This isn't too far from what was said. I did mention that I respected the decision to give me the benefit of the doubt in all of this when the easier option for them would probably have been to show me the door and that this makes me feel as though this is a company that tries to do the right thing and is there for its employees, which is something I appreciate.
I did also mention my concerns over the complaints. It's not the one about abortion that really gets to me - that is something I said, I told my story which makes it very clear my stance on the issue. That's all fair enough, and that's the reason that all of this has happened. It's the other claims that bother me a little more. The one about the sexual comment and then her not wanting a lift home afterwards because she felt uncomfortable when in reality she liked the comment and I did give her a lift home that night. Her claiming to be uncomfortable enough to not want a lift with me that night is an outright lie, but I have no way of proving it.
The main issue was the comments regarding the service user with cerebral palsy and my apparently asking what the point of his life was when in reality I was simply trying to find out more about the guy and how to best support him. This one comes across as particularly manipulative and vindictive and in my view is a deliberate attempt to twist what I said. Because this comment is related to a service-user and so is within the context of a conversation about work this one concerned me the most because it feels designed to show seniors at the company that I lack empathy.
Overall though, and this is not something I would get into with the manager or anyone else at work, I find it quite disturbing actually that someone of 22 years of age, so no longer really a child; a mother, no less; and a self-confessed fan of Donald Trump to boot; would become so offended by a conversation that she would carry all of this through. I try to imagine myself even reporting someone for such a thing let alone following it up with further accusations. We were fine prior to the abortion chat. It appears as though she's gone out of her way to try to paint a negative picture of me such that it had the chance of costing me my job. Not only that but she loses nothing out of the whole scenario, unless someone has had a word with her about it that I know nothing of since I haven't been in since last Wednesday.
She's been crafty, this woman. She hasn't made up stories from thin air. She has based her complaints around topics and conversations that did occur. She's just twisted them a little (and by a little I mean a lot). This means that HR have to get around the idea that she could have interpreted me in this way, that I may have meant A but she feels B, or perhaps she feels B because I really did mean B and am just saying that I meant A. It's a no-proof-required scenario. Seems to be about how someone feels about what was said and not the actual thing that was said. It's a tricky situation and not one I would like to have dumped on my desk to deal with.
In all seriousness it speaks to a larger issue, I feel. I think back 20 years to when I was that age and I know that politics and these hot-button topics weren't as talked about among youngsters as they are now but I can't think of a single example of someone at this age back in the late '90s / early '00s that I know of who would have acted in this way over someone elses' opinion clashing with their own.
Imagine I had been really nasty to her and called her a baby-killer and went in really hard about how bad a person I thought she was (not that I did at the time, maybe now though). She literally might never have recovered.
I've heard stories about the so-called '********* Generation', usually from American commentators but also here in the UK as well. I think I've now seen some evidence of it in the real world: someone who would bring up a topic but then not like having their views on it contradicted with a real-world example and then feel entitled to try to cause as much damage to their reputation as possible to the point where they have to be ''monitored'' for a time should they decide to return to work.
It's actually quite terrifying when you think about it for a while.
