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Mon 1 Jul, 2013 01:17 am
Three months ago I started a new job. At my interview I could tell my future supervisor was a very nervous fellow. He was sweaty and he was wringing his shaking hands. I felt bad for him! I could see his anxiety was nearly crippling. He didn't ask me very many questions, he was avoiding eye contact for the most part and I had began to wonder if this was going well, however he sent me a text message a few days later informing me that I had been hired. I thought his method was strange but was excited I got the job.
When I came in my first day to train and fill out paperwork he said "you know, I "googled" you" I was definitely taken by surprise. Then he said "nice pictures!" I was a little creeped out. I have been a professional model and photographer for a few years and my photos are published to the internet, however there are some photos on there that aren't me, they look like me but they are not me and some are nude/semi nude! It felt so uncomfortable to know that my boss had seen these pictures, possibly mistaken them for me and commented on them. His weird shaking sweaty demeanor now really started to creep me out. I let it go and started my new job with confidence.
It was not long before I noticed when I talked to him (and I worked under him directly, having to report to him several times a day and communicate on different projects) that he would be staring at my chest area and my crotch area. I tried to chalk this up to him "zoning out" but it started to happen so often and so obviously I found myself looking down to see if I spilled on my shirt or my zipper was down. I started to feel angry and violated, I started to feel a real disgust towards him. I started to hate going to work because there he was with his wandering eyes and his shaking wringing hands.
He was not able to really help me as a manager either. I would ask him questions or ask him to help me solve problems and he would act dumbfounded or tell me to figure it out. He would walk away right in the middle of a conversation, while I was talking, he would get embarrassed or something and walk away before I was done.
I got a little curious one day and to my own detriment looked at his facebook, after all he had googled me. His "likes" were listed on there and there were porn stars, models, local stripclubs etc on there. I have no problem with this but it did freak me out more. He is about 53 years old and I just started to see him as pervert. *Not that 53 year old men (or any men) who "like" porn stars on their facebook are all perverts or wrong, I do think its a little distasteful AND stupid if you are a professional and if you google your employees*
I came down with the flu last week and called in for two days, on the third day I was on the mend and noticed my stress level was so low and I felt good. I do not mind working, I like it in fact, when my work environment is healthy. I just started to think of how uncomfortable I was there, how much I started to dislike another human being, how much my mental health was starting to suffer. So with a little money saved in my account and some good job prospects on the horizon, I wrote a resignation letter to the general manager explaining why I felt so uncomfortable that I had to leave. I never heard back from him. My boyfriend thinks I should send the letter to the owner. I think that might be okay but I also worry if I took it too far in the first place. I know he made me uncomfortable, I know without a doubt he had an every day habit of checking out my lady bits but I am just wondering what any other ladies would do and also what you guys think. I mean NONE of my other co-workers who were mostly male did this, not one and if they did they did it in a discreet manner that did not upset our professional relationship. So what gives?
Thanks for your feedback!
You need to document what is going on, as a few weird looks aren't really much for the owner to go on.
Being googled prior to being hired is pretty typical these days, as employers want to make sure you don't have a criminal record and you have basic, decent judgment. Being told you have nice pictures online is creepy and stalker-like, and furthermore does nothing to convince an employer, one way or the other, to hire you.
Beyond whether this is harassment, this guy just sounds like a lousy supervisor. You have to wonder about how or why someone that nervous and twitchy got into a position of company power (even at a low level).
@sweetsense,
sweetsense wrote:
When I came in my first day to train and fill out paperwork he said "you know, I "googled" you" I was definitely taken by surprise. Then he said "nice pictures!" I was a little creeped out. I have been a professional model and photographer for a few years and my photos are published to the internet, however there are some photos on there that aren't me, they look like me but they are not me and some are nude/semi nude! It felt so uncomfortable to know that my boss had seen these pictures, possibly mistaken them for me and commented on them.
Why do you have your FB settings so that strangers can see your photos? That was your fault.
Why do you have semi-nude/nude photos of someone else who looks like you on your FB? And again, why aren't your FB settings more private?
@Mame,
She didn't mention FB, or did I miss that? maybe that wasn't where the photos are.
@Mame,
Lord she had pictures of herself on the internet open to anyone that would be of interests to males in a sexual manner and somehow in some manner there are others pictures that are ID as hers but are not that are even more so.
My question like your is why did she not clean up what could be found before applying for a job?
This supervisor also have an completely open facebook page?!?
What the hell are people thinking nowadays!!!!!!!!!!
To me she is lucky to had been hired in the first place with such materials on the internet and googling is now standard and some employers had have even the nerve to ask for passwords to access facebook accounts of possible employees.
@Mame,
She said he Googled her...not FB. HE was the one that had FB 'issues', not her.
However, the point is that no such pix should have been available online when you apply for a 'legit' job like that.
Frankly, seeing that he wasn't warning you about the problem with the pics and the job policies...this supervisor should have been counseled or fired for harassment.
@ossobuco,
Quote:She didn't mention FB, or did I miss that? maybe that wasn't where the photos are.
Good point but even if she had been into modeling why would she allowed pictures on the net in her legal name that would be found by any google search?
Are people completely insane about what they allowed on the net that can be trace back to them when they are applying for a job?
I am on the net one hell of a lot yet no google search on my legal name is going to be pulling that materials I had posted over the years.
@sweetsense,
Well, you can expect to be routinely checked on Google and the rest of the internet. It's a part of life in the 21st century. As to the rest, including the comment on the pictures, it could have been very creepy. I think we would have had to have been there to give a good opinion. I don't see that he has crossed any bright lines, but it might be a good idea to be on guard, and maybe find another place to work if staying means working directly with this person.
@BillRM,
If you look at google images for almost anyone's name, you'll get some images of a person with that name and some images, perhaps, of another person with that name, and a bunch of images that are apparently unrelated. I look at google images a lot and the photos often devolve into any damned thing. We don't know that she has any control of where this Human Resource type saw her photos, or that if she does, that she had reviewed the photos lately.
On the situation, I don't think sweetsense is paranoid. I'd strongly consider other employment but would also report the interview and the rest of it to this guy's superiors.
@roger,
Quote:As to the rest, including the comment on the pictures, it could have been very creepy.
By having or allowing those pictures on the net under her legal name she might as well be bringing them to the job interview and placing it in front of the gentleman as it is almost standard to google someone who is applying for a job.
As far as his commenting well it seems bad judgment but not as bad as she had shown by having such on the internet under her legal name in the first place
Yeah, you're all correct - she didn't mention FB, but I assumed it was because how would you get pictures of yourself on the internet otherwise? I guess there are ways but you'd have to be some kind of exhibitionist to do so. I can't even imagine why else one would do that. "Look at me!!"
@ossobuco,
Sorry I did a google search on my legal name and there is not even my facebook picture due to my privacy settings on the net.
The name is not the most common in the world either.
My full name has, I dunno, maybe a hundred different women's photos (oh, and one man) and I didn't scroll for long.
Wait, I scrolled further, a couple of more men show up, and another zillion women. None of them me, but I suppose I could still scroll further pages.
And - I've had a fair sized photo in a newspaper (pointing at a landscape plan) - boy, did I hate that photo, bad hair day, bad chin all the time. Luckily, google hasn't glommed onto that yet. The photo was actually hilarious as my business partner didn't look so great either. Her daughter had the photo print framed as a present for our business. That never got hung on any wall.
This woman was a model and a photographer and had professional reasons to show her photos, both of her and by her.
@Mame,
Mame wrote:
Yeah, you're all correct - she didn't mention FB, but I assumed it was because how would you get pictures of yourself on the internet otherwise? I guess there are ways but you'd have to be some kind of exhibitionist to do so. I can't even imagine why else one would do that. "Look at me!!"
There are tons of ways to get your images online that have nothing to do with Facebook. Try flickr, tumblr, your own blog, comment on somebody else's blog with your real name and gravatar account, instagram, meetup, pinterest, linkedin, google+, run a 5K race with your real name and someone's bound to take a picture - hell, just post a picture on A2K and add your name and it'll be out there. Plus, once perfect matches for your name are exhausted, Google will start searching on alternate spellings and close matches. The name
Elizabeth Smith might pull up images for
Elizabeth Smyth or
Beth Smith or
Liz Schmidt.
I just googled my name and got this image -
This is a lovely woman but not me.
I suspect the OP has a similar enough name that someone else's pics are out there and are coming up under a search for her name.
@jespah,
How odd. I Googled your name, and it looks like you belong on Roberta's "Beautiful Animal" thread.
@roger,
My real name, or my user name?
@jespah,
Oh,
. I guess I just used the username.
Hey, it was a good pic. Alert, bright eyed, innocent, with just a touch of cuddly.
@BillRM,
that's a sign that you have never done anything important, billy boy...
@Rockhead,
Quote:that's a sign that you have never done anything important, billy boy...
LOL such as placing nude or almost nude pictures of myself "modeling" on the internet and or having a nude look and name doubt that have porn nudes?
Well perhaps I could still win frame as the man that Angelina Jolie will leaved Brad Pitt for.
Already informed by wife that I would leave her for Angeline like Pitt did to Jennifer Aniston.
For some reason my wife however does not seems too concern over that possibility.
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