Should I apologise for my reaction at being the victim of a stupid prank

[VoyeursVictim]

Posting here as this is more looking for advice about the people involved than the actions that were committed. Sorry if it’s long.

Stupid male colleague thinks he’s the work joker, lots of inappropriate jokes and behaviour, I’ve complained about him before as some of his pranks could cause serious injuries to someone. We had a guest in the work location, for the sake of this imagine it’s a sports centre and the staff shower and change there.

The men’s shower was broken when male guest visited and so there was taking in turns using the women’s. Joker colleague told him that the shower was free for men so in he walked, to see me in all my glory. I freaked out as I have had issues with a previous boyfriend and a secret camera in his bedroom so this is a trigger for me feeling really violated and vulnerable. In the moment I just had to walk away as soon as I was dressed and told guest to leave me alone as he was chasing after me saying joker told me it was ok and it wasn’t his (guest’s) fault.

Joker colleague is being dealt with, finally he’s facing real action this time and he’s facing dismissal. My post isn’t about him but the guest.

Guest has said that the situation demands an apology and they want reassurance that I am not going to go around telling anyone that he walked in and saw me naked. He’s worrying about his reputation and repercussions of this being generally known about.

I don’t feel I should apologise or give any such commitment. He’s as much a victim of the prank as I am admittedly.

What would you advise me to say to this person?

You seem to want to side with one victim and ignore the second, that is not justice or fairness. Both deserved to have their needs met within the structures available to them, the perpetrator deserves to face the consequences of their actions, it is not about ideology, but about fairness and justice.

You have done a hell of a lot of extrapolating there @MatildaIThink.

Indeed, Guest does deserve to have his needs met through the structures available to him. The structure available to him is Joker and the disciplinary process. It is not OP. This is not OP's responsibility. Suggesting it does suggests it's women's jobs to clean up men's messes. That's not fairness or justice either.

Guest should receive a formal written apology from the organisation and it should be worded in such a way as to exonerate him from any blame. You do not need to apologise to anyone.

Sorry I should have been clearer these are the facilities for staff, the customer facilities are very different and have cubicles and all the bells and whistles. In our staff meetings we have been continuously saying that they need improvement and that’s one of the causes here, the plumbing is so bad that the men’s shower is condemned and so there’s in effect one staff shower room until the refurb.

Guest should apologise to YOU.
Joker should apologise to Guest.
Joker gets warning or sacked.
Work put up Massive sign on Shower saying Engaged,

How is the demand for the apology being made?

It’s a private leisure club, I work there permanently and the guest is a freelance coach so is sort of staff.
I originally thought that the 'guest' was a one-off. If he is a regular freelancer then you are going to meet him again. It might be an idea to ask HR to mediate a meeting so the pair of you can get past this and have some sort of professional relationship going forward. It has to be at your pace though, not his.

Yeah i can see the scum rags being all over this (not suggesting its untrue just that you might want to delete)

So if the showers are open, how many staff use it at the same time?

I mean this could easily have been prevented by something as basic as a sign saying "in use"!

An apology?! That's beyond ridiculous.

If he had said to you, look, I had no idea this was going to happen and I feel awful about being the tool of someone's prank. I want to make sure that you know I had nothing to do with it and am not guilty of that dickhead's actions. I also want to make sure that you know how sorry I am that this happened to both of us and that I'd never walk in on anyone intentionally: that might have been fair.

If he wanted assurances from your boss that his reputation wouldn't be ruined because of this: that might have been fair.

But an apology?! From you?!?! For what, for panicking after someone walks in on you in the shower and then hustles after you on the way to your car? Makes me far, far less sympathetic to him. Frankly it wouldn't matter if you had screamed "get away from me you dickhead" at him -- you still wouldn't owe him an apology for a perfectly rational fight-or-flight response.

I'd demand a lot of things from HR today, particularly as they haven't taken your complaints seriously before. They're in serious trouble. (In fact, I'm not sure I would go to the meeting without some sort of representation with me, and I certainly wouldn't agree to anything in the meeting itself.)

One thing would be not having to deal with pacifying this man's emotions. It's their fuckup, it's their mess to clean up.

@ZoyaTheDestroyer

Guest should receive a formal written apology from the organisation and it should be worded in such a way as to exonerate him from any blame. You do not need to apologise to anyone.

This seems the best approach to me.

Guest needs to back off and leave the OP alone. OP should not be asked to communicate any further with Guest. Do bring some support to that meeting, OP, in case they try to put pressure on you.

Also I am taking someone into the meeting, my manager said it can be anyone and doesn’t need to be someone from work or union, whoever I’m comfortable with.

My lovely SIL is coming with me, she’s much more assertive and bolshy than me and we’re going to prepare now so I will check in later after this meeting.

Thanks for the support again.

You can't apologise when you haven't done anything wrong! Definitely not. Without knowing all the ins and outs, it doesn't sounds unreasonable to reassure him that you won't be talking about him in relation to what happened? If he's a freelance coach is he worried that women/children won't want to work with him if rumours start? Just seems like he might have been panicking. But you still have nothing to apologise for.

@BrozTito

Id be asking why you are still suffering from this prick and why is he only being dealt with now that he involved big important man

I would imagine that it is nothing to do with a "big important man", but more likely the threshold for actual disciplinary behaviour has been crossed. Lots of people who play "pranks" in the office get away with it because it is below the threshold where they can actually be disciplined for it, the most common ground I have seen these people fired for in the past is actually health and safety, because a H&S breach is the easiest way to sack someone as unfortunately it is very difficult to sack people these days even when they thoroughly deserve it.

Often I have also seen that these people only continue to escalate until they are sacked, or at least face a final written warning, they seem to think their actions up until that point are just "banter" or "pranks". They generally still view their behaviour as acceptable even after final warnings or being sacked, just with the addition of feeling hard done by.

I hope the "joker" gets sacked now and I would imagine that it is likely that he will be (and the OP will certainly have grounds to push back very hard against HR if he is not), unfortunately people being arseholes often require these things to escalate further than anyone would like before it is possible to get rid of someone.

Neither of you has anything to apologise for and the fault lies solely with the so-called 'joker'. Please tell me nobody is expecting you to apologise to anyone involved for anything! You've done nothing wrong and owe no apology.

As far as reassurances go, you were the one in the very vulnerable position; you were the one most embarrassed, as presumably the visitor was fully clothed in the encounter.

I would be asking, through management, for the inadvertent intruder to offer you an assurance that he will not be mentioning seeing you naked in any context, nor naming you to anyone in any context or on any forum.

After that you could consider what your approach would be to offering any assurances to him.

Guest is a twat as evidenced by him waiting for and then following the OP out of the building to her car! He is placing his own feelings above the OP who is the one suffering actual harm here.

The OP has zero responsibility towards the guest and therefore owes him nothing.

The company owes the OP an apology at the very least for not having dealt adequately with Joker arsehole colleague on previous occasions.

I also strongly urge the OP to visit a solicitor to discuss requesting some form of compensation from the company for failing to properly protect her from the victimisation of the bullying colleague.

What happened to you was inexcusable and you don't owe anyone an apology.
Be prepared for your SIL not being allowed to speak or have any input at the meeting. They are only interested in facts and your SIL's opinion on the situation aren't relevant. I only say this so you aren't blindsided at the meeting and feel under more pressure if you were expecting her to say things on your behalf.

As the vulnerable person in this situation, the onus is on the Joker (obviously) and the unwitting intruder to apologise to you! He was not in a vulnerable position, you were and the fact he kept following you around, invading your personal space (? one assumes) after you had already visibly and audibly reacted to his presence is a red flag to me. He should have backed off after a quick apology and left any other overtures in your control. The harassing afterwards, to get something for his benefit. just says to me that they are completely ignoring the extent of your vulnerability and that to me is a safeguarding issue.

No apology needed from you. By explanation you could just you were shocked and vulnerable which is why you reacted that way, but only if you want to.

I would probably soothe his anxiety by saying I wouldn't bad mouth him to anyone else or say what he did. I would say he is a victim too and the only apology for putting him in that position should come from "joker".

You are both victims. You owe him nothing. The joker owes you both an apology.

Don't apologise - you've got nothing to apologise for. I have to say that any of my male colleagues who found themselves caught out by a prank like this would have apologised to the victim for startling her even although it wasn't their fault. They'd expect a sincere apology from the joker.

I agree with the sentiment, Ranbow, but I don't think she needs to soothe anyone. If someone wants to be soothing, it can and should (and must) be the employer. As a PP mentioned above, they can write a clear letter exonerating him. It's not the OP's job to sooth anyone after that.

The joke wasn't just that he'd see you naked. The joke was that you would be embarrassed, scared, vulnerable, powerless, violated, and confused.

I'm really not abashed by nudity, I'm relaxed about mixed-sex interactions in relatively undressed situations (too much am dram as a young adult to be otherwise), and I'm fairly easy going overall. But this has me boiling for you, OP. It's cruel, nonconsensual, and plays on women's real fears to make you the butt of a joke. Don't apologize to anyone.

This is outrageous and awful for you OP you have NOTHING to apologise for you had an entirely normal and proportionate reaction.

And not sure if this has been raised but many, many men would call out loudly first to see if any women were using the changing room and wait for an all clear. So it’s not like he took every precaution to avoid a woman being caught unawares.

He is, at the least, a selfish fuckwit to plough into the women’s changing room on the say so of one man. Probably why he doesn’t want the story getting about.

flowers]

In our staff meetings we have been continuously saying that they need improvement and that’s one of the causes here, the plumbing is so bad that the men’s shower is condemned and so there’s in effect one staff shower room until the refurb

Umm, so the joker was correct when he told the guest to use the women's shower? 🤷🏻‍♀️.

If everyone knew there was only one staff shower then it makes it really weird that no one put a lock or sign in the door. I wouldn't have used what is effectively a unisex shower which doesn't have any cubicles without a lock. I completely understand why you did though OP but I wonder if your managers are going to try and say this incident was not caused by the 'joker' being malicious.

That's appalling;he should be sacked on the grounds of gross misconduct.

Have your work done anything to support you as I'd be quite traumatised by that especially after being the victim of the crime of voyeurism?

As for the man.You shouldn't apologise as you were a victim too but maybe respect that this man would like have his professional not tarnished by this and agree to keep it only amongst the parties involved.

I'm so sorry that happened to you.Your hopefully soon to be ex colleague will learn a huge lesson from this going forward in life.

You were very rude to tell the guest to leave you alone.

Yeah, no. That's not rude, that's absolutely normal.

You have nothing to apologise for. Refer to management. This is not on you whatsoever.