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I do not have a social media presence and have warned people for over 25 years about exercising caution in their online communications, so I have been fortunate to not be on the giving or receiving end of these problems.
However, I had a coworker about 7 years ago who was accused of sexual harassment due to his pursuit in on an online dating website of another coworker who worked within the same building. He claimed that he meant no disrespect and had done nothing wrong, but obviously she had perceived the situation differently. I told him at the time that you have to really walk on egg shells if you want to pursue a relationship with a coworker and to make sure anything you say cannot be misconstrued and taken offensively. In the end the accusation was dismissed, but not without consequences. I'm not privy to all the details, but certainly it put a strain on coworkers who supported one person or the other. Also, it was determined to be in everyone's best interest that one of them move to a different school, so my friend changed jobs but remained within the district. Feelings were certainly hurt on both sides and I think both of those people held some resentment about the situation for some time, but fortunately I haven't heard anything about it for years now.
Finally, I have spent some time this morning trying to come up with a good suggestion for how these two people could have prevented this, but each thing I type seems fraught with dangerous openings for wrong perceptions, which on social media websites could result in quite a flame war. So I am instead going to simply demonstrate the kind of caution that should have been exhibited in that situation. After all, I don't know who was more right or wrong, but I sure want to think that better discretion could have avoided the whole problem.
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