Maintaining Self-Control With a Superior

Most of us, if we don’t totally love our jobs, at least need them.  We have mortgages or rent, cars to pay off, and families to support.  Our lives often revolve around our jobs, with established family schedules and routines in place to accommodate our work.  To leave our jobs would be difficult.

Supervisors or superiors at work who have the ability to affect our jobs therefore wield power in our lives.  Some will attempt to use that power to their personal sexual advantage.

No job, no amount of money, no promise of reward is worth trading in your self-esteem or self-control.  Depending on who is pressuring you, you may need to fight to keep control over your own life and your own sexuality.  It may help you to know you are not powerless.

Consider some steps you can take to keep control of your life.  I do not presume to offer you legal advice on such matters, but a bit of wisdom and some common sense can see you safely through most difficult moments in the workplace.

Do not allow your supervisor to speak to you disrespectfully.  Just because someone is above you in the organizational structure of a company, they do not have the right to verbally minimize you.

It is important to voice an objection if this occurs.  Putting it off until later removes the immediacy of both their actions and your feelings about that action.  For example, if a supervisor speaks to you using vulgar language or launches into criticism laced with personal references, you need to object.

“Mr. Smith, I would appreciate it if you would please refrain from using vulgar language when you speak to me.  Or, “Ms. Jones, if you have a complaint about my work, I naturally am concerned about that, but I cannot allow you to continue to speak to me in this way.”

Speaking to a subordinate in an attacking or demeaning manner is one way a sexual manipulator will attempt to gain acquiescence from a target.  If they find out you will not stand up for yourself in a verbal assault, chances are they will expect the same capitulation in a sexual confrontation.  Often, a sexual manipulator will size up a potential target in this way.  By voicing a timely and firm objection, it may be possible to forestall sexual aggression early in the process.

If your supervisor is making inappropriate personal comments, the simplest thing to do is to ask them to stop.  Be firm but professional.  Make your objections every time inappropriate comments are made.  Do not wait.  Put bosses on notice that you do not appreciate comments of that nature, and that you fully expect comments like that to cease.  If comments do not stop, write a memorandum to the supervisor, and send a copy to your human relations or personnel office, outlining in detail the nature of the offensive comments and your repeated requests for them to cease.  If it should become necessary for you to contemplate legal action, documentation of your perception of the events written down at the time they occurred will be invaluable.

Authored by Dr. Gregory Jantz, founder of The Center • A Place of HOPE  and author of 30 books. Pioneering whole-person care nearly 30 years ago, Dr. Jantz has dedicated his life’s work to creating possibilities for others, and helping people change their lives for good. The Center • A Place of HOPE, located on the Puget Sound in Edmonds, Washington, creates individualized programs to treat behavioral and mental health issues, including eating disorders, addiction, depression, anxiety and others.