LOS ANGELES—An office worker who dressed as himself for a company lunch to celebrate Halloween was terminated by his HR department for harassing himself.
According to the employee, he thought that going as himself would be different, funny, and, convenient. So he did nothing special in preparation for the lunch. When his colleagues asked him who he was supposed to be, he said his name, which he remembers mostly got laughs, though he also recalls that one person booed and that another said his impersonation stunk.
He says that he got called into HR the very next day. They told him that what he did at the lunch the previous day constituted self-harassment. He notes that at first he thought they were joking but that after quickly realizing they weren’t, he launched into what he thought was an unassailable defense by stating that he had been who he was—and who he still is—for all of his nearly seven years with the company, during which he never once filed a complaint against himself. At that point, he says, the vice president of HR calmly told him he was really courageous to finally speak out after all those years of persistent self-harassment. He was then escorted out by building security.
As of this writing, the employee has yet to file a lawsuit for wrongful termination against his former company, apparently because he is not sure whether doing so would mean that he were suing himself as well.
