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I'm guilt-ridden
Though I shouldn't be.
So, we have a custodian for our little office building, Eddie - there are only 8 of us actually working in the building, and bunches of MBA students in and out every day. We're all women (working here), and 4 of us are twenty-somethings - most of the female students are younger also.
Eddie is a super pleasant older Filipino guy. He doesn't speak very good English, so a lot of our communications with him have to be sent home via letter or phone call to his wife - who we know because she did the cleaning here before he came to do it. You might remember I lived in Manila for a while, so I usually greet him in Tagalog in the mornings.
So anyway, he's had a biittt of a history of being slightly weird with the young women in the building - around holidays or on people's birthdays he will give us a hug. Nothing super creepy, but still not really appropriate in the office, and never with any of the older women, just the twenty-somethings. We've mostly just ignored it. But then recently, a girl from my MBA class came into the office and told me that Eddie had introduced himself to her a while ago, and given her a hug, and then had hugged her every time he saw her since then. The following day, another girl came to me and told me the same thing. So, clearly this is out of hand at this point.
I told my Director, who wrote a letter to send home with him and had a discussion with him. I know she was as gentle as possible, while also being firm, but he clearly didn't completely understand, was afraid he was being fired, etc. Obviously that all got cleared up when he took the letter home to his wife, but I can't imagine that she was very pleased with him.
SO ANYWAY, since then, Eddie seriously will not even look me in the eye. He won't respond when I say good morning, and basically walks the other direction when I come past. Like, dude, you can still say hello and be friendly, you just can't be hugging girls all the time!
Ugh.
Re: I'm guilt-ridden
Well, my Director talked with him too, but I don't know that he totally got it. And we try to deal with his wife on stuff because I think we kind of hired him behind the backs of our big University HR people - it's a union position, so when Marina (his wife) left it, it should have been posted for other union members with more seniority to apply for, but we gave it to him because we knew through Marina that he was having trouble finding work because of his poor English skills.
So, it really was probably the lesser of the evils to have the letter sent home to Marina, as opposed to getting him on the HR/union radar. I know it needed to be done, because he was making people feel uncomfortable, but I still feel bad.
Thanks. I think my guilt about it is that I don't know if he is just ticked or embarrassed, and things will cool off soon, or if he is still misunderstanding, and now thinks that he can't even look at us or he will be fired.
Jen - I'm going to delete my ML thread so I wanted to lay the comment somewhere undisturbed.
I appreicate your comments and your concern. Thank you.
Thanks, I posted on ML.
Poor Eddie, he just wanted a little love and you went and crushed his fun. J/k, you did the right thing, it was just a hard lesson for him to learn.