[Emland]

My husband has recently had a conflict that has resulted in threat of filling harassment charges. A female coworker has become severely upset because my husband has raised his voice at her. He tells me that even the other co-workers present have stated that his voice was raised but not the point of yelling or being disrespectful. This has happened on three occasion where the woman went crying to her supervisor. On the second occasion it was also relayed (rumor) that my husband called her "b^%&h" and she threaten to file sexual harassment charges. Internal gossip has it that the person adding the fuel to the fire was one of the supervisors. On the third the threat of filing harassment charges has come to light. On this situtation "again rumor control" it was over heard the her supervisor would not let any man talk to his wife/sister in that manor of course she is the subordinate and not a wife/sister. My husbands understanding is that the law on harassment is not to enforce civility and that even if he did yell or curse at her these are not grounds for harassment charges. This whole situation has placed a lot of stress and strain on my husband. It seems that this the "threat" of filling harassment charges against someone is harassment in itself.

What are your opinions and advice?

[Fr_Chuck]

Just because it is harassment does not make it illegal, if it is not sexual, if is not for a protected right, there is little they can do. For example, lets say you husband does yell at her? If he is just a co/worker or even her boss, yelling at someone ( unless you curse) is not really illegal, it may be against some company policy.

Cursing can be harssment

He actually needs to go to his supervisor and talk about the situation,

[Emland]

They have been talking on an off for several months now. (The first "incident" was in September.) To complicate matters, they don't even work for the same company. There are 2 separate federal contractor organizations involved. My husband is not in a position of superiority in the situation.

My husband is retired military (enlisted) and is completely familiar with the system that the project is centered around. The female is a couple years out of college (William and Mary, she reminds everyone) and is the daughter of a retired O5 and is wearing his scrambled eggs (from my hubby's viewpoint.)

They are in disagreement about how a particular widget needs to be configured. He has the experience and has verified with the vendors that the widget can more than handle the configuration. She says it can't and something else has to be done (more time more money.) When they disagree, my husband gets loud - it's his personality - but it isn't profane and doesn't include name calling or anything like that. He is just defending his conviction. She goes back to her supervisor crying and complaining and recently the term "harrassing" has popped up. You can imagine my husband is now very concerned.

I think a couple of problems could be in the works. My husband served mostly with men most of his career, but not exclusively and worked with females in his last command. He isn't used to having to tapdance around someone's feelings. Although I would never describe him as a feminist, he treats women exactly like he treats men, meaning he won't sugarcoat something to make you feel nice. If you are full of crap - male or female - he will let you know.

My advice to him has been to keep his mouth shut and if she proposes something that just isn't workable or is a huge cost or delay to the customer (the government), then to write it up in a memo or email and send it to her and his supervisor.

Any other ideas? This has been a constant worry to me. He assures me his job isn't in jeopardy, but I know employers are very intolerant to words like "sexual harrassment."