UPDATE : I went to my boss and he and I went to the head of HR. From their perspective I have done no wrong and am not in trouble. In fact, if pushed this I could pitentially get her fired. Also, interestingly enough I was told that even her version of events would also not get me fired. HR head intends to go to the shacho and talk about but ask him not to escalate it. Herein lies new issue 1: they are apparently friendly and she talks to him about her issues so there is a concern he will side with her after all.
That said, HR is apparently a little weirded out by how many incidents she has. Apparently she has reported more than the two I knew about.
Issue 2: my boss thinks her LINE messages are fishing for evidence and that me not denying what she says can be used against me. I don’t know by who tho, probably shacho? So he thinks I should reply telling her that she is wrong and that she was the one who cornered me. **What do you guys think i should do?** I just want to let sleeping dogs lie now that I’ve settled it with work but what if she does call the police against the scary foreigner man?
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This one is a bit of a doozy but it just happened and I am quite freaked out
I am a British man in Japan and have lived here for a while. I work at a great marketing company in a job I love. One of my coworkers, who originally claimed to be a lesbian, was suffering from a serious and obvious mental health breakdown a couple years ago. I reached out to her, got her to get help, and my company made a big deal about discreetly thanking me.
In the meantime, she and I became very close friends. I continued helping her, she helped me, everything was great. About a year or so ago she suddenly announces she has a boyfriend lol. Turns out she’s bi, cool, doesn’t bother me.
She and her boyfriend hit a rough patch I guess and she wanted to chat with me about it. Up until now she had been helping me get better at interpreting (tangibly so, with plenty of praise from my superiors) and more recently, before she got the guy, they had kind of devolved in to simple conversations
So one day she wants to do one of these meetings with me at the end of the day and I’m all for it. First red flag is that she wanted to meet in the smallest meeting room which is also the only one with no windows.
We get onto the subject of her boyfriend (and my lack of a sex life) and she starts going on about his poor performance. I make some comments about how men should be better about that stuff, yada yada, talk to him, etc and she hits me with the bomb: “if I was single we could solve each other’s issues huh?” But I just laugh it off. At the end, I get up to leave and she sits me back down and mounts me. From here on it’ll get a little more graphic, sorry.
She shoves her nipple in my mouth as she apparently doesn’t have a bra and starts grinding on me and making noises. I end up asking if I can touch with my hand and she says no at first then randomly says go ahead. Things escalate a little bit and I suddenly get that moment of clarity: we are at the office! So I get her off of me and tell her to go back without me so I can calm down. She grabs my pants and offers to help me “calm down” but I say no, you don’t wanna do something you’ll regret. She then tells me if boyfriend wasn’t home she’d go to a hotel with me to which I just laugh
I finally get her to leave and I leave a minute later. I sit at my desk for half an hour and then finally leave to go home. She catches me at the elevator in one hell of a coincidence as we work on different floors. On the way home she is touching me a lot and even wraps her feet around my ankles when I have her take the open seat on the train.
Couple days later, she texts me saying we can’t let this happen again, and even though she holds blame she’s mad at me. So I offer to talk on the phone, she refuses, I say let’s put some space between us and talk again after we calm down and she agrees “for the sake of our friendship”
Fast forward a month, I text her to see if she’s ok. She gives a cold answer so I do the whole “too soon?” And she says she gets mad if she thinks about me and will probably never forgive me. So I message her a real simple question of “do you want to talk about this at some point or are we done for good?” And she puts me on read for 5 hours before texting me
“What you did was sexual assault, so never talk to me again”
wut
And she goes on, saying she was scared because I’m big and we were in a small locked room (room wasn’t locked) and her mind went blank, and all this stuff about never consenting to being touched (absolute bullshit) saying it didn’t feel good (she kept saying it felt good unprompted) and more. She kept saying the word for sexual assault.
So now I am extremely worried. From my understanding of japanese law she can’t call the police on me since I have proof she was willing to go into a room alone with me and from there it’s just her lies against the reality of the situation, but I’m worried she’ll contact the company and try to get me fired. I am on excellent terms with the shacho, just a note.
She has had two sexual harassment incidents that got to his desk and while one of them it was clear what was going on and the guy got fired after ignoring a warning, the other was not so cut and dry and nothing really happened with it.
There was also an incident in the past in which she claimed a coworker somehow broke into her house while she was sleeping and she demanded money from him so as not to call the police, so I’m a little worried she wants to extort me or something. I also helped her quit a part time job in the past that could get her fired if I mentioned it to the boss.
I have not responded to her messages and I am not sure what to do. She hasn’t taken any action in a month and I think my boss will side with me but I am still terrified.
Should I reply to her? Will ignoring her make it worse? Should I head her off and talk to my boss first? Any advice is appreciated.
26 comments
I hope this is a lesson for you to not put yourself in that situation again.
If it were me, I would honestly just hope it went away. But, that could also empower her to complain about you. You need to be very careful here.
In case this is true, I would think you would want to reply her with the situation clarified in writing? Why would you stay silent when she is making up stories in the text that she can use as evidence?
(Replying this using common sense only, have no legal background at all so feel free to correct me lol )
I don’t know if this is bad advice or not, but my instinct is that you should talk to shacho.
If she (your “friend”) decides to report it to the company, it seems like you’ll be in a much easier situation if the boss already knows (and believes) your side of the story.
Don’t text her ever again and contact a lawyer…
My dawg, stop kicking the hornet’s nest over and over again. If someone mentally unstable falsely accused you of assault and hasn’t done it, just stop messaging them and let it freeze over. You whipped her up again after it had died down.
Just batten down the hatches and let time pass, don’t interact with even a glance. If she hasn’t done anything by now, it’s probably just talk, let it remain just talk.
if I was in your situation and somehow let it get that far. I would just stop talking to her, she has zero proof of anything. if you feel bad about it then maybe explain to HR but expect there is a risk of you getting fired. legally she has no legs to stand on. but you maybe lose your job or she hers.
… if she was out to trap/extort you, she may have additional evidence stored away. Possibly a recording, video and/or audio only; and/or witnesses who saw when you entered/left the room, and her condition after.
I guess the first thing I would try to check is if there is any CCTV in the room that you used, and to try to get a copy of it.
I would also make it a point to record every future interaction with said co-worker; video if possible, audio only on my phone if not. To be honest, I’m not sure if Japan requires two party consent for recordings – I guess someone more knowledgeable about it might come along and comment.
As the said incident happened over a month ago, if there is no need for you to interact with her at work, I would just stop interacting and contacting her; and keep everything work only. I would not make any apologies, or reach out, or make any replies, and just move on with life.
You need to go to HR and complain about HER sexual assault on YOU. Get it formally documented by HR otherwise yes indeed she will lie and you are fucked.
The only thing you should have replied to her is the actual series of events to set the record straight. Letting her lie and continuing to respond makes it look like you aren’t denying the accusation.
If it were me I’d get out ahead of it with the boss. Explain what happened honestly and clearly. It seems like she’s planning either to extort you or is engaging in power harassment by using the fact that you’re foreign to imply you won’t be believed.
Never screw with people in relationships. Morals aside, when they inevitably get caught slipping they’ll always throw others under the bud rather than take responsibility. It’s extremely common for harassment and assault accusations to be made as cover.
Others have said cut off contact, and I agree completely, but also write out in as much detail as possible your side of the story, get it dated somehow, and have that ready along with a note of why you’re documenting- she made an unfounded accusation that could cause trouble in the future. Hopefully you don’t need it, but if one day your superior comes in and says ‘Tanaka says you assaulted her?’ It’ll be much better if you can be calm and prepared.
*There was also an incident in the past in which she claimed a coworker somehow broke into her house while she was sleeping and she demanded money from him so as not to call the police*
If you were aware of the above, and still put yourself in a room alone with this person, then you made a really bad decision. In all honestly, it sounds like you were the victim here. But the unfortunate reality of the world is that we need to make careful decisions to avoid putting ourselves in vunerable positions.
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I enjoyed a little bit reading your fanfic. However, you gotta be less specific on certain scenes to make it look more realistic.
I’m not trying to be rude but I have a hard time believing this… Is it possible she flirted with you, and you took it too far and escalated things, and without realizing it took advantage of her? This just sounds overly detailed and kinda suspicious. I’m sorry but you should have never done anything with this woman. Don’t make this mistake again.
Man.. why do you ask if you should reply to her? Isn’t it clear you should stay miles away from that psycho?
1) Never write her again. She will use it as harassment. “See? He’s trying to scare me and talk about this to convince me to not say anything to anyone”
2) If your relationship with your boss is good, talk to him before she does anything.
3) Keep any message where she mentioned what you two did. The First messages sound like she was ok with that.
Don’t eat where you shit.
Don’t contact her, try not to be in the same place as her, try to avoid chance meetings. Stop poking the bear
> She has had two sexual harassment incidents
And now, three?
Once is bad luck, twice is a coincidence, three times… well it certainly doesn’t look good.
Thing is, OP, I gotta really question your judgement, not only about getting into the tiny windowless room for conversation practice at work, but more so for simply allowing yourself to get this close to this coworker, who you know is unstable and seemingly has a history of lies and extortion (“coworker broke into my apartment, give me money”), and talking about your sex lives. Don’t shit where you eat.
I think you should not talk to her ever again, for anything (except *maybe* to say, in writing, “No, that’s not what happened.”). Consider consulting a lawyer, if only to put your mind at ease.
Been there…
And I’m sorry you have to be in it.
Let’s try and dissect it.
First, if it’s her third “sexual assault” case it’s likely it’s not the third but more than that, and it is a good chance she may be dismissed over it.
Second, let’s clear it up and have it straight: it’s her who assaulted you, okay? Stand your ground.
Third, you may or may not report it to your workplace. It’s going to be a mess either way but if you report first you may be in a safer place.
And finally never make friends at workplace in Japan, especially with the opposite sex. Never ever. Make them when you quit.
You say you’re a British man but you type like an American.
ah yeah, a throwaway account just randomly posting a story that could be straight out of a porno. and what guy gets sexually assaulted by a woman who has a history of blackmailing people, gets threatened by her too, and then remains friendly with her?
edit: oh and now OP updated their post and said they talked to HR about sucking the coworker’s tits at work and apparently that’s all cool and no issue. yeah ok this is absolutely real and believable!
What was the point of explaining this in such graphic detail? As if *any* of that was required in order to explain your “story”. This would have been a lot more believable if you just summed up your “escapade” in a single sentence; instead of going in to straight-up fanfic about bras, nipples and grinding.
This sub is so broken.
“she already has two sexual assault incidents” right. Just a serial SAist in your company targeting men everyone ignores. Okay.
Sometimes it feels like this sub is part of an alternate reality game.
>Issue 2: my boss thinks her LINE messages are fishing for evidence and that me not denying what she says can be used against me. I don’t know by who tho, probably shacho? **So he thinks I should reply telling her that she is wrong** and that she was the one who cornered me**.** What do you guys think i should do? I just want to let sleeping dogs lie now that I’ve settled it with work but what if she does call the police against the scary foreigner man?
The “update” has me convinced OP is a troll.
Any rational boss (and even irrational ones) would not care about your non-reply, and would instruct you to stay away from her and not contact/communicate with her at all… at least, until he has had a chance to investigate her side of the story (if he is so inclined to).
However, if this is true, I would just tell my boss I am not comfortable confronting her about it, and would rather just not discuss anything non-work related with her at all from this point forward. I just wanted to give him a heads up if it does come up, and to let it rest if it never does; and that you will now only work professionally with her, if/when you are required to.
That said, if you didn’t already know, HR isn’t anyone’s friend. They’re there to make sure the company is in compliance, and to minimize (eradicate?) risks and liabilities. Right or wrong (usually) doesn’t come into play, and mere accusations can be deemed harmful; unless you have solid evidence to refute them – which can sometimes be impossible to produce.
PS: did you make a recording when you spoke with your boss? If you did, good job. If you didn’t, you might like to remember to do so anytime you talk/communicate with anyone about it.
Anyone surprised? I thought the extreme was that guy who blinked and touched his coworkers; now we have nipple sucking.
Mods: sorry didn’t read that comment about winking 😢
>She *shoves* her nipple in my mouth as she apparently doesn’t have a bra and starts grinding on me and making noises. *I end up asking if I can touch with my hand* and she says no at first then randomly says go ahead.
Lol either this is all made up and you have too much free time or it’s real and you’re a complete idiot for even entertaining the idea of doing something like that in the office (even if you say she initiated it)