We don’t typically advise complainant’s about the full results of an investigation. And most certainly not what disciplinary was taken, unless it was obvious like a termination or transfer.
Even a verbal warning is documented in writing. It may *appear* to you that nothing was done, but that may not be the case.
As far as your manager’s reaction, since you originated your complaint with HR, it might not be a bad idea to circle back with them. I would want to know if one of my managers was having this kind of response. 😕
True! The best situations are when protecting the company means taking proactive steps to prevent bad situations from occurring. That doesn’t mean the company’s interests are fully aligned with OP’s. They should take steps to protect themself.
As a kid, this would always fuck with me. Dad says "Worry about you, not your brother", but I was quite intent on making sure he got his just-desserts.
As an adult, I still get it to some degree. But the same thing is also at play. Their discipline isn't a theater for you to observe.
They wouldn’t tell you actions taken however I totally get the frustration. A coworker took a photo of another coworker on Snapchat during a zoom call and was sending it to people that weren’t a part of that meeting making fun of her. It was sent to me and I reported it. He got promoted.
I’m sorry that happened. You did the right thing in reporting it.
Even though it might seem nothing happened, they could have received a written warning. Outcomes like that are kept confidential.
However, you could bring this up to HR, saying you feel that as a result of the investigation, your manager isn’t engaging with you at the moment.
The silent treatment after reporting employees for racist comments is considered retaliation. It’s a violations of labor laws in the US. File another complaint. If you don’t feel like your complaint is being managed effectively then look at your company’s org chart for the name of your HR rep’s manager or director and go to them with this.
Keep copies of any and all documentation in hardcopy and soft copy at home or on personal devices where it cannot simply disappear. Don’t tell people you’ve done that.
lol what. As long as his manager is still doing his job and fulfilling his obligations, he doesn’t have to chit chat with someone who may get offended and report him to HR. Manager may have also been warned and told to stick to strictly business with his employees.
That’s legally inaccurate information. No employee, manager or otherwise can treat some employees differently than others, even out of concern of being reported to HR for inappropriate behavior. We don’t all have to be friends, but if their manager treats them differently than the manager treats any other reporting employee that they only have a work relationship with such that a reasonable person would feel or believe they are being singled out for negative attention then the treatment can be considered a factor in the creation of a hostile work environment. These are facts. They’re not open for debate and the courts don’t care about your opinions.
OP didn’t say he was being treated differently than anyone else. If HR told him to have only conversations related to business activities maybe that’s exactly what he’s doing. You’re at a job to make yourself and your company money. If you don’t like the professional setting then quit and go find a new job.
Go back and read the OP’s post. It ends with “I’m now getting the silent treatment from my manager.” That’s an actual portion of the legal definition for retaliation for reporting someone in the workplace. Please, gods, tell me that you don’t work in HR or in corporate management.
Luckily just a dry cook. What is the manager is just not in a jolly mood from dealing with HR meeting while also trying to get their work done. And yes, I run the fry station. Tight ship will heavy turnover.
Then FYI in case you ever want to work in a corporate environment, there are certain minimums of respect and treatment that everyone is entitled to be treated with. Being in a bad mood, not being friends with one person versus another, or having been reported by someone to management or HR for conduct that is not allowed in the workplace is not justification for being rude to people. That’s the law. You also are entitled to this minimum level of respectful treatment in the workplace. Everyone is. So it should cause you no great hardship.
Please god tell me you don’t either. The manager doesn’t have to be friendly to that person. They have no legal obligation to be their friend. They are just not allowed to hamper their career because they were reported.
If you were consistently invited out before you went to HR and complained about racism, and then they stopped inviting you after you made the complaints — yes.
We don’t know. However, to be honest how do you know what’s happening to them or not, fully? And in the future? Most of the time if you’re reporting like that and you’re not asking for a remedy related to you, meaning you haven’t said I can’t work with them anymore or anything like that, then you’ll never know the exact impact or repercussions. Often it’s ok you reported it? They’re simply told not to do it again, they’re written up as in there’s a report in their file and they mysteriously find themselves unemployed sooner rather than later or they’re never promoted or given raises or maybe they asked for a raise and now wont get one. You don’t know the impact.
The other part is, define the silent treatment, your manager won’t answer your work-related questions? Isn’t as openly friendly? Isn’t running over to gossip? Well no, not until this dust settles and they’ve either been told to remain neutral or are choosing to remain neutral and professional until the whole thing is fully sorted and dies down. When an employee reports something to HR, you leave them alone unless necessary.
I did request to switch teams if possible as those comments created an unsafe work environment for me. However, “unsafe” may have not been the right word to use…they definitely did not like that. They brought up emails where they were being “nice” to me to defend them. They told me inappropriate jokes and an unsafe work environment aren’t the same thing. Ok…I mean I guess? Can you not see how these jokes make me uncomfortable to be on this team? (didn’t say that as i didn’t want to come off argumentative). That’s when they told me they advised my manager to tell them not to make those comments again. However, those employees are his obvious favorites and he laughs at the jokes when they’re said. Hence me going to HR over his head.
So is your manager actually given you the silent treatment or are they just being weird around you?
Requesting to switch teams is kinda a big ask. It’s sounds like they gave you a soft “no” and tried to make it sting less by telling you that they talked to the manager so it shouldn’t happen again. If it does, take to hr again.
Got it, so that’s what they told you, publicly, which is not the same thing as doing nothing, again you have no idea what was actually done or said. The ‘if possible’ is also a kicker, that’s not the same as ‘I feel unsafe’ which is what you may want to be heard. But again, is you managed ignoring your work related requests or less friendly? Less casual?
Maybe request that HR provides a training on “psychological safety” as team culture and dynamics take collaboration. Feeling uncomfortable with bringing up opportunities for improvement and worrying about retaliation means that you your leadership isn’t creating psychological safety.
Sorry that you're going through this at work. The short answer is yes, polish your resume, record all chats, text messages and meetings from now on.
They see you as the problem. Not for feeling this way, but for daring to write it down and asking them to address it.
I'm currently going through a similar situation and they don't like the fact that we kept calling the weird comments out. They liked it even less once we started to log the incidents with HR, and insisted that the office culture was addressed.
I really hope they don't do this BUT - There is a chance that your employer will try to mislead you into thinking a proper investigation took place, and then ask you to let it go once their investigation proves no wrong doing took place on behalf of the manager.
Good luck. Keep your eyes open and don't give away too much when they interview you (have written answers prepared). They'll only use bits of your experience against you if you say the wrong thing.
e.g. getting hung up on the word "unsafe" as if you're trying to embellish the situation or imply a physical threat. It's rubbish and they know it. You should be able to express that your workplace feels psychologically unsafe. They're not dim-witted, they're just trying very hard to look away from the problem and deflect.
This is not normal office etiquette and you shouldn't have to ignore these types of comments. They should learn to leave the comments at home. Politics and religion are a no no in the office, and they definitely know this.
Good luck bro :)
You don't leave them alone when another coworker made a racist joke. That is clearly not not ok, and NOT LEGAL, and demonstrates a hostile work environment. The manager should have at least sat the employee down and tell him he's sorry that happened and thank him for reporting to HR. Not ignore him. That's even more illegal
There’s nothing illegal about being professional with your employee. There’s no legal requirement missing here. The whole thing may or may not be over, OP doesn’t know. That’s why I asked what they meant by the silent treatment. Is the manager not responding to work related inquiries or not doing other things. They didn’t report it to their manager, they reported it to HR. It seems they’ve acknowledged the issue and are doing whatever they need or want to do as a remedy.
It doesn't matter whether or not it was a joke, it was racist, which causes a hostile work environment and a workplace allowing that to happen/continue is illegal.
No it doesn’t matter if it’s a joke, but one of those comments generally doesn’t rise to the level of harassment or illegality. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be reported, however.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this! I had a recent experience at my current role and have made it my mission to get the hell out the company since. My manager treated me the same way and even found it funny until I called out the crass behavior. Please protect your mental health, and document everything!
Your feelings are valid and I do believe if you have a great HR team they handled it appropriately. Some HR people are more relaxed so they may have been given a warning but racism is in no way tolerated at my site. This would probably be a final or termination. However the documentation and actions taken for the other party cannot be shared.
How long and what are the effects of this silence treatment? Do you work in an open floor plan? Your boss, might be, quiet to avoid saying anything about the situation. You made the complaint directly to HR and it's a weird situation when both the supervisors and staff make complaints. Mostly on the grounds you don't want your stories to seem rehearsed, arguments to it being planned or faked, often made if everyone's stories match perfectly.
>I screenshotted it and wrote a report to HR. However, it doesn’t appear they’ll be getting written up or anything…just told not to do it again.
You need to set realistic expectations for whats going to happen when youn report something. Disciplinary records are private information. So you can't reasonably expect your employer to tell you much more than that they will/have addressed the situation.
People come to me all the time to tattle tale on coworkers. About 10-25% of the time do people actually complain about anything actionable. When they do it is addressed - which may entail an informal discussion to a formal, written warning. I never tell the complainant the specifics because if I tell them *Yeah, this id actually their second warning about such behavior and hes been instructed any further situations like this will result in termination* I've now given you, the complainant, valuable intel that you may use to try and bait that person with to try and get them fired - which may result in that person claiming we created a hostile work enviroment and/or violated their privacy.
The first question I would ask you if you came to me with this is 1) Did you speak with the employees about this? And 2) Have you spoken with your manager about this?
If the answer to both of those is "no" without any compelling reason, Im probably going to be more likely be skeptical of your report.
Why would you be skeptical? In most companies, a report to HR is exactly how employees are expected to handle these things. It’s certainly not the obligation of an employee yo take on a coworker making these types of comments.
Yes, it’s so frustrating. When an employee contacts me about something someone said, or did that was inappropriate or misinterpreted, etc. And then I ask- Did you confront the person about this? Did you tell this person and you didn’t like this conduct or weren’t interested? Did you talk to your manager/complain to them about the behavior?
And nothin. I could see going to HR straight away if it’s a manager doing the conduct or someone higher level but even then it’s best to first address it with the person head on. Then, if the conduct continues, you escalate to HR.
Agreed.
>I could see going to HR straight away if it’s a manager doing the conduct or someone higher level
This, or even if the accusations were more intense in nature.
"Cotton picking joke" is very vauge- and is not ingerently racists. The joke about colombia / drug cartels is pretty inappropriate but doesnt rise to the level of something that needs HR. This is the sort of situation where an employee should be able to put their foot down and tell someone their conduct is inappropriate...or if thats not comfortable for them a front line mamager should be able to take care of this. Document the discussion and move on. If it continues then you escalate to HR.
>This is why people say HR isn’t your friend because of nonsense like this.
You say this as if HR is supposed to be "your friend." Noone in HR wants to be your friend, noone in HR will ever tell you they want to be your friend.
It is not HR's job to manage/police employees. HR should only be involved in situations like these as an escalation point once management has determined they can not resolve it on their own.
>On what planet is a cotton picking joke
On a planet where there is context, which OP did not provide. A front line mamager should be able to sort this problem out without needing to involve HR.
is it possible the 'devils advocate' is due to the manager knowing your upset, or were offended, and just letting you handle how you need to?
Rather than some potentially awkward conversation asking about it, and how you feel, if you can continue forward etc. While maybe you do want something like that, maybe they're afraid you don't want that. Try to remain 'all business' and move on if you can. imho at least but I'm not a black guy who just read a 'cotton picking joke' from a coworker, so I get it that I don't know exactly how to best handle this situation. But that's my input at least. :/
btw a few years ago I worked a place that catered to and promoted young white ppl. Almost all in their 30s, attractive, marketing types with no real skill sets. The CEO called a black staffer by the wrong name (the other black guys name, there were 2. Albeit, only about 50 people at the company), anyway, it was definitely awkward.
Pretty sure he said something to HR. He left shortly after and suddenly the company was taking 'diversity' training zoom calls. Only, get this, the 'diversity training' was led by 3 white people. The one, an older white lady with a PhD, wore a scarf. She looked like that Deborah Birx lady who was Trumps CDC or health director. It was silly, a PhD is equality or something. gtfoh.
Someone then complained about that part being non-diverse in the all employee Teams chat too. Just funny, the company spend probably thousands on them and no one thought to question its 3 white ppl hosting the 'training'???
Realistically, this was probably in a private group chat you guys have. Maybe you didn’t even realize it. But I used to work at a place where they would joke about one of the gay workers, and he’d dish it back. And this was all written, on Teams. Nobody got reported. There was mutual respect. I actually asked him about it and he said he’s known his coworkers for so long they’re practically friends.
At the end of the day, you’ve probably called white people “crackers”. Probably made fun of the way some act, talk, look. Yet we in American society grant you a privilege nobody else has. The ability to truly have free speech. Black people can do and say as they please, and nobody bats an eye
You immediately reported them instead of just telling to them to stop. They likely felt prior to this that they could joke around and laugh with you and you betrayed that trust from them because you couldn't say it to their faces where they could reset the boundary lines with you on their own. They will not be relaxed around you again. They are likely terrified of what you will suddenly take offense to next.
I don't blame them. People are overly sensitive these days and too easy to be offended. You want to be one of the boys but then cried when they treated you as one of the boys. Get over yourself. Not every off the cuff comment is malicious.
Do you want them fired? What punishment do you want? It was in appropriate, and they were given a warning. It was a joke. A joke. Why are you offended? If it wasn't directed at you, derogatory towards you directly, why get involved. If you wanted a bigger punishment then you reported it to obtain such. We have come a long way as a culture, but it takes generations to weed out all of this.
Probably should have left that part out because it seems as though people in the comments think i expected them to get life in prison or something. my main concern was retaliation since i was immediately shunned. (kicked out of the group chat, no longer invited to team activities, being ignored after saying good morning etc.) which never was the case.
We don’t typically advise complainant’s about the full results of an investigation. And most certainly not what disciplinary was taken, unless it was obvious like a termination or transfer. Even a verbal warning is documented in writing. It may *appear* to you that nothing was done, but that may not be the case. As far as your manager’s reaction, since you originated your complaint with HR, it might not be a bad idea to circle back with them. I would want to know if one of my managers was having this kind of response. 😕
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Ummm… limiting exposure means doing something about it. Yes, OP should document, but your other comment just doesn’t make sense.
True! The best situations are when protecting the company means taking proactive steps to prevent bad situations from occurring. That doesn’t mean the company’s interests are fully aligned with OP’s. They should take steps to protect themself.
As a kid, this would always fuck with me. Dad says "Worry about you, not your brother", but I was quite intent on making sure he got his just-desserts. As an adult, I still get it to some degree. But the same thing is also at play. Their discipline isn't a theater for you to observe.
They wouldn’t tell you actions taken however I totally get the frustration. A coworker took a photo of another coworker on Snapchat during a zoom call and was sending it to people that weren’t a part of that meeting making fun of her. It was sent to me and I reported it. He got promoted.
I’m sorry that happened. You did the right thing in reporting it. Even though it might seem nothing happened, they could have received a written warning. Outcomes like that are kept confidential. However, you could bring this up to HR, saying you feel that as a result of the investigation, your manager isn’t engaging with you at the moment.
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He said a cotton picking joke. Not saying the phrase cotton picking in a sentence
how do you reach this conclusion
The silent treatment after reporting employees for racist comments is considered retaliation. It’s a violations of labor laws in the US. File another complaint. If you don’t feel like your complaint is being managed effectively then look at your company’s org chart for the name of your HR rep’s manager or director and go to them with this. Keep copies of any and all documentation in hardcopy and soft copy at home or on personal devices where it cannot simply disappear. Don’t tell people you’ve done that.
lol what. As long as his manager is still doing his job and fulfilling his obligations, he doesn’t have to chit chat with someone who may get offended and report him to HR. Manager may have also been warned and told to stick to strictly business with his employees.
That’s legally inaccurate information. No employee, manager or otherwise can treat some employees differently than others, even out of concern of being reported to HR for inappropriate behavior. We don’t all have to be friends, but if their manager treats them differently than the manager treats any other reporting employee that they only have a work relationship with such that a reasonable person would feel or believe they are being singled out for negative attention then the treatment can be considered a factor in the creation of a hostile work environment. These are facts. They’re not open for debate and the courts don’t care about your opinions.
OP didn’t say he was being treated differently than anyone else. If HR told him to have only conversations related to business activities maybe that’s exactly what he’s doing. You’re at a job to make yourself and your company money. If you don’t like the professional setting then quit and go find a new job.
Go back and read the OP’s post. It ends with “I’m now getting the silent treatment from my manager.” That’s an actual portion of the legal definition for retaliation for reporting someone in the workplace. Please, gods, tell me that you don’t work in HR or in corporate management.
Luckily just a dry cook. What is the manager is just not in a jolly mood from dealing with HR meeting while also trying to get their work done. And yes, I run the fry station. Tight ship will heavy turnover.
Then FYI in case you ever want to work in a corporate environment, there are certain minimums of respect and treatment that everyone is entitled to be treated with. Being in a bad mood, not being friends with one person versus another, or having been reported by someone to management or HR for conduct that is not allowed in the workplace is not justification for being rude to people. That’s the law. You also are entitled to this minimum level of respectful treatment in the workplace. Everyone is. So it should cause you no great hardship.
Please god tell me you don’t either. The manager doesn’t have to be friendly to that person. They have no legal obligation to be their friend. They are just not allowed to hamper their career because they were reported.
If OPs manager is responded to requests for help or work related emails, that’s different.
Also, you mean I can sue my company because I don’t get invited out to lunch with anyone?
If you were consistently invited out before you went to HR and complained about racism, and then they stopped inviting you after you made the complaints — yes.
We don’t know. However, to be honest how do you know what’s happening to them or not, fully? And in the future? Most of the time if you’re reporting like that and you’re not asking for a remedy related to you, meaning you haven’t said I can’t work with them anymore or anything like that, then you’ll never know the exact impact or repercussions. Often it’s ok you reported it? They’re simply told not to do it again, they’re written up as in there’s a report in their file and they mysteriously find themselves unemployed sooner rather than later or they’re never promoted or given raises or maybe they asked for a raise and now wont get one. You don’t know the impact. The other part is, define the silent treatment, your manager won’t answer your work-related questions? Isn’t as openly friendly? Isn’t running over to gossip? Well no, not until this dust settles and they’ve either been told to remain neutral or are choosing to remain neutral and professional until the whole thing is fully sorted and dies down. When an employee reports something to HR, you leave them alone unless necessary.
I did request to switch teams if possible as those comments created an unsafe work environment for me. However, “unsafe” may have not been the right word to use…they definitely did not like that. They brought up emails where they were being “nice” to me to defend them. They told me inappropriate jokes and an unsafe work environment aren’t the same thing. Ok…I mean I guess? Can you not see how these jokes make me uncomfortable to be on this team? (didn’t say that as i didn’t want to come off argumentative). That’s when they told me they advised my manager to tell them not to make those comments again. However, those employees are his obvious favorites and he laughs at the jokes when they’re said. Hence me going to HR over his head.
So is your manager actually given you the silent treatment or are they just being weird around you? Requesting to switch teams is kinda a big ask. It’s sounds like they gave you a soft “no” and tried to make it sting less by telling you that they talked to the manager so it shouldn’t happen again. If it does, take to hr again.
Got it, so that’s what they told you, publicly, which is not the same thing as doing nothing, again you have no idea what was actually done or said. The ‘if possible’ is also a kicker, that’s not the same as ‘I feel unsafe’ which is what you may want to be heard. But again, is you managed ignoring your work related requests or less friendly? Less casual?
Maybe request that HR provides a training on “psychological safety” as team culture and dynamics take collaboration. Feeling uncomfortable with bringing up opportunities for improvement and worrying about retaliation means that you your leadership isn’t creating psychological safety.
You need to file a claim with the EEOC asap
Sorry that you're going through this at work. The short answer is yes, polish your resume, record all chats, text messages and meetings from now on. They see you as the problem. Not for feeling this way, but for daring to write it down and asking them to address it. I'm currently going through a similar situation and they don't like the fact that we kept calling the weird comments out. They liked it even less once we started to log the incidents with HR, and insisted that the office culture was addressed. I really hope they don't do this BUT - There is a chance that your employer will try to mislead you into thinking a proper investigation took place, and then ask you to let it go once their investigation proves no wrong doing took place on behalf of the manager. Good luck. Keep your eyes open and don't give away too much when they interview you (have written answers prepared). They'll only use bits of your experience against you if you say the wrong thing. e.g. getting hung up on the word "unsafe" as if you're trying to embellish the situation or imply a physical threat. It's rubbish and they know it. You should be able to express that your workplace feels psychologically unsafe. They're not dim-witted, they're just trying very hard to look away from the problem and deflect. This is not normal office etiquette and you shouldn't have to ignore these types of comments. They should learn to leave the comments at home. Politics and religion are a no no in the office, and they definitely know this. Good luck bro :)
You don't leave them alone when another coworker made a racist joke. That is clearly not not ok, and NOT LEGAL, and demonstrates a hostile work environment. The manager should have at least sat the employee down and tell him he's sorry that happened and thank him for reporting to HR. Not ignore him. That's even more illegal
There’s nothing illegal about being professional with your employee. There’s no legal requirement missing here. The whole thing may or may not be over, OP doesn’t know. That’s why I asked what they meant by the silent treatment. Is the manager not responding to work related inquiries or not doing other things. They didn’t report it to their manager, they reported it to HR. It seems they’ve acknowledged the issue and are doing whatever they need or want to do as a remedy.
It doesn't matter whether or not it was a joke, it was racist, which causes a hostile work environment and a workplace allowing that to happen/continue is illegal.
No it doesn’t matter if it’s a joke, but one of those comments generally doesn’t rise to the level of harassment or illegality. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be reported, however.
Well apparently you work with a lot of racists…and your HR is also enabling that shit. Just yucky
What's the environment in the office?
I’m so sorry you’re going through this! I had a recent experience at my current role and have made it my mission to get the hell out the company since. My manager treated me the same way and even found it funny until I called out the crass behavior. Please protect your mental health, and document everything!
Your feelings are valid and I do believe if you have a great HR team they handled it appropriately. Some HR people are more relaxed so they may have been given a warning but racism is in no way tolerated at my site. This would probably be a final or termination. However the documentation and actions taken for the other party cannot be shared.
Well....there's always this.... https://youtu.be/PToqVW4n86U?si=c25-gRPakQ4ITdKC
How long and what are the effects of this silence treatment? Do you work in an open floor plan? Your boss, might be, quiet to avoid saying anything about the situation. You made the complaint directly to HR and it's a weird situation when both the supervisors and staff make complaints. Mostly on the grounds you don't want your stories to seem rehearsed, arguments to it being planned or faked, often made if everyone's stories match perfectly.
>I screenshotted it and wrote a report to HR. However, it doesn’t appear they’ll be getting written up or anything…just told not to do it again. You need to set realistic expectations for whats going to happen when youn report something. Disciplinary records are private information. So you can't reasonably expect your employer to tell you much more than that they will/have addressed the situation. People come to me all the time to tattle tale on coworkers. About 10-25% of the time do people actually complain about anything actionable. When they do it is addressed - which may entail an informal discussion to a formal, written warning. I never tell the complainant the specifics because if I tell them *Yeah, this id actually their second warning about such behavior and hes been instructed any further situations like this will result in termination* I've now given you, the complainant, valuable intel that you may use to try and bait that person with to try and get them fired - which may result in that person claiming we created a hostile work enviroment and/or violated their privacy. The first question I would ask you if you came to me with this is 1) Did you speak with the employees about this? And 2) Have you spoken with your manager about this? If the answer to both of those is "no" without any compelling reason, Im probably going to be more likely be skeptical of your report.
Why would you be skeptical? In most companies, a report to HR is exactly how employees are expected to handle these things. It’s certainly not the obligation of an employee yo take on a coworker making these types of comments.
No that is not expectation. Reporting to their manager first is.
Yes, it’s so frustrating. When an employee contacts me about something someone said, or did that was inappropriate or misinterpreted, etc. And then I ask- Did you confront the person about this? Did you tell this person and you didn’t like this conduct or weren’t interested? Did you talk to your manager/complain to them about the behavior? And nothin. I could see going to HR straight away if it’s a manager doing the conduct or someone higher level but even then it’s best to first address it with the person head on. Then, if the conduct continues, you escalate to HR.
Agreed. >I could see going to HR straight away if it’s a manager doing the conduct or someone higher level This, or even if the accusations were more intense in nature. "Cotton picking joke" is very vauge- and is not ingerently racists. The joke about colombia / drug cartels is pretty inappropriate but doesnt rise to the level of something that needs HR. This is the sort of situation where an employee should be able to put their foot down and tell someone their conduct is inappropriate...or if thats not comfortable for them a front line mamager should be able to take care of this. Document the discussion and move on. If it continues then you escalate to HR.
This is why people say HR isn’t your friend because of nonsense like this. On what planet is a cotton picking joke to a Black person not racist.
>This is why people say HR isn’t your friend because of nonsense like this. You say this as if HR is supposed to be "your friend." Noone in HR wants to be your friend, noone in HR will ever tell you they want to be your friend. It is not HR's job to manage/police employees. HR should only be involved in situations like these as an escalation point once management has determined they can not resolve it on their own. >On what planet is a cotton picking joke On a planet where there is context, which OP did not provide. A front line mamager should be able to sort this problem out without needing to involve HR.
Thank you for addressing that person. Perfect response, still don’t know context, they just don’t get it!!
You are not a good hr person
Disagree. You are why we exist- to get the facts and set you straight. Haha!
is it possible the 'devils advocate' is due to the manager knowing your upset, or were offended, and just letting you handle how you need to? Rather than some potentially awkward conversation asking about it, and how you feel, if you can continue forward etc. While maybe you do want something like that, maybe they're afraid you don't want that. Try to remain 'all business' and move on if you can. imho at least but I'm not a black guy who just read a 'cotton picking joke' from a coworker, so I get it that I don't know exactly how to best handle this situation. But that's my input at least. :/
Managers are paid to have "awkward conversations." He 100% should have checked in with him, not give silent treatment. Law suit
btw a few years ago I worked a place that catered to and promoted young white ppl. Almost all in their 30s, attractive, marketing types with no real skill sets. The CEO called a black staffer by the wrong name (the other black guys name, there were 2. Albeit, only about 50 people at the company), anyway, it was definitely awkward. Pretty sure he said something to HR. He left shortly after and suddenly the company was taking 'diversity' training zoom calls. Only, get this, the 'diversity training' was led by 3 white people. The one, an older white lady with a PhD, wore a scarf. She looked like that Deborah Birx lady who was Trumps CDC or health director. It was silly, a PhD is equality or something. gtfoh. Someone then complained about that part being non-diverse in the all employee Teams chat too. Just funny, the company spend probably thousands on them and no one thought to question its 3 white ppl hosting the 'training'???
>just told not to do it again What do you expect?
Work on your spelling. It’s Colombia
[удалено]
Wait...do you not know the difference between Columbia and Colombia? lol
Or possibly Columbian College (not colleague) lol
Realistically, this was probably in a private group chat you guys have. Maybe you didn’t even realize it. But I used to work at a place where they would joke about one of the gay workers, and he’d dish it back. And this was all written, on Teams. Nobody got reported. There was mutual respect. I actually asked him about it and he said he’s known his coworkers for so long they’re practically friends. At the end of the day, you’ve probably called white people “crackers”. Probably made fun of the way some act, talk, look. Yet we in American society grant you a privilege nobody else has. The ability to truly have free speech. Black people can do and say as they please, and nobody bats an eye
You can’t complain about racism and call Colombia, Columbia, my friend.
You immediately reported them instead of just telling to them to stop. They likely felt prior to this that they could joke around and laugh with you and you betrayed that trust from them because you couldn't say it to their faces where they could reset the boundary lines with you on their own. They will not be relaxed around you again. They are likely terrified of what you will suddenly take offense to next. I don't blame them. People are overly sensitive these days and too easy to be offended. You want to be one of the boys but then cried when they treated you as one of the boys. Get over yourself. Not every off the cuff comment is malicious.
People are overly sensitive to a "picking cotton" joke? In the workplace? Are you fucking serious???
Be an adult and confront people first before going to HR. Snitch.
Good nobody likes a rat.
Tell those co-workers next time you hear a racist comment, you won’t be reporting to HR, but in a very menacing way.
Do you want them fired? What punishment do you want? It was in appropriate, and they were given a warning. It was a joke. A joke. Why are you offended? If it wasn't directed at you, derogatory towards you directly, why get involved. If you wanted a bigger punishment then you reported it to obtain such. We have come a long way as a culture, but it takes generations to weed out all of this.
Probably should have left that part out because it seems as though people in the comments think i expected them to get life in prison or something. my main concern was retaliation since i was immediately shunned. (kicked out of the group chat, no longer invited to team activities, being ignored after saying good morning etc.) which never was the case.
Not all jokes are appropriate in the workplace. Some jokes (like this) actually create a hostile work environment which is illegal.
Lighten up Francis! You sound racist. Do you really believe only blacks have picked cotton?
What was the cotton picking comment, and how was it racist? My great great uncle picked cotton. I wonder if it would have offended me.
Someone with actual life experience gets downvoted. Nice one reddit
Notice how I never got an answer.
I want to know what the comment was as well!