The Promotion of Perversion and a TRUE Tale from the Corporate Underworld

This isn’t gossip. This isn’t an exaggeration. This is my sister’s reality and might be yours too, if you’ve ever dared to exist as a woman (or just a decent human being) in a workplace run by men who think moral decay is a sign of charisma.

She called me this morning. Not furious. Disappointed, the more dangerous version of heartbreak. You see, she’d been asking for an early release from her job. Not to gallivant across Bali with a cocktail in hand, but to take care of her literal body and mind, two things her job had generously been trying to dismantle since day one. Hormonal dysregulation, fatty liver, existential fatigue, career stagnation, she wasn’t asking for sympathy, just space. And what she got in return was... satire. The dark kind.

Her boss,  let’s call him "Chad the HR Catastrophe", didn’t just say no. He said why bother. He told her leaving because she wasn’t happy or fulfilled was "childish." Ah yes. Emotional needs: the hallmark of immaturity. Perhaps next time she should try bleeding ambition instead of actual blood every month.

But wait! Plot twist. Instead of stopping at garden-variety condescension, Chad took a detour through Misogyny Lane and parked right at Pervert Plaza. When my sister mentioned she’d broken up with her boyfriend to him giving solution to move-in with her boyfriend, because that is how a PROBLEM is solved, right? He, a married man with a child said, “I would offer you comfort, but I’m married. Not that I would mind, but I think you would.”

Now pause. Breathe that in. 

This wasn’t a man caught in a bad moment. This was a man marinated in unchecked audacity, garnished with impunity.

Still, she stayed calm. Why? Because we live in a world where being right gets you fired, while being vile gets you promoted. She knew the reaction that would bring her dignity WOULD BE a slap, a scream, a public evisceration BUT that would also bring her unemployment. She knew that corporate HR departments treat sexual harassment like a weather report: “Yes, it’s unpleasant, but what can we do, really?”

And as if sensing her restraint was his golden ticket, Chad went further. In an elevator, that grimy confessional booth of office sins, he told her, “You know you can do favors to get things done.”

And if you think that was the climax, sit down. Because when she confronted him with the notion of principles, this man, this fossilized relic of probably a failed parenting laughed and said, “There’s no such thing as principles.”

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce the philosophy department of corporate hell.

So here we are, dissecting not just an incident, but an ecosystem. One where the predator knows the rules better than the prey. 

One where women are taught not to make scenes, while men are never taught not to be the scene. One where she has to weigh her dignity against her rent, while he weighs nothing, because consequences? What are those?

And you know what’s even more tragic? We’ll read this. We’ll gasp. Maybe we’ll repost. And then we’ll go back to spreadsheets, to Teams calls, to bosses with wandering eyes and wandering hands, and say nothing.

Because this isn't a story. It's a pattern.

So who do we blame?

— The predator who’s drunk on immunity?
— The institutions that offer safety nets only to the ones falling up?
— The victims trained to whisper when they should roar?
— Or us, the silent audience, sipping our coffee while Rome burns quietly in office cubicles?

If you ask Chad, he’d say there’s no such thing as blame. Or shame. Or principle. Just “getting things done.”

But if you ask me, I’d say: it’s time to start being childish even if that means standing up and throwing tantrums in boardrooms that still run on testosterone and rot.

My sister has a spine made of steel. But should she really have to use it every day just to survive a job?

Maybe the next time someone tells her to do "favors," we should all return the favor, by dismantling the systems that allow men like Chad to thrive.

And maybe, just maybe, being principled isn’t outdated. Maybe it’s just revolutionary.

Let’s be childish. Let’s be inconvenient.
Let’s stop being polite, and start being loud. BECAUSE IT CAN BE YOUR SISTER or BROTHER next, or worse, IT CAN BE YOU!