Where are you working that you can reasonably imagine this happening? The risks of someone making this claim are so, so high, yet you believe someone would do this just to 'settle unrelated personal scores'?
> Where are you working that you can reasonably imagine this happening?
I'm working at a place where I can't imagine this happening because they, while taking harassment complaints very seriously, also take personnel actions very seriously and investigate before imposing permanent consequences, using other means to prevent furthering a problem during the investigation.
> The risks of someone making this claim are so, so high
If the company establishes a practice of firing without investigation, and the events are hard to disprove in a way which would sustain a defamation complaint by the falsely accused, the risks are near zero.
It happens. Allegations deserve investigation before punishment is doled out. Just because SV is doing an absolutely awful job at dealing with sexual harassment right now doesn't mean we need to swing hard the other direction and punish without proof.
You'd think we wouldn't need a security camera in our break room to stop people from stealing other people's food, but we do. People do all sorts of petty crap. If you expect rational behavior, you're going to be disappointed.
I envy that. I eat out or hide my food just because they won't put a camera in ours. Too much stuff stolen. I did get a thief once by putting a special ingredient in it then leaving it clearly marked with large letters and warning. They probably thought, "Screw him. He can't prove nothing." Jokes on him. :)
Just did it once, though. I put a lot of effort into avoiding harming innocent people. The bar is getting lower and people are often tired so someone might grab it thinking it was a sample or something. Just too tired to be smart or something. So, continuing to avoid the fridge except looking for any freebies company provides. :)
"Where are you working that you can reasonably imagine this happening?"
It's happened a bunch of times at my company just that I've seen personally. I'm not even talking the ones that did it to me. It's a "reputable," Fortune 100 company with diverse staff and plenty of turnover currently due to management. My part of it has maybe 100 people or so. There were also real cases of sexual harassment male-on-female and female-on-male mostly resolved by employees themselves without escalation. Younger people just being stupid with some coaching and strict warning. Those that were a bigger problem, such as smacking asses or continued harassment, get escalated to management who investigates them, gets witness testimony, and fires them if witness or camera confirmation is strong. I helped get rid of a long-timer recently where you hear stories with no evidence. He got transfered to a shitty job with more people around due to poor work ethic. This time, there were 2-3 witnesses to his behavior that escalated in his irritation and we got rid of him immediately.
So, it happens both ways in my company. The thousands of women I've talked to from tons of companies also told me both happen: sexual harassment; people using fake claims including sexual harassment as a tool. We call it the "he said, she said bullshit." Fortunately, my bosses cultivated a good team where we deal with little to none of that stuff. I mainly hear it from others acting as a witness for them or developing strategy for trouble-makers on occasion.
