The time Miraclefish accidentally accused the deputy editor of sexual abuse...
Well it started, as things often do, with an in joke. Being the younger journalist on a magazine I used to work at, I quite rightly got some genial abuse from the older hands, and I gave back as good as I can get. Someone mentioned that 'you can't be nasty to a 20 year old, it's practically child abuse!' It was all fun, if edgy, banter, the kind that only comes from working all the hours that god sends for a pittance with a bunch of like-minded social outcasts.

When the jokes got a bit near the bone, someone would say 'I'll tell HR! and we'd all chuckle and wander off for coffee and a browse on eBay.

Then one day I sent a joke email to the dep ed cc'd into a fake address (something like [email protected]) that mentioned that I was a bit concerned that the deputy had 'tried to put his finger inside me' a la Team America.

We all had a good old chuckle.

Then a few weeks later I got an email from a human resources drone asking if I 'wanted to arrange an appointment to discuss 'the incident'. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I cast my mind back and oh no OH FUCK NO SHITNOFUCK!

So I emailed back, very quickly, and explained that it was 'an in-joke which was never meant for anyone but him and me to read and that I'd purposely involved a fake, non-format email address for HR, so I was confused as to how it got to them'.

Anyway next thing I knew, my editor was called to a meeting with HR, leaving me and the dep editor nervously waiting. "I've just accused you of putting your finger inside me and..." 'That's not the end of it?' asked a colleague. "No, I also said that he told me to... keep it our little secret."

Oh. Dear God.

I've just accused my boss of... I don't know what, really. This is what they call a 'career-limiting move'.

Thankfully the editor came back and said that he'd smoothed it over and that in future, HR 'would prefer it if we didn't make jokes over the email system and, if possibly, not to make jokes involving sexual harassment either'.

I can see their point...
(Miraclefish How appropriate, you fight like a cow, Wed 15 Dec 2010, 16:30, 1 reply)

Also, I bet it occurs to him that he can do whatever he wants to you now
because you've cried wolf and nobody'll believe you.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Wed 15 Dec 2010, 23:38, closed)