My first job as an HR Manager was a doozy. Within the first few months on the job, I established the company's first HR Department, responded to various EEOC complaints including religious harassment, and race discrimination allegations, responded to a DOL Equal Pay Act complaint, and was named, along with the rest of the management team, as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit. It was trial by fire. In retrospect, it was an incredible introduction to the more technical aspects of HR!

In my eighteen years in HR, I investigated a lot of sexual harassment complaints. These cases are always nasty because they are intensely personal. The most bizarre sexual harassment case I investigated is outlined below. I couldn't possibly make this stuff up.

At this company, most of the work was done on project sites that were often in remote locations. In this case, the Foreman, whom we'll call John, was a seasoned veteran, and the young attractive Project Accountant, Susan, was new to working in the field, having recently been promoted from an office position.

Apparently, John had taken Susan, who was new to the area, under his wing when she began working in the office about 6 months earlier. Occasionally, he and his wife would invite Susan over for dinner with the family, and he would also have her baby-sit the kids.  Well, you guessed it...John and Susan began a sexual relationship when they were in the field working on this 2 month project.  When the project was over, I heard nothing unusual regarding any possible shenanigans. 

The complaint came about 3 months later. The bizarre thing was, that it was John making the complaint against Susan. He came to HR to complain that Susan and his wife were having relations without him being present, and he wanted HR to stop it! Upon questioning, I found out the three of them had apparently begun having frequent threesomes following the 2 month project. John, however, got upset when he found out the girls weren't inviting him to every party...if you get my drift.   He actually wanted me to put a stop to it. Needless to say, those of us in HR don't have the ability to stop two consenting adults from doing anything. All I could do in this case was determine whether John had violated the company's sexual harassment policy. He had. John didn't last much longer with the company.