Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment is defined as ‘unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical contact of a sexual nature.’ After working in the community pharmacy setting, I have had an up close look at how sexual harassment can have a negative effect on the work environment as a whole. ¹

While working one summer at a chain grocery store pharmacy, I started to pick up on some quirks between the pharmacy manager and a fellow technician. The pharmacist would ‘surprise’ this specific technician with small gifts for her birthday, other holidays, and sometimes ‘just because.’ The gifts initially started out as innocent things such as iced coffee, small boxes of chocolates, and gift cards. The technician always found it a little odd that she was the only employee that received the gifts, but she still accepted them none the less. During the same period that she was receiving gifts, the pharmacist would also attempt to walk her out to her car when her shift was over. The gifts then became more of the sexual nature such as furry handcuffs and personal lubricants. At this point the technician began to feel uncomfortable with the pharmacist’s advances and while he would walk her out to her car he would attempt to ‘make a move’ of the physical nature. The technician began documenting all of the advances that the pharmacist made and reported it to the human resource manager and the pharmacist was eventually terminated.

In the meantime between when the unwelcome sexual advance began and when the pharmacist was terminated, the work environment was extremely uncomfortable for all of the other technicians and pharmacists. We all experiences anxiety and it created a low morale at work. I felt like we had lack of productivity as well because everyone in the pharmacy was always talking about what ‘creepy’ thing the pharmacist did this week instead of focusing on the task at hand of patient care. The level of teamwork also decreased as the technician that was being harassed was (expectedly) unwilling to work well with the pharmacist that was harassing her.

After that summer of working, I quickly learned the meaning of sexual harassment and how it can have a negative impact on all involved. 

1.       Kleiman, Lawrence S. "Complying with Workplace Justice Laws." Human Resource Management: a Managerial Tool for Competitive Advantage. Cincinnati: Atomic Dog Pub., 2007. 330. Print.