{"id":113528,"date":"2025-08-27T10:31:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T10:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/113528\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T10:31:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T10:31:06","slug":"i-witnessed-horrible-behavior-from-my-colleague-i-told-my-bosses-the-truth-and-hes-treated-me-horribly-ever-since","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/113528\/","title":{"rendered":"I witnessed horrible behavior from my colleague. I told my bosses the truth, and he’s treated me horribly ever since."},"content":{"rendered":"

Good Job<\/a> is Slate\u2019s advice column on work. Have a workplace problem big or small? Send it to Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir here<\/a>. (It\u2019s anonymous!)<\/p>\n

Dear Good Job,<\/p>\n

I am a female 46-year-old working with a man, \u201cBrandon,\u201d who is the same age. We work in the counseling field, in residential care for teenage clients.<\/p>\n

About 18 months ago, I witnessed \u201cBrandon\u201d being verbally abusive to a kid. When I was asked about it, I told my bosses the truth about what I saw and heard: Brandon was threatening and insulting a kid with cognitive disabilities.<\/p>\n

Well, Brandon found out, got angry at me, and hasn\u2019t spoken to me cordially since. At first, he stopped speaking to me completely and labeled me a snitch. So now I get the silent treatment, or, if he has no choice but to ask me something (maybe once a month), it\u2019s in the harshest, rudest, most condescending tone you can imagine. This is all in front of our teenage clients. If I try to enter a conversation he\u2019s a part of in a group with other co-workers, he will literally turn and rudely walk away midsentence.<\/p>\n

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Help! My Wife Nearly Sabotaged Our Daughter\u2019s Soccer Team. I Can\u2019t Let This Happen Again.
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He has a long history of disregarding women he doesn\u2019t find sexually desirable\u2014I\u2019ve found that he only has \u201cgood\u201d relationships with young women at work he thinks are cute and dress and act the way he approves of. It\u2019s gross. I\u2019m the team supervisor, and it\u2019s clear he resented me getting promoted, because it\u2019s only gotten worse since then. Sitting down and talking doesn\u2019t work, because he won\u2019t engage. Killing him with kindness has failed. I\u2019ve tried internally granting him grace and the benefit of the doubt more times than I can count. I\u2019ve reframed the situation about 1,000 times. He\u2019s the kind of person who brags about his ability to hold grudges. I feel sick going to work when he\u2019s there, and unfortunately he\u2019s not going anywhere. Can you give me some advice I haven\u2019t thought of yet on how to deal with a resentful, sullen, grudge-holding co-worker who refuses to communicate? It\u2019s affecting my peace of mind. I\u2019m usually really good at dealing with difficult people, so I\u2019m stumped.<\/p>\n

\u2014Stumped<\/p>\n

Dear Stumped,<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fixated on one small bit of your letter\u2014the part where you say that you are this objectively horrible person\u2019s supervisor. Brandon needs to be fired yesterday. There\u2019s no reason why this person, who seems to be both bad at their job and also a horrible human being, should still be employed, much less be around children. Kick him to the curb and, because he sounds unstable, take some measures to protect yourself after he gets fired. I\u2019m also wondering why he wasn\u2019t fired after he was caught threatening and insulting a kid! What does someone have to do to get fired where you work?! (Rhetorical question, but also not.)<\/p>\n

\u2014Doree<\/p>\n

Classic Prudie<\/p>\n

My husband has a history of cheating. Last year I found conclusive proof that he had yearslong sexual relationships with two women and inappropriate relationships with several more.\u00a0We separated for several months but never stopped sleeping together.\u00a0He eventually moved back home. We have attended counseling. We are trying to make things work. Then a position opened up unexpectedly with my husband\u2019s employer, and lo and behold, one of the women he carried on with was hired to work closely with him by sheer coincidence. It should be said that his inappropriate relationships and one of the two sexual affairs were with coworkers from previous jobs.\u00a0I want to believe that it really is coincidence, but I\u2019m struggling very much with that.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sign up for Slate’s evening newsletter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good Job is Slate\u2019s advice column on work. Have a workplace problem big or small? Send it to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[3005,134,79,6843,7801],"class_list":{"0":"post-113528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-jobs","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-slate-plus","12":"tag-workplace"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}