As a woman in my late 30s, I never expected to be put in a position where my work life would be drastically impacted by the actions of a colleague.
But unfortunately, that's exactly what happened to me.
It all started when my colleague, Matt, who I had considered a friend and teammate, began expressing romantic interest in me.
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He kept telling me how "gorgeous" and "attractive" I am. He always stood very close to me and found a reason to whisper gossip to me. I made it clear to him that I did not feel the same way and that I valued our professional relationship.
However, he did not take my rejection well and began to make my work life difficult.
He would deliberately exclude me from important meetings and projects, spread rumours about me, and even went as far as to sabotage my work.
Somebody made a mistake and he told everyone that it was my fault. When I tried to set my boss straight, my boss (a man who is friends with Matt) fobbed me off.
So then I tried to address the issue with our mutual supervisor, but she was unable to do much about it. Despite my best efforts to ignore the situation and continue to work, the toxic environment Matt created made it impossible for me to focus and do my job effectively.
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Day after day, I found myself constantly stressed and on edge, worrying about what he would do next.
I'd spent a long time working on an important document and I saved it in a section of the computer system that everyone in our team could access. You can imagine how horrified I was to learn that someone had changed much of the document to make it almost unreadable, before sending to the manager.
I was almost in tears trying to explain to him that this was not my work, and that "someone", aka Matt, had tried to sabotage my work. But he did not believe me.
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It was a constant battle to protect my professional reputation and prove my worth as an employee. He continuously made snide remarks about my work, about my appearance and even about my shoes – telling everyone in earshot that my shoes looked like the sort of shoes a woman in her 90s would wear!
It sounds trivial, but the constant negativity and hostility began to take a toll on my mental and physical health, and I knew I couldn't continue in that environment.
I eventually made the difficult decision to resign from my position. It was heartbreaking, as I really loved the actual work… but it was the best thing for my mental health.
Still, I find I'm holding onto a lot of anger about the way I was treated. I hope by speaking out, other women can learn from my mistakes. It's not fair that I was the one who resigned, while Matt, who was so abusive, kept his job.
It makes me wonder how many other women have had to endure the same situation as me.
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