When I was in my late 20s, I was working on a project where I sat next to a guy named Eric (yes, his real name) for about a year. It was an intense project with a lot of hours. You get to know the people sitting by you pretty well. He’d occasionally throw out a crude joke, which I would ignore, but we were generally on friendly terms. He eventually moved to a new job within the company in a building in another part of town. A couple days after he left, my phone rang in the middle of the night with an obscene caller on the other end of the line. Although I’d just been awakened by the phone, it was completely apparent to me that it was this guy. His voice sort of disguised, but it was very obvious it was him. I listened for a minute to him spewing pornographic comments, then hung up. H said, “Who was that?”. I sleepily said, “Oh, that was Eric.” Then I woke up enough to say, “Oh, crap. That was ERIC.”
The next day I went to see my boss, a guy in his late 40s. We were consultants, and Eric worked for the client. I explained to my boss what happened. I said I specifically didn’t expect him to take any action, but I wanted him to be aware in case Eric did it again or something else happened. My boss reacted with, “Eric would never do that!” I explained that Eric HAD done that, and I just wanted it to be known in case there were more issues in the future. We left it at that. I didn’t hear from Eric again, although I stopped at his desk when I was in his new building, and he would not even look at me. He knew that I knew.
Fast forward about 5 years. I was sharing a golf cart at a company outing with my old boss, and we were waiting in a line to tee off. My boss said, “You know that story about Eric, where I said I didn’t believe he would do that? I wanted to apologize, and say that I realize that Eric definitely would do that, and I believe your story.” So… eventually my boss came around. But I’m still not sure how it would have played out because Eric was a client – I kind of think even if my boss had believed me, HIS boss probably would have tried to push it under the rug if something more had happened and it had gone up to that level. And the reaction my boss first had, to not believe, seems all too typical.
This is all very troubling to me. The Office on the Status of Women in our state came out with a report that stated about 1 in 7 men in our state are willing and looking to pay for sex! This is perhaps the highest rate in the nation and indicates a huge problem. The report is being questioned because the number is so high. It was reported on tonight’s news. Yup, if you don’t like what you see or hear, attack the report or reporter rather than address the problem(s)……yuck!
10 yrs ago we were in the middle of family craziness with youngish 4 kids. My DH would joke about getting an apartment to escape for quiet, and football on tv. My son told his friend this; and his mom pulled me aside and said she was sorry, she had heard my DH was moving out. I tried explaining to her that it was the fantasy of peace . . . but to this day i dont think she believes me as shes always asking questions about how we are.
I think we all have a story about not being believed. For me, because none of my stories involve assault or anythingof that nature, I can brush them off easily enough. But don’t mess with my kids. My daughter did a report on Cuba for a Spanish class in middle school. Because I had spent some time there in 2000 I was able to give her some first hand information to include. The teacher questioned her sources and she responded that her mother had been there. This teacher went on to admonish my young teen daughter in front of the whole class about lying and my D came home in tears. Back we went with photo album in hand to speak to the teacher and the principal. Why would a teacher accuse a bright, young girl of lying about something so inconsequential?
It’s our office policy to ALWAYS write memos after every meeting. One client claimed that we should have known he couldn’t have done his house renovation for the budget he told us he had. DH had been in a meeting with him and the architect in which the architect told him plainly that the budget wasn’t large enough, but we could design everything and come up with a master plan for the future. DH didn’t include that subject in his written memo about the meeting, because money issues are in the architect’s domain, not ours. Well, when the guy got prices and they were higher than his budget, he went ballistic.
He demanded that the architect refund the entire architectural design fee, which the architect did! Then the client demanded that we refund our entire fee! We explained what had transpired in the meeting, and also that we cannot be responsible to determine construction costs. The guy responded that “any competent engineer” would have told him his budget was too low an sent us threatening letters for about a year. He seems to have dropped the matter for now. (He’s an attorney, responsible for our new office policy of never working for a lawyer again.)
If the architect had written up a memo about that meeting, a lot of time and money would have been saved. Document everything!
There’s a little bit of a problem today for people who say that accusers can’t be believed if they don’t come forward immediately. Do these people think Bill Cosby is innocent?
That’s why I brought the matter up. Cosby was convicted and sentenced to three years on the basis of testimony from women who didn’t come forward immediately.
3 to 10 years, actually. And led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, as the judge denied bail while he appeals his conviction. That really surprised me. I completely expected him to bail out and spend his remaining years free while his appeals make their way through the system.
Each time another woman receives some justice for the crimes committed against her, especially those who were not believed earlier or who were afraid to report the assault/rape, I feel as if I’ve also received a measure of justice.
When talking to my close family about my youngest daughter’s food allergies, I heard over and over that she was just being picky. “I saw you let her have dessert and she didn’t eat the broccoli.” Me, “the broccoli was cooked with almonds”. SIL, “she’s just being picky. She even looks malnourished. Almonds are good for you.”
This, from a person who had had an eating disorder. One of many examples I’ve had of people complaining about someone else for a quality that they themselves have, and in some twisted way trying to turn their self-disgust on other people.
Yeah, we gave up explaining to our family that our kids physically couldn’t attend school—couldn’t even sit up due to health issues (yeah, we are just lenient parents).
It is sad and lonely not getting support, but we find it where we can.
Oh yeah, love spending time and money taking our kids to various medical specialists for years—so fun!
Part of the lack of support is not REALLY being believed. Ah well.
In college, I enrolled in a smallish poli sci class which my boyfriend (now husband) also took, along with a couple of his male friends. They were already pretty conversant in the subject matter, having taken a related course. I wasn’t. I kept my mouth shut during the discussions partly because of my natural introversion and partly because I was intimidated by the more knowledgeable and very self assured guys. (Not to worry, I got more assertive with time.) I always sat with H, and in fact pretty much everyone knew knew were a “campus couple”. The entire grade for the class was a lengthy paper. Shortly after turning mine in, I got a note from the professor asking to see me. When I got to his office, he had my paper in his hand and proceeded to grill me on my footnotes: “And this quote came from where?” “What sources did you use for this section?” He clearly believed H had written the paper for me. It was a mortifying meeting, but I knew my work backwards and forwards, and he ultimately gave me an A minus for the class. I was outraged for a long time that I was required to prove my work was my own.
I was once falsely accused of something similar. I had turned in a mid-term exam. When the professor returned the exams to the students with the grade, mine was not there. I met with him in his office after class. He said “I remember seeing you take the test”. What happened to the paper after that was a mystery. I turned it in. He thought he remembered grading it but couldn’t remember what grade he gave and there was no grade in his exam book. Did he think I pilfered my exam from his office somehow?
So he said, “How about I give you a B?”. I said “NO”. I said “You lost my test. You need to give me the benefit of the doubt and give me an A”. And he did.
I validated myself by getting an A on the final exam.
My son was also falsely accused once of cheating on a high school exam. The only ‘proof’ was that he and a friend had gotten the same questions wrong. That was enough to accuse two kids of cheating? Anyway, the friend’s mother and I went to the teacher and stood up for our sons. We had the teacher give them the test again, immediately, sitting on opposite sides of the room, no advance preparation. They took the test again and both passed, missing the same questions again.
I don’t know how teachers can accuse kids of cheating without some proof other than missing the same questions and being friends. It was a moment for my son when respect for teachers diminished a lot.
@greenwitch This was exactly my experience. Even worse, because my son doesn’t have any allergies, but he had extreme food sensitivity and refused to eat anything except a few chosen bland foods. (He’s outgrown it somewhat but not quite.) So many times friends and family told me “just don’t give him anything else, he’ll eat anything when he’s hungry”. No he won’t.
Our child was accused of cheating with another girl because they were friends and got the same Q wrong. The other girl was in tears and my child was furious at being accused. It was very upsetting to both — teachers really need to think before making these accusations.
when I thought a close friend was toooo close to another, I was wrong. Until their affair was uncovered.
when I thought my oldest did so need extra support, but I “needed to let him fail and he’ll learn” . He did, and he couldn’t
when I said my youngest had something else wrong, something more wrong, and they put a red “caution, mom is aggressive and a problem” sticker on his chart. He almost died. DIED. And I was right. He did.
Document everything!