When push comes to shove....

I consider myself a very patient person. I will only rock the boat after being pushed to my limit. One such incident occurred recently.


I've been working at the present company for a few months now. When I started, I was forewarned about the sales manager who was abrupt and was especially crude towards females. I suppose forewarned is forearmed??? Not in this case. Anyhow, my first 2 months was okay, I opted to ignore him completely when he went off on a tangent. Then, his behaviour became intolerable, sexual innuendos of the crudest kind, profanities I've never heard before and habitual tantrums that would see to it that he eventually had his way!! Oh, and did I mention that he would call me or Sarah down to his work station with the pretext of discussing work, only to TRY and grope us!! NOT on his life!!


When he noticed that we ignored him and only spoke to him with regards to work and nothing else, he became worse. Trying to talk to the manager was a mission because he reasoned that the guy was an asset to the company!! Apparently he's been in the business for 25 years and he is the only one here who has the most technical knowledge of the products being sold!! Hogwash I tell you!! I literally had to drag myself out of bed to get to work, something I now dreaded and did not enjoy any longer. Then one Monday morning he and Sarah had a huge fall out and he refused to apologise for his behaviour. She called a meeting with the manager with him sitting in on the conversation. She had her say and he was adamant that he had done nothing wrong!! She stormed out of the office, refusing to come back until he apologised or resigned. He certainly had no intention of doing so. Sarah resigned the following day, she completed her notice period working from home.


My patience was running out, I had to do something about this situation before it became worse than it already was. I had 2 options, find another job or stick it out. Well, I decided that there was no way that I could allow someone to manipulate me like this. So, one morning I arranged a meeting with the manager. The best thing about this meeting was that I was as cool as a cucumber and I said everything I needed to say without being rude. I told him that I could no longer tolerate this guy's behaviour and that if there weren't any changes soon, I'd have to find myself another job. I also told him that in no way do I encourage this employee and why is it that nothing has been done about his behaviour??? Then I threw the bomb, I told the manager if I left the company, I wouldn't do so quietly as Sarah had done!! I would take the matter further and he knew that the company would also get into trouble because they have done nothing to stop this particular employee. The manager promised to have a word with him privately and he finally agreed that this employee's behaviour should come to an end.


As quickly as the following day I noticed a change in this man's behaviour. He addressed me respectfully without shouting, he said 'thank you' and 'please'. The sexual innuendos were non existent and the profanities disappeared altogether!! Now, that's more like it!! My work environment has now become more pleasant and more productive too. This has been another learning curve for me, ultimately, we are the ones who are in control of how people treat us.