Is this Sexual Harrassment??

[houstongirl]

What is the name of your state? Texas. I work for a pharmaceutical company as an outside sales rep. My job is to visit doctors offices and promote my drug. One doctor I have called on for years gave me a kiss on the lips about 1 month ago. I did not say anything, just kind of pulled back in shock. A couple weeks later he did it again...just a peck. He is an Indian doctor so I thought maybe this is normal in their culture although it seemed very innapropriate. The 3rd time it happened we were in his office, the door was wide open, and he pulled me towards him and kissed me on the lips for several seconds then said " I needed that, its been a rough day."
He could tell I was shocked. I immediately left and called my boss and told her what had happened. I told her I would not call on him anymore. HR got involved and said that it was my decision whether to take him out of our territory. The problem here is that I have 2 other reps that works with me and call on him too. HR said that if i take him out then no one can call on him, which would mean that our sales numbers would go way down because he i a very big writer of my drug. I told HR to leave him on our call list and I then just made an agrrement with my other 2 male coworkers that I would not go in anymore. The sales data for this doctore is already starting to go down since I have stopped calling on him.
His actions were very innapropriate. I don't work for him so I don't know if this classifies as Sexual Harrassment. I never verbally said don't do that, but my reactions showed that I was not into this.

 

[Beth3]

Sure, it's sexual harassment but you never reported it to your employer until it had happened for the third time. If they don't know about it, they can't intervene. Now that you've told them, their obligation is to make it stop. A perfectly reasonable plan is to have a male sales rep call on this doctor from now on.

The doctor is a pig of course. It's no more appropriate for a male of the Indian race/culture to grab a woman and kiss her than it is in our culture but the problem is, you never told him to knock it off. Unless you slapped his face or kicked him in the groin, your reactions don't count. You can talk to an attorney about filing a criminal complaint and/or civil lawsuit but I expect you have a very weak case since you didn't report the first two incidents to your employer timely and you never told the doctor to stop. Let's hope this never happens again with anyone else but you need to speak up immediately and forcefully if it does.

 

[HomeGuru]

A complaint could also be filed with the state regulatory agency and the medical board.

 

[hexeliebe]

Hell guys, I'd just bite his tongue off...among other things