I know that title sounds a creepy but I promise it's not that bad. It's going to be a bit before I get to that part of the story but the Tara Reade story made me think about it.
You may have heard of Tara Reade's allegations against Joe Biden as they have gathered steam in the last month. They were first reported in early March with a blurb in most publications and then quickly forgotten except those with political axes to grind. The prime driver were news sites with leanings to Bernie Sanders who wanted Joe to drop out of the race to allow their candidate to take the nomination. The more moderate news sites are/were holding off to gather information in order to report facts and not a she said/he said.
As the story has gathered steam, we've seen sites dedicated to Donald Trump pick up the charge too. Trump himself hasn't said much at this point and it's a smart choice considering his own history with the #MeToo movement.
Twenty-five women have accused Donald of raping them and it's a little difficult to think at least a few of them aren't true considering his
"grab them by the pussy" tape.
Reade's charge is that when she worked for Biden he made inappropriate comments along with several unwanted advances, the most serious was pinning her to a wall and doing to her what Trump alleged in his infamous tape.
#MeToo has been around for a lot longer than most realize.
Tarana Burke started using the hashtag on MySpace in 2006 as a way for women to share their stories of sexual abuse and as a way to show these women they weren't alone. #MeToo never entered popular culture until 2017 when the
New Yorker published a series of articles against Harvey Weinstein. These articles spark set off a long-simmering firestorm in Hollywood and it spread to the media, politics, and the business world. The effect is still reverberating now and will for a very long time.
I'm not sure why it took so long and I'm sure sociologists have written papers why many remain quiet until a single person stands up giving others the courage to join the cause. With Weinstein, it was certainly because he was not shy at ruining the careers of people that didn't cater to his whims.
I do think one spark was the election of Donald Trump. In 2016, the United States elected a man who'd almost surely raped a woman though he'd never claim it as such. His election led many women to redirect their anger into things like a women's march and others to run for office. In 2017, Weinstein finally got called out. I doubt these situations are unrelated.
Sometimes the world changes fast. Sometimes it changes so fast that you don't have time to consider what you really want to achieve.
With the whirlwind came the phrase 'Believe all women'. The theory was that as studies showed 90% of women reporting a rape/assault were telling the truth, we needed to believe them all to give them a safe space. It made sense as men like Weinstein and Trump rely on their reputations when they call women liars. No one who has been abused wants to relive that experience. It takes a very strong person to go to the authorities and studies show a minority of women actually do this. So hence we should 'Believe All Women'.
The hope is if we 'Believe All Women' more women might feel comfortable coming forward.
After Weinstein, a tidal wave of allegations against powerful men flowed into media outlets though most of the stories focused on famous actors, politicians, and media personalities. Many people, mostly men, had abused their positions of authority and many were promptly fired.
Yet in blanket statements lays a danger.
My concern from the beginning has been a statement like 'Believe all Women' is ripe for abuse. I'd personally change to this phrase to 'Support All Women, Investigate their Claims, and Prosecute the Guilty'. Unfortunately, it's not as catchy but I do think it would yield better results but if consistently applied.
Either way, the #MeToo movement was cathartic and I've cheered the cause. It has caused many men, including me, to think back on their actions of a lifetime. I'm sure this included Joe Biden. What about Tara Reade? Did Biden abuse his position of authority? Are we supporting her? Have we investigated her claim? Can we prosecute? What is true?
I will get back to Tara Reade/Joe Biden but here's where I get to my own #MeToo story.
*****
Early in my career, I was hired as a manager for a company with a staff of twelve. I was young for the position but knew I could handle my primary duties which revolved doing the books and meeting with corporate management to explain the monthly financials.
As it was, I had only women on my clerical staff. This was almost always the case in offices back and mostly true today. I once wondered why this happened and it's two-fold. The first reason is working in an office isn't considered manly and the male ego can't handle it. The second reason is money.
The average wage of my employees back then was around $10/hr and the minimum wage was $4.25/hr. As a point of comparison, our salespeople made around $20/hr at the time, our distribution drivers around $25/hr, and our warehouse people around $20/hr. About 90% of the other departments were staffed by men*. All of the other managers were men.
* I could write a book on the reasons why women weren't in the other departments but I want to stay on topic.
Why would any man apply to be an office worker when they could make more money by moving to a different department? Women, on the other hand, were limited to office and secretarial work and it had been that way since women started entering the workforce in great numbers after World War Two. At my location, we had about 30 women working there while we had about 300 men. We were skewed heavily to men as it was a production facility and the physical nature of the work probably discouraged women from applying (and our managers from hiring those that did apply). Expand that type of hiring practice to society as a whole and you'll find the law of supply and demand meant even as overall pay for workers increased, the overabundance of women wanting clerical work meant clerical wages remained low.
I never thought much about it when I first started working. I never questioned it until I did a review with an especially outspoken employee who asked me something that has stuck with me to this day:
"Every day, I pay out millions of dollars of the company's money in invoices. So why do I make less in salary than the janitor? He pushes a broom all day."
When I first started, my feeling was a person's salary was between them and their employer. You negotiate a wage and that's the end of the discussion. If an employee isn't happy, they can leave but when you think about the relative importance of both jobs in her complaint, it's silly to compare. My payables clerk had a responsibility many more times of most managers in the company, let alone the janitorial staff.
I'm sure the unskilled male laborers of that time expected this to continue.
In truth, the American economy thirty years ago was going through the last stages of shedding high paying physical labor jobs for today's information-based jobs. It's one of the reasons men, and particularly white men, are so angry today. They saw their father able to pay their bills without a college degree or needing their wife's help. That world has become less and less available to them.
But I digress...
Thirty years ago, I was a young manager in charge of an office of females, and looking back I think I did a good job considering my inexperience. Luckily for me, most of them knew their job and didn't need my help. That allowed me to get involved in other departments.
One area that needed my constant assistance was inventory control. Every month we'd lose tens of thousands of dollars in inventory which led to countless loud conversations between our distribution and warehouse managers.
It took me a single conversation to realize that neither man was good at math or good at their job. Both men had been sales managers for decades but customers had grown tired of them. When I asked the general manager why they were put there, he said he didn't want to fire them for fear of an age discrimination lawsuit. He 'promoted' both to a position where he thought they'd cause less trouble, then got me involved when his decision made a bad situation worse.
*** I'm sure you are starting to wonder what this has to do with #MeToo but I'm getting there ***
In theory, inventory control isn't hard in a distribution warehouse as you have a finite number of ways the product enters and exits a building. At the beginning of a month, you have a beginning inventory. It is adjusted in the following ways:
(+) Inventory warehouse employees unload trucks that arrive from the production location.
(-) Inventory warehouse employees load on trucks which is taken by drivers to customers.
(+) Warehouse employees who unload returns that come from customers.
The formula is simple - Beginning inventory +/- the above adjustments give you an estimated ending inventory. You compare that number to your actual count and get a difference. Ideally, that number is zero.
This is not a hard process unless you have bad management and we had bad management.
Every month the general manager would call me into his office and ask why inventory was out of control. Every month I gave the same answer -- our managers and employees aren't taking it seriously. The GM would then yell at the managers. In turn, the managers yell at their employees and send out pointless memos. Eventually, everyone would end up at my desk asking for help.
((FWIW we all knew the real truth was people were stealing but you can't prove it with bad controls))
As enforcing company controls was part of my job responsibility I had to get involved and found myself spending the majority of my 'free time' trying to find solutions to our inventory problems. The issue wasn't so much these things were hard to figure out but they took time, patience, and follow-up.
It was hopeless until the day our inventory clerk quit. I wasn't too upset when I learned she had turned in her notice. I'd told her bosses she was part of the problem soon after I arrived. I think the General Manager saw my enthusiastic response as an opportunity. He told me since I'd wanted her gone, perhaps I should hire the new person.
That's when I first met Wendy.
I hadn't hired many people at the time but one thing you realize when you interview entry-level positions is many times hiring comes down to choosing the least bad option. It's impossible to know if a hire is going to work out until you've worked with them for a couple months. Wendy is one of the few who I knew would do well within five minutes of our interview.
She was a college student. She was willing to work a split shift -- meaning early morning and then come back in the afternoon. It worked for her because she could work, take morning/noon classes, then work again. She sounded excited because I told her it was ok if she used the inventory office for homework after she clocked out.
The reason I liked Wendy right away was her answers to my questions were concise yet formed a complete thought. She was dressed in an understated manner, somehow knowing either by luck or design, this job was not going to be glamorous. Getting dirty was part of the job.
I came away from the interview confident Wendy was the one. First, she showed clear intelligence and drive. Second, she spoke well and had a self-confidence that I hoped would get others to take her seriously. The only downside I saw was ... Wendy was cute.
As a boss, you aren't supposed to notice things like a person's attractiveness. As a human, it is impossible not to notice. In a warehouse where the ratio of men to women is 10:1, I knew it could be a problem.
Men are pigs. Young men are even bigger pigs. You can't trust any of them. Not even the 'straight-A student, looks clean-cut, he's so nice' type. I know because that's how most people described me back then. I also remember some of the thoughts running through my head that day.
My first thought when I saw Wendy was to wonder if she had a boyfriend. I'm sure if we met in a bar and had a conversation we might have hit it off and this would be a different type of article. Instead, I met her in an interview and while my 'pig-man brain' occasionally would interject a stray thought from time to time, my 'nice-guy' who 'knows he's a manager' side would push them out.
I once worked with an office manager who would only hire ugly girls for that reason. His reasoning was ugly girls rarely become a distraction. His reasoning was sexist and misogynist and sadly true. Have I mentioned men are pigs? We all know women should be judged on their competence and nothing else. Every person should be given the same treatment. Most men know that. A few act on their pig-man brain influences.
I forwarded Wendy's resume to the warehouse manager with my recommendation. A week later she was hired.
It's so much fun working with an employee that 'gets it' right away. On Wendy's first day, I sat down with her to go over her job duties. I explained how our inventory system worked and she didn't just nod but asked good challenging questions that let me know she understood. I was overjoyed to know we might finally be able to fix things.
The GM grilled me hard when our results didn't improve in the first month. He made it clear, the responsibility for the inventory was now mine. I told him progress would take time but I was sure we had turned the corner. I'd met with Wendy in her office a couple times a week and she came to my office whenever she had questions. I saw her just about every day. I could see a clear improvement in the process even if the results didn't show on the bottom line right away.
I enjoyed going to her office in the afternoons. She worked in the back of the warehouse, a hive of activity in the morning, but quiet seclusion when our drivers were still out making deliveries.
Where once sat a jumble of papers, she had created a filing system, color-coded charts, and Excel tracking spreadsheets. She got the basics almost immediately but that didn't mean she wasn't bombarding me to improve things even more. Every time we met in her office, I'd see an occasional warehouseman walk in, take orders from her, and walk out. All my fears about them bothering her were groundless. She had it completely under control in a couple of months.
We made a good team. As a newly hired manager, it was nice to realize I had the ability to fix problems that had plagued the facility for years. Wendy and I had worked hard to fix things and inevitably our work brought us closer together. It didn't take long until I sensed she might feel something more. I've always been a little clueless at taking hints from women, but with Wendy, I was pretty sure. We had flirty discussions. Her leg accidentally brushed against mine under the table more often than could be written off as mere coincidence.
I wouldn't have dared to start anything while she was still employed with us. At that point, I was too naive. I thought companies would fire a manager caught in dating an employee but that didn't stop my pig-man brain from chattering in my ear.
The rumors started about us started about the third month.
By then, our inventory improvements began showing up on the financials. My boss was happy. My boss' boss was happy. I was happy too and it showed. I was living four hours drive from anyone I knew. I was working 80 hours a week and had felt alone for months. It was nice meeting someone and feeling a connection. One day my boss smiled as he said that all the time I was spending in the inventory office was paying off. He didn't say anything specifically but I knew by the smirk on his face what he meant. He'd heard the rumors. The sales manager was blunter. 'Is it true you're hitting that?'
In truth, I was spending too much time in inventory. Wendy didn't need my help anymore and the office had a lot of other problems that needed my attention. I called the warehouse manager and Wendy into a meeting. I explained the review process Wendy and I had developed and explained it would now be his responsibility to work with her to keep inventory under control. I would be available any time they had questions and would meet with them on a monthly basis from that point forward.
I saw Wendy wasn't happy with the change. It was only later I understood the reason.
The warehouse manager's name was Joe. As I mentioned earlier, he'd once been a sales manager but he'd fallen out of favor with customers. I didn't know all the details but most likely, it was the same reason I didn't want him in the warehouse position. Joe wasn't especially smart.
The one thing Joe did have in abundance was a salesperson's charisma. He was the type that could go into any room and by the time he left, not only know every person's name in the room but their wife and kids as well. I genuinely envied that trait.
Joe and I got along well once his inventory issues were fixed but I challenged him on the importance of followup with Wendy so he understood her process.
* I'm sure some people who read this are thinking of my earlier comment where my employee pointed out that she was making less than a janitor. In this situation, Wendy was making $320/week part-time and had fixed the problem. Joe was making about $50,000/yr.
I could see Wendy continued to streamline the process over the next couple of months. I was happy to see she didn't need my help -- she understood how to fix problems. I don't remember the first time she told me she thought Joe was 'gross'. I'm sure she said it a couple of times and I remember agreeing with her. I'm sure I mostly blew it off.
I did miss seeing Wendy every day. She stopped by my office from time to time to ask questions but I blew her off. Part of the reason was I've never been good at multi-tasking and I don't like interruptions. Another part of the reason was I knew I'd grown to like her more than a manager should.
This wasn't the only time it happened in my career. When you work closely with someone it's hard not to develop feelings of some sort. It's important to shut them down -- to not act -- to not react. This was my first experience of this type and I'm sure I pushed too hard with Wendy. It must have confused her.
I did have a lot of negative feelings towards Joe. He tried to get involved with inventory for a month or two but couldn't understand it and backed off. Thankfully Wendy was handling it for him but that didn't make it right. Wendy was the one answering all the inventory questions at my meeting, at the meeting with my boss and with my bosses boss. Joe was clueless.
Joe was a nice guy. He'd developed a habit during his years of being a salesperson on meeting you with a huge smile, a warm handshake, and what felt like over-enthusiastic banter if you didn't see him talk to everyone the same way. In all the time I knew Joe, I don't think I ever saw him greet someone with less than unbridled joy. With people he especially liked, the handshake would turn to a hug and sometimes into a backrub. I don't like being touched so this annoyed me. I mentioned it to my boss and he said it was Joe's idiosyncrasies. It was Joe being friendly. I never got used to it and never once considered how they might affect a twenty-year-old girl working in a secluded back office.
Wendy had worked for the company for about six months when she shut my office door. I could tell by the look on her face it was serious. I assumed it had something to do with a big inventory discrepancy. I was wrong.
"I want to file a sexual harassment claim."
She took me completely by surprise. I'm sure I sat silent for a couple of seconds but it felt like a minute. A tinge of guilt came over me.
As I recall, my response wasn't very profound as I uttered something like "Ohhh?"
I didn't dare say anything else. Wendy and I weren't working very close by that time. She was practically running the department. She didn't need my help. I wasn't sure why she'd come to me. It took me until halfway into our conversation before I realized she'd come to me because according to the company's org chart, I was on-site Human Resources.
At that point, I'd never had any HR training nor much in terms of actual experience. Most people went straight to the GM with their HR concerns. The other complaints were mostly about medical bills which I took to my payroll person handled.
Wendy had come to me with an actual HR issue because she trusted me. It was something I had to address. I asked, "What happened?"
Wendy told me the problem began just after she started. Joe would come into her office and lean down close over her shoulder as she explained to him her system. Many times he'd put both hands on her shoulder and start a massage. She said she told him to stop over and over but he kept doing it.
There are memories in your life when you say or do something and they replay in your brain from that point forward and cringe every time. The next minute is one of those times for me.
My immediate thought was one of relief. I don't remember my exact words but it was something like "That's Joe being Joe. He does that to everyone."
Wendy started crying. She shouted at me through her tears. "It's creepy and it's weird and I want him to stop."
I am proud to say I knew I'd fucked up. I knew I needed help. I also knew what my boss would say if I took Wendy's complaint to him. My next move was the smartest thing I'd do during the entire ordeal though it took me many years to realize it. I called a corporate HR staff lawyer, a lady named Theresa. We'd worked closely together in the past and I trusted her.
Theresa answer was firm, "You need to file a sexual harassment form." She gave me the form number so I could copy one from the company handbook. I asked if we had to go that route as I knew the shitstorm it would cause. Our policy at the time was if you filed a sexual harassment complaint against a manager, it notice of the complaint be copied to everyone in the company including the company president.
Theresa proceeded to give me the nicest ass-chewing I've ever received. She never raised her voice but made it clear that once I called her it couldn't be undone. The only way she wouldn't take it forward is if Wendy rescinded the complaint. I asked Wendy if she wanted to proceed and through tears she said yes.
It took Wendy a couple minutes to complete the form, sign it, and hand it back to me. The tears had dried on her face by this time and I wanted to say something to make her feel better. I knew that was impossible but I was feeling so many things. I wanted to apologize for leaving her alone with Joe. I also wanted to give her a hug which I knew would make a bad situation infinitely worse.
As she passed me the paper, she asked if I thought she was doing the right thing.
I knew I couldn't help her. I said, "Only you know that." I'm sure she expected more from me.
Wendy turned and left without a word. I signed my part of the form before faxing it to corporate. As soon as I hit send I made another copy and headed to the GM's office to tell him the bad news.
I don't remember his exact response but ...
"What the fuck where you thinking?"
... was the general message. His next message was just as clear. "I want to talk to her."
I knew Wendy wasn't in any shape to talk to anyone. I started to object but my boss wasn't in the mood to argue. Wendy's office was a good five-minute walk from the front so I had plenty of time to think about the situation but I couldn't think of a good solution. As I walked her to the GM's office she asked, "Am I in trouble?" I tried to reassure her she was not though in truth I had no idea what my boss was going to do.
I can clearly remember the look on her face when the GM told me to step outside so he could talk to her alone. No fear. No hint of tears this time. I doubted I would have looked as brave.
One thing I didn't realize at the time is HR departments aren't set up to protect employees. They are there to protect corporations from having problems with their employees. Sometimes the two goals intersect but many times they don't.
In this case, the General Manger convinced Wendy to take back the form. He convinced her we could take care of it in house. When she agreed the he called the company's lead HR attorney and together they made sure the form never made it to the Vice President of HR.
I found the whole process disappointing. Had they realized how much guts it took for her to file that form?
When I first started working as a manager I thought everything was black or white. Yes or no. Right or wrong. A sexual harassment claim against Joe would have gone in Joe's file but as it was later explained to me, it also would have gone in the GMs and mine too. Not in any physical sense. If the form had gotten filed, we would have been branded as managers that couldn't handle our problems in-house. It would have been a chit higher-up managers would hold against us if they needed at some point in the future.
This was when I learned that management is a game where many times companies pretend to follow certain rules as pawns get sacrificed along the way. I also learned company culture is almost as important as a company's salary structure if you want to attract and retain the best workers.
The next day, I asked Wendy if she really did willingly rescind her complaint form. She claimed she did. She said the General Manager said he would talk to Joe and make sure it didn't happen again. Theresa in HR was pissed when I called her to talk about it. Her boss had given her a similar tongue lashing as the one I'd gotten from my General Manager.
Joe came to me and looked genuinely hurt when he found out. That didn't stop him from later making mocking comments around me hoping he hadn't gotten too close. Joe never gave me a backrub or a pat on the back from that day forward, the only good outcome from the whole enterprise.
As for Wendy, I'm sure he told everyone in the warehouse to watch out for her because she was trouble. I'm also sure most of the people ignored him because everyone knew Joe was a bad manager. Wendy complained to me about it and I mentioned it to the General Manager. He rolled his eyes at me when I told him. I have no idea if he ever said anything to Joe.
A month later Wendy turned in her notice. On her last day, I asked her to come to my office but she claimed she didn't have time. I went to her office which I saw was covered in balloons with a cake on her desk. In the two years I worked at that facility, this was the only time the warehousemen ever pooled together money to give someone a party. Everyone was sad she was leaving.
I told Wendy I was sorry. I told her I wished things had turned out different. I told her I was going to miss our conversations. I knew I was going to miss her in more ways than I could say out loud but to say more would risk making me look like a creep and she didn't deserve that. She thanked me for my help and we shook hands. I never saw her again.
I heard through the grapevine she graduated from college a few years later. They said she got a really good job at a Fortune 500 company working in Human Resources. I've always wondered if her job of choice was because of her experiences with us. The thought haunts me sometimes but I will never know the answer.
Our inventory problems returned within a couple of months of Wendy's departure. Within a year, Joe was pushed out of his warehouse job. They moved him back to sales.
*****
This story may seem quaint in comparison with Tara Reade's allegations or the stories about Harvey Weinstein's rapes. Wendy wasn't shoved against a wall or forced to have sex but she was put in an uncomfortable situation. She was forced to endure something she asked to stop. She went to someone to ask for help and was met with disappointment. Wendy left the company a little sadder and a little less innocent. We took that from her.
Like Tara Reade, the situation I described above is from my memories but memories fade over time. Time has a way of distorting our memories. Tara Reade has changed her story many times over the years. Joe Biden says it didn't happen. Who is telling the truth?
Is my story above true? It's the way I remember it but it is human nature to make ourselves the heroes of our of own journey. I wonder how others might feel. I'd bet the General Manager wouldn't remember it. Wendy almost surely would. Would Joe? It's doubtful.
I've thought a lot about Wendy since the #MeToo movement started. I always did my best to separate work and personal life but that doesn't mean I didn't use my position to wrong someone. Perhaps I turned a blind eye when I should have spoken up. Am I the boss in another person's story? Then I wonder how Joe be viewed if it happened today? What would a company today do when faced with the same situation?
Nothing is ever black and white. Everything should be viewed on a sliding scale. A single backrub isn't the same as dozens of backrubs after being told no. Is a dozen unwanted backrubs worse than a 'grab of the pussy'? At what point should a man be written up? At what point should a politician drop out of a race because of allegations of rape? These are impossible questions because every situation is different yet #MeToo requires us to deal in absolutes.
Is Tara telling the truth? Is Joe Biden? They are the only two that really know the answer and I doubt the rest of us ever hear the truth. In that case, there are no good answers. Only questions that will never be fully resolved.
