What do you do when someone you work with is being harrassed? It becomes a much trickier question when that person is working a customer service-oriented job and the person that is harrassing them is a member of the public. Yesterday, I was confronted with this very question, as I witnessed a man talking to my co-worker. None of us knew how to help, other than to distract the customer, which failed. My co-worker backed out of the situation by giving the excuse that he had to go sort the mail, but ultimately, it was not a solution.

This has been going on for sometime. The patron comes in any old time and if this particular staff member is working, he heads straight for them. My co-worker is utterly non-confrontational, and terribly polite, and it is very hard for him to say, "Please stop talking about this, it is inappropriate and I don't want to hear about it." This particular patron makes sexually inappropriate comments, singling out my co-worker to share these nasty thoughts with.

Today, I approached Richard about the situation, leaving out my co-worker's name in order to protect his involvement, especially since he did not ask me to intervene. Richard was terribly unhappy about it and phoned Human Resources to discuss what could be done in a situation like this. The answers were not terribly satisfying, but ultimately, it is the responsibility of the co-worker to come forward in order to take action. I have emailed him to suggest he follow the informal route for now, pursuing the formal action of complaint only if all else fails. It's very frustrating. I have become very protective of my co-workers and I wish that there was something more immediate that I could do.

No one deserves to be singled out. No one deserves to be harrassed or abused and no one should have to suffer harrasment. To victimise someone for no good reason is to infringe upon that person's human rights. We're better than that.