He (40s m) promised to stand up for me, to whoever was harassing me. (23f) Then he went back on that promise when he found out it was his old friend. (50s m)

I was harassed by someone I worked with, Tony, for quite some time. I felt like I couldn't go to HR because I'd heard bad things about people who go to HR at my company. Getting fired, or excluded, or whatever.

I work with another guy, Will, and I know he's worked with Tony for 10 years but I didn't know much about their friendship, or if they were even friends at all. I was really stressed one day, about the whole thing, and I told Will everything, except the name of the person who had been harassing me. He was saying stuff like how he'd go put the fear of god into whoever it was if I just gave a name, how that shit wasn't right, how he'd go have a serious talking-to with the person and make sure it never happened again. How he would put an end to anyones behavior that was intimidating me. I said I'd have to think on that, I was worried about the box of worms that might open up.

I went to HR about the whole thing, and as I feared, they weren't very helpful. They wanted me to transfer away, to separate the two of us, and I didn't want to leave my current job.

Yesterday I told Will that the person I'd been talking about was Tony, and that I'd also been to HR, and wasn't satisfied with how that went. So if there was anything he could do to keep Tony away from me like he'd volunteered to earlier, that would save me a lot of stress and fear.

And as soon as Will heard the name Tony, his attitude changed. He started to doubt that the things I said happened actually happened. He started to say that there really wasn't anything he could do to keep someone from coming around our area of the office. A complete 180 from his promises earlier. I think he has more of a friendship with Tony than I understood.

Just to be clear, I wasn't lying about a thing.

And right now I feel like everything I did is making the situation worse. HR tried to send me away for saying I was scared. Will seems to be stuck by his old friend... I'm still scared of Tony. I need this job for the money... Even though I'm trying to find a new one, I haven't gotten an offer yet anywhere.

And it's so hard to look Will in the eyes after he said he'd help me then turned his back on me. I have to work with him every day

tldr .. my coworker said he'd help me, with the problems I was having with being harassed. Then he found out the name of the person harassing me, it was his friend... He's turned his back on me.

Submitted February 27, 2019 at 11:11AM by temp29171715718 https://ift.tt/2XsfdNd