It’s already well known at work that I don’t just not like gore videos but that I hate them and actively avoid them.
A colleague sent me a video of a man being murdered by axe via WhatsApp to my personal phone on my lunch break. Before I opened it I asked if it was a video that I would want to see (because I know what sort of character he is), he implied it was fine.
Despite my suspicion I took his word and watched it. I immediately scolded him, he then made light of the situation, I told him that it wasn’t funny and that if it ever happened again I would be making a formal complaint immediately.
A couple of minutes later, another colleague came in to the mess room, the guy that sent the video made fun of me for not liking the video in front of them. I told him that he was making fun of me and that I wasn’t ok with that.
Do I have the right to not be sent murder videos? What would an employer do if I made a complaint?
TW: suicide
Similar happened to me about 15 years ago, and it still bothers me. Mine was out of the blue though, nobody had shared anything remotely violent or gory in the team. One guy decides to share a ‘funny’ video with a subject line of ‘always search your detainees’ or something. A guy gets seated in a room by a cop, asks for some water, cop leaves, guy sits for a moment, then pulls out a handgun and shoots himself in the head. I had headphones on and still remember the sound of his last ‘exhale’ after dying. Fucked me up for a while.
In short, don’t stand for this shit. It no joke how much it can affect you if you aren’t desensitised already, especially if you aren’t expecting it
All the advice about going to HR is great, and you absolutely should.
But on a personal note, I’m really sorry you are dealing with this. Absolutely not even remotely okay for him to do this and you are well within your rights to force an end to this. Wildly unprofessional behavior and down right creepy behavior just on a personality level.
I hope you find peace from him soon.
As for law I don’t know but this is work harassement. Your company surely has a policy against it.
I would advice you to go to your HR make a complain even you don’t go all the way to make sure he is punished, you should make sure they is a official trace of what happened. For you, for what you went thought also for the case he keeps going and for other how might be his next victims of harassment in the futur.Yep work harassment. Not even a maybe.
If some edgelord employee sent a picture of a gun to someone with no context, HR will file it under threat. The edgelord won’t get in serious trouble, but would be warned about that since it’s vague and can be anything from showing their cool gun collection, to threatening to shoot.
Now a video of actual murder… You better believe thats harassment. No question about it. Immediate removal.
And as the comment above - if he’s sending that to you, he absolutely will be sending nasty shit to your other coworkers, especially to those who can’t speak up or are too afraid.
Not acceptable. I don’t know laws in the UK but that person should lose their job. Workplace harassment is a serious offense, as you are REQUIRED to be there, so your employer is required to provide you with a safe, harassment-free workplace.
Keep evidence, keep everything, report everything, and keep doing it. Keep personal logs of who you talked to and when, what was said, even if there’s no other record. It’s possibly going to cost you your “team member” status, but that’s what the harasser is counting on. They are sadistic, and they’re going out of their way to make your life miserable and endanger your job and peace of mind.
Show them no mercy.
Do you still have the video link???
Murder him and make a video
/s for any dumbass who gets upset over this
I think the more important question is: why did you not make the complaint? You said that you would, and you know it’s the right move, but you haven’t done it. Instead you came here to ask what would happen. Why?
HR is not your friend, but unless your colleague is C-level, HR probably isn’t their friend either. Just be mindful of workplace politics - but their behavior is not just toxic, it’s radioactive.
If you wanted to take it a step further, you might consider getting a bill for therapy sessions to support a lawsuit. You should probably seek out counsel if you go down that avenue, though.
What a complete and utter distasteful thing to do by your colleague. You do have the other colleague as witness, kind of. In some countries you can get legal advice for free. No idea whether that applies for the UK. Having said that your colleague appears to be seeking for attention, negative or not. You really should define your personal boundaries. However the question is whether ignoring the person and blocking their private number or filing a complaint is going to give them more attention and more reason to harass you. I would talk with a few good friends in real time about this so you can vent or cry or shout about this horrible event. Stay safe!
It’s just a video. You are making a big deal out of nothing.
I agree, the video isn’t that big a deal. Not respecting boundaries in a work environment, on the other hand, is a very big deal, particularly since he knew he was violating their boundaries. I’ve stopped talking to people who didn’t respect my boundaries before, and those were friends, not coworkers. The fact you can’t recognize the underlying issue is probably something you should reflect on.
Found the colleague
Found the snowflake
your colleague is likely a borderline psychopath or antisocial at best (not asocial, antisocial big difference)
I could see this just being someone who is immature and thinking they’re being funny, like someone who is ticklish but doesn’t like being tickled and people keep tickling them randomly.
To be clear I am not condoning the actions of this person, if the op doesn’t want to see gore videos then their wishes should be respected. I’m just thinking back to younger me and I was such an asshole =/
Talk to HR. If they are not responsive talk to a lawyer that specializes in workplace law.
I might report it but not name him. I know there is a chance that he could get sacked, I think the guy is a grade A moron but I’m not willing to ruin his life over it.
He’s ruining his own life by being a moron. By not naming him in a complaint, he will not learn that his actions have consequences.
There’s consequences and then there’s ruining his livelihood. I’m severely pissed off but seeing him sacked won’t make me feel better. I don’t want revenge, I just want him to act like a professional.
You’re allowing their behavior to be normalized, they think it’s ok because you are allowing it to be ok.
This person will obviously never be professional. How many others you work with are also traumatized by those videos but don’t say anything, I wonder. Get this scumbag fired for your coworkers if you won’t do it for yourself.
Consequences and revenge are not the same thing. If he doesn’t receive the direct consequences of his actions, he will not learn that he shouldn’t do that. Clearly he is incapable of learning via polite means. You are not the only person he’s doing this to, and it is not acceptable.
He’s already ignored your requests to be more professional. You’ve already made it clear that his behavior is making you uncomfortable. I’m sure there’s a code of conduct or similar somewhere that he agreed to that would prohibit this bullshit. Fuck him. Whatever happens to him is on him at this point.
The consequences are 100% on him and 0% on you.
He chose to be a douche and is presuming on others to keep this under wraps so he can continue being abusive. Playing along with his secrecy game only helps the abuser. You have absolutely no obligation to keep this private, and moreover you have digital evidence in the form of a text message.
I’m UK too. As I see it your options are one or more of:
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ignore the incident without comment and don’t give him the satisfaction of upsetting you;
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block him so he can’t do it again. If he needs your number for other reasons then he gave up that right when he sent you that disgusting stuff; now he needs other routes, which you can block as needed;
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raise the issue with your team leader or manager advising that you just want it to stop, you don’t want disciplinary action taken against him, but if he’s a repeat offender then the company might take it further anyway (which would be appropriate and correct);
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DO NOT go to HR. They are not your friend or ally. They are there to protect the company and it’s just as likely you’ll be terminated as him. HR is a last resort, if you can’t get any satisfaction from management, and you keep suffering this kind of abuse (because that’s what it is; I’m not exaggerating), only then go to HR and even then only after notifying everyone concerned - the bully/bullies and your manager - that’s what you’re going to do.
If this cockwomble gets fired because of sending that video to you, you have nothing to be ashamed of. It’s his own stupidity that got him there, not you “grassing him up” or whatever other cockney nonsense you might have knocking around inside your noggin. You don’t owe that wanknugget anything, especially after he sent you stuff you explicitly said you didn’t want to see.
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Being sacked isn’t ruining someone’s life. There are other companies, other jobs. It’s hardly the end of the world.
What you’re saying is “I want him to know it’s okay to keep doing this to other people with no consequences”.
With that kind of attitude you will be a victim forever.
He’s done this before, and you haven’t made a complaint???!
Passing snuff movies around is disgusting - IANAL but I would suggest that at minimum it would be Gross Misconduct and, probably, highly illegal and he should be immediately dismissed and possibly arrested.
However, I’m not a lawyer so I would contact ACAS ASAP, see https://www.acas.org.uk/ and log everything, inc. previous videos he’s sent around - don’t delete your evidence! But ACAS will advise you best.
I deleted it immediately because I can’t stand to have that sort of video on my phone.
He’s not sent one to me directly before, but there is a work group chat where similar videos have come up (all deleted by me) and I left a comment saying what I thought about those types videos which pretty much brought them to a stop.
Don’t delete it, don’t act like this is a minor inconvenience, walk directly to HR or your supervisor and tell them what is going on. This is will-not-work-until-this-matter-is-resolved levels of unacceptable.
Another thing you can consider is to find a good mediator and then have a chat with your colleague to talk about your boundaries and about their motives. You got lots of down-votes for your reluctance to complain and have the colleague fired and that made me think that your colleague getting fired might make things worse. Who knows what more horrible things the person would do after that. Something more constructive must be possible.
thats highly disturbing and im sorry to hear that happened to you. your employer should absolutely take this seriously. whether or not they are legally obligated to, im not sure, but if you are at a large company speak to your office of ethics, associate relations, or if small, anyone in HR. just speak up.
