I work for a small, local insurance agency. By small I mean I’m one of five agents in our office. We are a bunch of young guys—most of them are brand new to the insurance industry and only maybe myself and my agency owner/manager have any real relevant experience. Prior to working at this agency, I was at a more corporate insurance agency as a part of a bigger and more diverse group of workers.
Ill preface this story by saying that I acknowledge the fact that we are all men in my office, and as such “locker room” talk is pretty common here. However I tend to tone out/ignore it because it’s not appropriate nor is it mature and professional to talk about these topics in any capacity. Especially in an office that does get foot traffic. This story also is graphic and has some sexually charged language, so please be aware of that when reading.
Our conversations range from a melange of topics, and this one day one of the agents mentioned that he had a lump on one of his breasts. I don’t know why this topic was started, but it just happened. When looking up symptoms of what it could be he mentioned that it could be from lactation. Another agent spoke up and asked if it was possible that men can do such a thing. I responded with something along the lines of yes but it’s a matter of hormones and a lot of other things but it can happen. The agent responded with “Well how would you know…have you done it before? It looks like you have the tits for it so I’m not surprised if you have done it in the past.”
I felt really confused and anxious about what was said to me. I’m a bigger guy, so not only did he casually make fun of my weight, but I felt extremely insulted by this comment. So much so that I reported him
anonymously to my parent company on grounds of his comments.
I received a call a day later from a woman at my company’s HR department regarding my case. I spoke with her about what had happened and asked that I keep myself anonymous due to the size of my office and because I was embarrassed over the process. She assured me that she would do her best, and that she would reach out.
Yesterday, she called my manager who took the call out of the office. Afterwards, he came back and addressed the team regarding what was said:
“Someone reported something to [insurance company] regarding sexual comments made to someone here. Next time, do not get them involved and just go through me, okay?” He then sat back down and went back to work
He was more angry that someone went above him and reported the incident rather than the incident happening.
Later in the day, an agent made another inappropriate comment about a sale out loud. My manager responded with a patronizing tone saying that “you shouldn’t say those things because someone will report you.”
I feel completely and completely upset and distressed by this situation. My manager found out that someone was verbally assaulted his office, and chose to do nothing about the situation and made fun of it instead.
I’m lost and destroyed. I have no idea what to do.
TLDR: someone sexually assaulted me at work. I reported the incident to my HR department who reported it to my manager. My manager did nothing about it and made fun of the situation.