Enjablog

My boss stopped in for a chat this morning shortly after I got in. He had just been notified by HR of my complaint and he wanted to personally apologize for the coworker’s behavior and to assure me that it would not be permitted to continue. He has had trouble with this guy in the past and asked him to cut back on his crass speech and profanity, but it had never really crossed the line before. He was personally offended by the things I had reported to HR and also apologized for not noticing that any of this was going on.

It was made clear to me that if I felt uncomfortable working with racist guy (somehow, that nickname just doesn’t seem sufficient), I didn’t have to. And, as of late, his work hasn’t really been up to par, so for a number of other reasons, the company had already been considering not keeping him on. (He’s a contractor, so I guess all they have to do is not renew his contract. Not exactly sure how that works.) As far as that goes, though, the people who would handle this have been off-site the last few days and RG is out all next week.

Anyway, my boss had a talk with RG and told me that if anything else happens, to let him know or I can go through HR. Fast forward to this afternoon. RG stops in and asks if he “needs to apologize.” He then proceeded to explain to me that he’s harmless, and that his brand of humor doesn’t go over well with everyone. He also understands that we need to interact and work together in a professional manner and he hopes that will be possible. Translation: “I won’t be offensive directly to you anymore. I hope you won’t tell on me again.”

My concern now isn’t that his apology was completely not one. But the fact that I believe that this was him being sincere and trying to make amends. This guy is a complete social nitwit. He missed the point if he thought my complaint was that he was coming on to me or that I didn’t “get” his jokes. My complaint is that regardless of the specific instances, his general behavior around the office is inappropriate. His inability to recognize what is or is not acceptable behavior is the issue here.

Blah. This has wasted enough of my time. I did let my boss know this morning that aside from this one issue, I really enjoy working there. I get to learn new things and use what I learned in school. The rest of the people are pretty cool too, though two more are leaving next week. One to another company and the other one getting transferred. The one being transferred is the one whose brain I need to pick for another 4 days.

That’s all for now. I’ll write about date night tomorrow. :)

LOTD from Fashiongrrl: Annual Techstravaganza. Granted I received it from the one other female TJ alum I keep in touch with, aside from my sister. Whatever.