmed.”
“The employee with the new company came in to discuss some stuff but realized that he forgot something at his desk. He turned to leave and I still had my head down looking at paperwork.”
“He just happened to start walking out of my office and turned his head back to look at me. I looked up and he was like. ‘I knew it. You were checking out my a**’.”
“Call it lack of sleep, call it lack of caffeine, call it stress. All I could do was look at him and snap.”
“My words, ‘I don’t care if you are straight. I don’t care about you. I’m happily married to a man who is twice the man you will ever be and even if I was single and desperate I wouldn’t even think about touching you with someone else’s pole. Now get the hell out of my office’.”
“My soon to be old boss was walking in my office as this was happening and nodding his head asked if i was ready for our weekly lunch.”
“We went to eat and he asked what was the problem. I filled him in on the while thing.”
“I told him that at this point if wasn’t depending on the severance package I would be done and let the new company finish my job.”
“Old boss went to new owner and told him that this needed to be dealt with and if he didn’t fix the issue with the other person that he was going to have some serious problems.”
“Later new owner and employee with my old boss came into my office and employee was forced to apologize and was suspended for two weeks with no pay.”
“My intentions were to never get anyone in trouble. I’m just trying to get my job done so I can move on with my life into a new life.”
“AITA for getting someone suspended for two weeks?”
OP’s fellow Redditors were then asked to judge who was in the wrong in this situation based on the following acronyms:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Their verdict was pretty cut-and-dried.
“NTA”
“I’ve said this before, and I will say it again.”
“It’s not your actions that got him suspended, it was his.” —peepeepoopoolover09
“…NTA he was being really self centred thinking everyone is interested in him. Normal people don’t randomly presume that someone is checking them out because they looked at someone.” —Disneyfan6428
“Yeah, I think this guy is who ‘drama queen’ was invented for, no matter how straight he is, and you zapped the drama in Scene 1. Good for you.” —RonaldMcFirbank
“Well well well”
“If it isn’t the consequences”
“Of my own actions”
“NTA” —joepanda111
“100% this. It’s not like you went out of your way to force him to say something. He harassed you and then got in trouble for it. This sounds perfectly fine to me.”
“Easily NTA” —Delta2Actual
“NTA, I think straight dudes like this are scared of gay men because they’re worried the gay men will treat them like they treat women.”
“He was being unprofessional & antagonistic, I get you were more colourful than you might normally be but you’ve also maybe spared the next LGBT+ person he comes across. They might not have had the same brass balls as you!” —Needmoresnakes
“To me his behaviour shouts ‘I’m worried gay men view me the way I view women and that makes me uncomfortable, but it’s not because what I do is wrong, it’s the GAYS who are wrong'” —LaPoseur
“Your old boss was right. If rampant homophobia in the workplace isn’t discouraged, it will escalate to bullying and perhaps end in a lawsuit or tragedy. The owner owes it to his employees to ensure that the workplace isn’t hostile.”
“I don’t think you should beat yourself up over this as you didn’t do anything in this situation. The employee is responsible for his own suspension and I must say I am disappointed that its only two weeks.” —Emergency_Yard_6009
Hopefully OP’s new job is a much more inclusive place.