to think this workplace situation is completely inappropriate?

[Lu781]

Man in senior management position, mid 40s. Was previously responsible for training and mentoring junior member of staff, but once she had moved to another department (but still a trainee) instigated a sexual relationship with her, despite his position within the company and living with a woman (claimed it was a platonic relationship)

The junior - early 20s but very naive/ sexually and emotionally inexperienced, had never had a boyfriend nor had sex (or gone further than kissing).

The 'relationship' ended after a few months when he decided she was too young for him, after which the junior ended up out of a job. Not as a direct result, but it certainly didn't help matters.

Was this inappropriate on his part? (or indeed both their parts?)

Are you a lawyer? If the OP was the first trainee not kept on in 10 years in the department this man worked in then it's highly likely it was because of this man. It's possible it was performance but unless she was really bad, far more likely it was because of the relationship

@Hargao Yes I am a lawyer in the City. The OP admits that she interviewed elsewhere for NQ roles because she saw herself long term with the guy and didn’t think it appropriate they worked together. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that a NQ job wasn’t available in her specialty because they knew she was leaving or that there was one but she chose not to apply for it. I’ve asked OP about NQ roles twice and she has ignored the question.

It is also possible she was simply shit. She admits she struggled until the guy became helpful and supported her, so maybe, just maybe, she performed poorly during her TC so that, combined with her being the trainee who shags a married partner meant the firm didn’t want to keep her on.

Appreciate this is speculation but OP herself hasn’t claimed he is why she wasn’t kept on - she thinks it at least played a part on why the firm didn’t keep her.

@Hargao Ah, just seen your second post about trainees in OP’s shoes not being kept on.

Very very unusually, in my firm right now there’s a trainee who had an affair with a married partner around 25 years older than her, and he even left his wife for her...she has qualified into his team. Not sure how that’s happened but I can only assume she is either amazing or the firm is trying to be progressive and open minded...!

[quote MsHedgehog]@Hargao Ah, just seen your second post about trainees in OP’s shoes not being kept on.

Very very unusually, in my firm right now there’s a trainee who had an affair with a married partner around 25 years older than her, and he even left his wife for her...she has qualified into his team. Not sure how that’s happened but I can only assume she is either amazing or the firm is trying to be progressive and open minded...![/quote]
Er, I can think of at least one other explanation there ...

It's not up to you to judge whether or not I was a victim.

You hadn't even considered it until your therapist insisted on it... whys it up to them?

Op, is this more of your therapy than you are indicating?

It feels like it’s very important to you to place full blame at this mans door and take no personal responsibility for your part in it. Which would then possibly lead you to think it was also his fault totally you were not kept on. You were a blameless victim.

Does that thought process help you? That the fact you didn’t get kept on, didn’t find a nq role, went in house, how your life turned out as a single parent, failed relationships, does putting it all down to his fault help?

Older Colleague sounds at very least insensitive & selfish. OP is allowed to find fury with him.

I had a couple of other reactions reading OP's messages:

loving upbringing, very sheltered but happy, and then we moved chronologically to talk about relationships and all this stuff came out.

OP could decide that her parents did an inadequate job -- loving but didn't give OP good ppl skills, didn't help her become an adult. Was that well-meant but negligent?

If I'd met someone nice, my own age and who liked me and wanted a relationship who knows what might have happened?

Could have been just as much of a pillock as Office Guy. Or worse.
WhatIf game is not a route to accepting the past.

You can only work with where you are. We've all had relationships (including friendships, or with family) that were unbalanced. Often the only way to learn to do better is to make mistakes first. Nobody has to be blamed for the mistakes.

I have no issues with my upbringing whatsoever. I certainly don't consider the parenting I received to be inadequate. Quite the opposite, massive sacrifices were made for me, I had the best of everything. No complaints.

I feel my life has turned out pretty well in spite of all this. I have a a job I enjoy, work with wonderful colleagues. Own my own home. My DC brings me great joy. My relationship history hasn't followed the pattern of most of my friends who met their DHs at uni or in their first jobs, and I am sad about that, but equally I'm glad I'm not tied to the wrong man.

I do have unresolved grief regarding the bereavements I've suffered, and a tendency to blame myself for what might be perceived as failures in my life. I am working on this with my therapist and understanding that some situations were not entirely my fault. When I knew better, I did better.

The not being kept on as a NQ seems to be exercising a lot of you. I'm not quite sure what more you need me to say. I knew that I wanted to work in his specialism and as such - because I didn't doubt we'd still be together by the time September rolled around - started applying for NQ roles in other (larger) firms. The firm I was a trainee at did not recruit NQs as they were known for retaining all their trainees.

We of course then split up at his behest; very shortly thereafter I was advised by HR that with regret I wouldn't be kept on in my chosen area due to market forces or something along those lines (unusually no other trainees were retained in that area that year, one was kept on the next year). I didn't challenge the decision or ask for reasons, I was so upset over the breakup that all my efforts went on getting through the day and dealing with a lot of complicated time sensitive work in the area I was then in. I didn't have the resources to start asking for detail. Would I have been kept on if nothing happened between us? Obviously I'll never know the answer to that but I think I might have been. I am sure that it made it an easier decision to get rid of me than one of the other 5 trainees if someone had to go.

My performance as a trainee was very good and all my reviews over the 2 years were glowing, and I obtained a NQ role soon after this in an entirely different area of law I'd never worked in - which is what I still do now, in house, as it was impossible to get a role in my preferred area, because he is very well known in that specialism. However that's not an area that would be condusive to family life, lots of foreign travel (well at least pre Covid) etc whereas I have a far better work life balance with my current role.

We of course then split up at his behest; very shortly thereafter I was advised by HR that with regret I wouldn't be kept on in my chosen area due to market forces or something along those lines (unusually no other trainees were retained in that area that year, one was kept on the next year). I didn't challenge the decision or ask for reasons*

So nobody was kept on at all? I've inferred from this that there's an undercurrent that he/the firm did this so your not being retained wasn't obvious?

Professionally it was wrong, but you are not a victim here, and you’re going to great lengths to persuade everyone of that. You are doing a massive disservice to genuine victims of grooming and it’s because of behaviour like yours real victims aren’t taken seriously.

That is spectacularly unfair. I can't speak as a victim of grooming, but as certainly a real victim of child sexual assault and two incidents of rape when I was merely fifteen. I've received justice for none of it, if you can call it that, in a legal sense.

It is not because of the behaviour of other women that I wasn't believed and the offenders were not prosecuted. It's because a misogynistic, unfair system is skewed against victims from the very start.

The OP is simply a woman who is trying to put her past to rest. She is in no way to blame for victims not being taken seriously. Women are not responsible for the actions of men.

@MichelleScarn

* We of course then split up at his behest; very shortly thereafter I was advised by HR that with regret I wouldn't be kept on in my chosen area due to market forces or something along those lines (unusually no other trainees were retained in that area that year, one was kept on the next year). I didn't challenge the decision or ask for reasons*

So nobody was kept on at all? I've inferred from this that there's an undercurrent that he/the firm did this so your not being retained wasn't obvious?

No trainee was kept on in that specific area, but all the other trainees in my year were retained in different practice areas within the firm. I was the only one not retained.

That makes no sense to me, am I reading it wrong? no other trainees were retained, but you were the only one not retained?

@Lu781 your OP specifically says that you not being kept on was not a direct result of the relationship

@MichelleScarn

That makes no sense to me, am I reading it wrong? no other trainees were retained, but you were the only one not retained?

I think she means that her intended speciality in city law firms did not retain any trainees. So say, for example, she wanted to go into corporate finance, no firms in the City with corporate finance teams kept on trainees. However, other specialities did offer NQ roles. So it wasn’t just her being singled out, every other NQ who wanted to go into that same speciality didn’t have a job they could apply to.

No, let me try and clarify as I seem to be causing confusion.

In the firm I trained at, there were no applications made by any of us trainees, you were just offered a role at the end of your TC, irrespective of whether it was your preferred choice - not that we were asked to express a preference as such.

We had 6 practice areas of varying sizes split between contentious and not, but not every area took on a trainee every year. So for example in the year above me, 3 trainees were retained in one practice area, as that was the best way of retaining them all within the firm. The general ethos was always on trainee retention, even if it meant offering a trainee a NQ role in an area that they wouldn't have chosen themselves -a few ended up in that situation and either grew to love it or moved on at 1-2 years PQE. Generally trainees ended up in the area they preferred because that was where they had performed best, but not always.

My firm did not retain any trainees in my year in the practice area I wanted to work in. Let's say it was Taxation. All the other trainees in my year WERE retained by the firm across the other 5 practice areas.

I had already applied for NQ Taxation roles externally because I thought me and Mr Partner were the real deal and I didn't think it was right to stay on as a NQ in his dept. It hadn't occurred to me I wouldn't be offered a role either in his dept or at all. The taxation world was very small and Mr Partner was a big cheese in it. At every interview with other firms I'd be asked oh you must work with Mr Partner. He and (firm name) are really highly regarded in this area why do you want to leave - and of course I couldn't say because we're shagging. I didn't get any of those jobs. I can't say why that was.

We of course broke up, and I was told I wouldn't be kept on in any dept. I kept applying for taxation roles, without success.

I then saw a NQ role with a well regarded firm in a completely different practice area I'd no experience in, let's say Profin, applied and was offered the role. Which then led me in due course to my current in house position.

Nooooo! Step away from the thread.

You said "It's not up to you to judge whether or not I was a victim. I also don't have to prove how naive and lacking in emotional experience I was",

Right, so why are you here still trying to prove stuff to strangers?

Take what's useful from this thread and sift through with your therapist. maybe work on boundaries? Do you have a pattern of laying yourself open to judgement from others?

Posters here may or may not have your best interests at heart but we don't know you. Your therapist is paid to put your needs first and they know you.

You've got some more material to work on from this thread but really what difference to your future does it make if we all agree he was wrong or if we all say it was fine.

Take care. Of yourself.

@Lu781

I don't hope to gain anything by it now other than emotionally to understand what went on.

It's more that until a year ago I had always seen it as a failed romance which I eventually got over a few years later. In the last year or so to have both a close friend and a therapist take the view it was so wrong and that I was effectively groomed made me see it very differently, and I'm still trying to process that really.

I can't help thinking some therapists stir things up that don't need to be stirred. I suppose it keeps them in business. From my perspective, you seeing it as a failed romance that you eventually got over is a much more healthy approach than unpicking it in detail trying to apportion blame.

I'm a bit like you in that I went to an all girls school and was incredibly naive about boys/men. It didn't do me any favours either. But all kinds of crap happens in the dating game. It can be a messy business. We just have to learn and grown, and eventually we do.

Nothing you've said suggests to me that this man was malevolently plotting your exploitation and/or downfall. As for him being irresponsible, I'd hate someone to keep a scorecard on how responsible my relationship choices have been over the years...!

You sound like a very self-aware person who has achieved a happy life. Well done! By lacking self-assurance, you might invite your friend and therapist to pick you apart and give you a heap of things to worry about that don't really need to be worried about. Don't let them pathologise you for normal behaviour. No one is perfect.

@randomsabreuse

I think the posters minimising OP's experience are not aware of quite how toxic the city law environment is/was -I moved on a LONG time ago - the pressure to succeed, the money on offer and the somewhat alcohol fuelled socialising expected (partners' lunch room drinks were lethal with waiters filling your drink every time you moved your hand off the top to gesture!)

The power imbalance between male Heads of Department (who might well supervise trainees and definitely choose who gets recruited/promoted) and ambitious bright young things who feel they should do anything to get ahead is huge. I'd not be surprised if young men also got propositioned but it would be much quieter as plenty of homophobia in the toxic environment. Plus the whole "mentor" thing with a supervisor would be a great way to get someone's trust.

I was only naive about wanting the "glamour" of all nighters doing international transactions but grew up and walked away from law completely 18 months after completing my training contract as I hated the City and it all felt totally pointless.

Pretty well all the City lawyer types are well aware of how abusive the culture was - some of my trainee colleagues worked out that they weren't getting minimum wage some months if they looked at hours billed Vs salary, the relationship side was all part of the same culture.

Do people who work in city law realise these things went on everywhere? Law wasn't some special place where people were somehow different to other humans.

I don't think I've ever worked anywhere where heads of department weren't more powerful than a trainee/probationer.

The idea that all us poor fools who could never scale the dizzy heights of law just can't understand is so insulting.

OP, can I ask a question?

Do you think if you had not made that move to give him a hug when you were a bit drunk and he was sober. If that had never happened and you had simply said "Thank you for all your support at work" and that was it.

Do you think he would have still taken you to lunch the next day and said what he said?

Looking at it another way around. Say you did give him a hug in the way you did on that tipsy night out and he had never taken you to lunch the next day and it was never spoken of again.

Don't you think, "Taxation" being what it is and him being a big cheese in that area and known throughout the city firm network that Mr Partner would have been conflicted in offering you a job in any event.
How could you realistically think you could work in the (what sounds like a) insular off shoot that was "Taxation" in the firm in question, presumably with Mr Partner as your "line manager" (for want of a better term) and expect to see him day in day out with you both knowing that you had given him a drunken hug on a night out?

For the avoidance of doubt I am not saying you are responsible for what he did. I just think to some extent when you yourself hugged him at that very moment you put him in an awkward position for the future in terms of any possible working with you.

And was it such a small firm that you could not have said to Mr Partner "obviously I cannot work with you now but I did enjoy my time in X seat or Y seat" and be considered for NQ positions in different areas where you did not have to see him every day?

I am not leveling "blame" at you (or diminishing the cut throat environment) but I do think your drunken hug after a work-night-out of him combined with your own unilateral decision to "take matters into your own hands" and go for interviews elsewhere gave you agency in this.

If your appraisals during your training contract were good (even tho you said you found being a trainee hard) and you had observed all professional boundaries (i.e. no hugging) and kept a lid on your personal feelings for him (and he for you) - it would be a strange management decision to let someone bright and possibly lucrative to the firm go based on firm gossip that you were (or were rumoured to be because that is what it would be if nothing happened) in bed with him.

and yes I agree this type of thing went on everywhere.

And I remember thinking regularly how ironic it was that employment law as in force at the time was exactly what did NOT apply to law firm employees and precisely that is what the HR department at most big law firms was there for (ie to ensure that all employees did not have an employment claim against the firm - for example I remember being asked to sign a personal opt out immediately the Working Time Directive came into force as was all other employees).

The OP is simply a woman who is trying to put her past to rest. She is in no way to blame for victims not being taken seriously. Women are not responsible for the actions of men.

The point is that grooming has a meaning, which involves adults acting towards people incapable of having autonomy over their sex lives, and manipulating themselves into a position of trust, and taking sexual advantage under false pretenses.

It's quite nasty. And it's not what happened here.

What happened here is older man higher up was interested, pegged that she was interested, and initiated a romantic relationship that she was quite capable of refusing, and which was offered on the terms of any other romantic relationship these days, which is a "we'll see if it works out" kind of thing.

Taking her to dinner, being charming, etc is not grooming, it's normal dating.

Possibly he saw it more casually than she did, but that's a normal risk in a sexual relationship before you commit in some way - if people want to have those, presumably they accept that risk.

If people use the word "grooming" to describe that, then no, people will begin not to think it's quite so nasty.

*I can't help thinking some therapists stir things up that don't need to be stirred. I suppose it keeps them in business. From my perspective, you seeing it as a failed romance that you eventually got over is a much more healthy approach than unpicking it in detail trying to apportion blame.

I'm a bit like you in that I went to an all girls school and was incredibly naive about boys/men. It didn't do me any favours either. But all kinds of crap happens in the dating game. It can be a messy business. We just have to learn and grown, and eventually we do.

Nothing you've said suggests to me that this man was malevolently plotting your exploitation and/or downfall. As for him being irresponsible, I'd hate someone to keep a scorecard on how responsible my relationship choices have been over the years...!

You sound like a very self-aware person who has achieved a happy life. Well done! By lacking self-assurance, you might invite your friend and therapist to pick you apart and give you a heap of things to worry about that don't really need to be worried about. Don't let them pathologise you for normal behaviour. No one is perfect*

There’s a huge amount of sense in this post. You had a failed relationship, trying to rewrite history now to make it exploitative and ‘grooming’ is wrong and not likely to be of any benefit to you.

I was a very sheltered and innocent teen too. Quite literally, I had never ever met a boy who I wasn’t related to, until I left home at 17 for uni. I went to all girls schools, was picked up and dropped off by my father, wasn’t allowed have friends round or go to theirs, wasn’t allowed out to the town unless with a parent etc etc. I had never been on a bus on my own or gotten a taxi etc. I was very naive sexually, obviously not at all experienced, but my knowledge was very basic- I did not know there was any movement involved in sex until I was having sex for the first time, I thought it was just about insertion and that was it. I never read a teen mag and watched very little tv. This was pre internet. So I was clueless. But I went out into the big bad world and I learned. I made mistakes, some big ones, many little ones, but I grew and learned from them. Some of my relationships were ill-advised, but they’re the ones I learned most from. That’s life. Making bad decisions does not make you a victim.

@sammylady37
I went out into the big bad world and I learned. I made mistakes, some big ones, many little ones, but I grew and learned from them. Some of my relationships were ill-advised, but they’re the ones I learned most from. That’s life. Making bad decisions does not make you a victim.

Exactly! That's life. And, actually, heaven forbid that we try to police all this. Imagine the world that would create, where you had to fill in a questionnaire about your romantic/sexual experience to ensure it was a close match to your intended partner, and both parties had to sign a contract about the long-term outcome of the relationship.

This is not meant as a dig at you, OP -- quite the reverse. As someone who has "failed" spectacularly over the years, but somehow by accident ended up happily married, I really think sometimes you just have to say to yourself "Fuck it" and chalk things up to experience.

In fact, I don't think I'd have ended up so happily married if I hadn't done the steep learning curve that is so deeply uncomfortable to live through. It's all good. Try not to fret.

Not sure your therapist, or your close friend, are actually helping you to achieve confident autonomy. x