Recently I was given the blessing of being laid off due to Covid 19 and saved the hassle of quitting. My last position as a Senior Graphic designer/Illustrator lasted for 2 years before I was placed on furlough, which then turned into a full lay off due to the pandemic. During the 2 years I encountered so much negativity and improper use of power. I was never the victim and I believe it was because I randomly knew my previous “bosses” sister and her husband. But I did witness numerous time him bully employees, Especially women. About a year and a half into the job the company lawyers came and spoke to us individually. At that time I learned that he had previously sexually harassed his assistant. She took proper steps and documented everything and it was settled out of court. Based one the questions asked, it was pretty obvious that he was in the wrong. He has no idea that the lawyers spoke with us about this matter. He was never fired and from what I heard,was that the insurance covered the $800,000 that was awarded to his previous assistant. All of this he has no idea that we all knew. Another girl was hired as his assistant. One morning after him and new assistant had a sales dinner meeting. She came to me and said he kept trying to make her consume alcohol. Which she didn’t engage in. She also told me that he had offered her some pills… keep in mind, this happened while he was under observation for sexually harassing the previous assistant. The new one went to the CFO and her answer was to transfer her to another department. Naturally I developed shame for working for someone like that and it effected my attitude at work. A couple months later I was called into the conference room because he wanted to ask “if everything was ok”. At that time I confronted him about the way he treats people. During our talk he mentioned several times that “I wish this place wasn’t so Corperate”, my response to that was “that’s for your employees protection and to stop you from treating us inappropriately. Obviously he had no response. After that he was nice for like a week. He openly spoke about politics and psychedelic drug use. We had one employee that confined in him about having suicidal thoughts and his answer was to give him some shrooms and told him to do some micro doses. I could go on and on about things that happened. This experience has made me rethink my choice in career. I have experienced more things of this sort in the past from previous employers, but never as severe as my last one. I just don’t understand how things like this go on and there are no consequences.
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Corporate or family business?
It was a private label company that was funded by a larger company. The owner of the larger company would fund smaller companies. Not sure why they didn’t terminate the department after the sexual harassment case. I know we made a lot in sales, so that’s the only reason why I can imagine why they didn’t shut it down.
OH! the stories that I could tell…but I really prefer not to go down that rabbit hole anymore. I’m just very glad I do not have to put up with that kind of abuse now.
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I’m sorry you had to go through that 
On to better things! (considering were in a pandemic).
Definitely was an experience. I feel more for those that were directly effected by it.