No offence intended, and I realise the detail at the end about picking up the photo seals it for you, but you do realise that sometimes women lie, right? Unless there was written evidence or some other mitigating detail that was unmentioned, it sounds like you wanted the boss to be automatically fired based on nothing more than an accusation from a woman.
I've been in your bosses position, though not in a sex-related situation. A woman accused me of something in a private meeting with me and our manager. It was quite trivial and I can't even remember exactly what it was (this happened years ago), but it was work related - I was her tech lead but not her direct reporting manager and she was accusing me of undermining her, and gave an example of a specific incident that would indeed have been rather bad: if it were true. Which it wasn't.
Fortunately, this woman was an exceptionally bad liar (she lied repeatedly and frequently and had been caught many times but was mysteriously never let go). The conversation she was referring to had happened over email. So our boss asked her to bring it up so he could read it for himself. She proceeded to open her laptop, load the email and read it with the boss sitting next to her. It completely contradicted her account, and the only thing she could find to say was "oh". I remember me and my manager looking at each other with wtf type expressions on our faces.
That woman was eventually promoted into management.
What you described is a classic he-said/she-said situation. Perhaps he did have a crush on her and was a bit creepy, and the girl decided she didn't like that, but he never propositioned her. It sounds like you nor your team really knew the truth, but assumed you did. So why is it surprising to you that nothing happened? You want guilty until proven innocent to apply to you, if one day the tables are turned?
> I made sure to cite it along with his frequent trips to our area where, when she wasn't there, would pick up her photo of her and her boyfriend and just stare at it along with his fraudulent billing of clients
> you do realise that sometimes women lie, right? Unless there was written evidence or some other mitigating detail that was unmentioned, it sounds like you wanted the boss to be automatically fired based on nothing more than an accusation from a woman.
[..]
> What you described is a classic he-said/she-said situation. Perhaps he did have a crush on her and was a bit creepy, and the girl decided she didn't like that, but he never propositioned her. It sounds like you nor your team really knew the truth, but assumed you did. So why is it surprising to you that nothing happened? You want guilty until proven innocent to apply to you, if one day the tables are turned?
Whoa slow down for a second. I gave a very brief overview of some events that related to the topic at hand. I'm not really sure how you took that to mean myself and my team didn't know the truth and we just assumed but I think you're letting your own, personal experience taint experiences others have gone through.
We knew for sure he propositioned her. I get that you had the opposite happen to you. That sucks and, unfortunately, there isn't a great way at dealing with things on either side (IMO anyway). Too many women are not believed and, at the same time, too many women can be believed.
Regardless, if it makes you feel better about my statements, here is just a few things I remember about my boss from approx a decade ago:
- He had done it to at least two other female colleagues one of which shrugged it off as a "that's how guys act" thing and the other, he actually told me she gets "very loose when she's drunk". As you can imagine all employee celebrations had effectively unlimited company drinks purchased for them at whatever restaurant served alcohol. He enjoyed getting everyone drunk.
- He explained, in great detail, what his penis looked like to all of us including the female employees. He threatened it pull it out multiple times but his brother stopped him (his brother directly reported to him). Then he went on to describe his brother's penis in great detail.
- He once hired a woman who he described as a "dirty feminist" and suggested to several of us that we be careful about "triggering her" if we wanted to go out with her.
- He had us interview a woman who was clearly unqualified for a job. After we declined her he repeatedly asked us to re-interview her with easier questions and that we'd "find something for her to do". This eventually boiled down to him calling her several times at home trying to re-re-reinterview her which she then stopped answering him.
- He once told me and a co-worker of mine that I'd be an amazing salesman if I lost some weight because the older women in corporate jobs would "wet themselves" to give us their business.
- He once told me he hired a PI and found out his wife was talking with a divorce attorney. So, he claims, he poked holes in all their condoms and kept stalling her from taking pregnancy tests later so she'd have another kid with him and stay with him longer.
- He had us do other various projects to try and win a customer's money by doing it for free then billing their larger client for the work. I balked at this and refused to do it then he'd log in and change our hours to be against the large contract.
Honestly I could go on and on. The dude was a sleaze bag. Some of this stuff he bragged to all of the male employees about. Trust me, he did it and trust me, many of us reported a lot of his crap and nothing ever happened beyond him being moved horizontally to a different position because he lost too many employees.
I've been in your bosses position, though not in a sex-related situation. A woman accused me of something in a private meeting with me and our manager. It was quite trivial and I can't even remember exactly what it was (this happened years ago), but it was work related - I was her tech lead but not her direct reporting manager and she was accusing me of undermining her, and gave an example of a specific incident that would indeed have been rather bad: if it were true. Which it wasn't.
Fortunately, this woman was an exceptionally bad liar (she lied repeatedly and frequently and had been caught many times but was mysteriously never let go). The conversation she was referring to had happened over email. So our boss asked her to bring it up so he could read it for himself. She proceeded to open her laptop, load the email and read it with the boss sitting next to her. It completely contradicted her account, and the only thing she could find to say was "oh". I remember me and my manager looking at each other with wtf type expressions on our faces.
That woman was eventually promoted into management.
What you described is a classic he-said/she-said situation. Perhaps he did have a crush on her and was a bit creepy, and the girl decided she didn't like that, but he never propositioned her. It sounds like you nor your team really knew the truth, but assumed you did. So why is it surprising to you that nothing happened? You want guilty until proven innocent to apply to you, if one day the tables are turned?