Page 31 of An Irresistible Force (Vancouver Vice)

“Anti-fratern..?” asked one of the players.

“It means a no-dating policy. We don’t have one,” I explained.

Brenda leaned closer to Eric Fairburn, resting her breast on his forearm. She was clearing implying that it was still okay for him to ask her out. He was trying to lean away from her, but the chairs were jammed too close.

I cleared my throat. “I would like to underline that this policy applies to men as well as women. Men can be harassed too. Everyone deserves a hassle-free workplace.”

At the back of the room, Daniel Ramsey let out a snort at this remark. “As if. Show me a guy who doesn’t want women all over him and I’ll show you a—” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. I saw Greg rise up to say something to him, but I shook my head.

“Daniel, this tolerance goes for sexual orientation as well. We’re all here to work because we bring special skills to the team—regardless of what we do in our personal lives. So to hear a remark like that after I’ve explained how the Vice wants to be a supportive workplace is very disappointing—especially from the captain of the team. I hope you understand how seriously we are taking these problems. There will be consequences for breaches of the policy.”

He wiped the smirk off his face. “Sorry, Amanda. Just trying to lighten the mood.”

But who could deny that there was an elephant in this room—my uncle’s lawsuit hovered like a slimy spirit over my whole talk. Regardless of the outcome of his case, I was putting guidelines into place to protect everyone.

“Any more questions?”

There was silence.

“Okay, one more thing. I’d like to introduce Kimberly Pham to you.” Kimberly came up to join me at the front of the room. “As I outlined, if you have any kind of work issues, you can talk to your boss, me, or Gregory—whoever you feel most comfortable approaching. But you can also contact Kimberly. She doesn’t work here. She’s an independent H.R. consultant who can communicate your concerns to management without revealing your identity. So you don’t have to worry about repercussions.”

Kimberly nodded. “Yes, Amanda has given me direct access to the board. That means regardless of who is running the team, I can go right to the top. I hope you’ll feel free to contact me anytime—even if you’re not sure there’s a problem and you just want to talk. My number is in your new policy document.”

I thanked everyone. “Okay, at this point, all the admin side staff will be leaving and Coach Pankowski will be taking over.” Our meeting had piggy-backed onto their regular team session.

We all walked back to our offices. Greg congratulated me.

“I thought that went great, Amanda. You spoke well.”

Tori nodded. “I would pee my pants if I had to do public speaking in front of all those people. And about sex too.”

Brenda sniffed. “It was more about no sex. You’re taking all the fun out of the workplace, if you ask me. All the guys’ll be too afraid to talk to us now.”

“I don’t agree. You can still enjoy chatting to whoever, but you don’t want to cross the line into making someone uncomfortable.”

“Oh, really?” she challenged. “One question. How come you gave this little warning talk on the only day that Chris Luczak is not in the office? Seems like only the executives get their jollies around here, while the rest of us get in trouble.”

What was this woman’s problem? “This day was chosen by Coach Pankowski as the only time I could address his team. And Chris will be fully informed about the policy when he’s here on Monday.”

Brenda’s expression showed what she thought of that answer.

Tori jumped in. “I hope he doesn’t change. He’s so fun and friendly. I guess it’s not fair, but when someone like Chris flirts with you, it feels nice, but if it’s someone icky it feels kinda harrass-y.”

There was no arguing with that fact.

The next week,I got Greg to inform Chris about the sexual harassment policy just in case Brenda was worried I wasn’t going to do a sufficient job in scaring him away. But while Chris was a total flirt, he seldom flirted with me. Not that I minded much.

And I wasn’t expecting a flood of sexual harassment complaints, but I didn’t hear any reaction at all. I went to double-check whether anyone had asked Brenda for clarification. I assumed she was nicer to other people than she was to me. Uncle Thomas raved about how good she was, but I had to take his word for it.

I knocked of the wall of Brenda’s cubicle. I noticed that her screensaver was a nude photo of Eric Fairburn—muscular and full frontal with a large erect penis!

She turned and saw my widened eyes. She jerked around and hit a key so that a spreadsheet appeared.

“That’s not suitable for work, Brenda.”

She sniffed. “It’s just a little pick-me up for my long working days.”

“Besides, it’s not even Eric,” I couldn’t help pointing out. Embarrassingly, I remembered that Eric had no hair on his chest, and the screensaver guy had some.

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