A COMMENTARY
What’s happening in the workplace may be
adversely affecting your mental health!
from the internet coupled with interviews from people
who have been affected at some point in their life by this topic.
This goes for men and women both. For more information:
www.betterbrave.org.
Michele Mejia, a server, a wife and human rights activist resides in
Naples, Florida, and has a passion for equality in the workforce. From her
experiences, Michele supports speaking out and bringing awareness to the
public in hopes that others will speak up for themselves and help stop this
ongoing problem.
Names of individuals interviewed were left out due to privacy concerns.
Designed by Richard Gundry
Hair Stylist
or over 35 years Richard has been training
stylists how to cut and color hair. After
owning 6 salons in New York and Tampa
F
Bay, Richard has settled into the Lake Jovita area,
bringing his expertise to our community. With
a background in product development and hair
design cutting techniques, Richard is able to give
his clients their desired look accentuating their
individual hair type and facial structure. Each
to the individual.
Specializing in hair color, highlights, body wave and perming techniques.
Services are by Appointment Only
352-668-8906
All About You Salon
38010 15th Avenue, Zephyrhills, FL 33542
NBy Michele Mejia
Not every day is going to be full of positivity-that’s just
how life goes. However, sometimes work environments can
create extreme stress levels due to hostile employees. Hostile
work environments can have a serious impact on mental,
physical and emotional health not to mention the havoc
it can wreak on inter personal relationships
such as your home and family life as well
as interactions with friends and other fellow
co-workers. Harassment can come in many
-
about. “Harassment is unwelcome conduct
that is based on race, color, religion, sex,
(including pregnancy) national origin, age
(40 or older) physical disability or genetic
information. Harassment becomes unlawful
when 1) where enduring the offensive
Michele Mejia
conduct becomes a condition of continued
employment, 2) the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to
create a work environment that a reasonable person would
consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive”. Bullying, sexual,
verbal and psychological harassment are just to name a few.
All harassment may not be treated equal but it is important
that it is taken and treated seriously on each and every
account...never being discounted or minimized! Although a
particular comment may have been intended to be innocent
the impact it had on the victim should never be discredited.
This is extremely prevalent in the service industry where employees
make sexual overtures or comments all the time. Often
when brought to the attention of management, little to
nothing is done and shockingly the victim is met with intimidation
and retaliatory behavior and penalties such as unfair
changes to the schedule and less hours given as an example.
Sometimes the aggressor is a key employee making it that
complainant.
This brings me to my next point in fact that there needs
attention focused on this issue, especially for sexual harass-
at work. That’s 1 out of 4 women have or will experience sexual
harassment. The EEOC (The Equal Opportunity Employ-
And those women experienced retaliation when an incident
total inaction or minimization upon reporting of the incident.
-
-
alleged harassment claims.
I wrote this article with some statistics and info from research
12 • JULY/AUGUST 813.682.9364 FLORIDA WOMEN MAGAZINE
/www.betterbrave.org