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Vicki Bartelt: Add as a Colleague
07/27/2012 8:13:13 PM EDT

The office sounds as though it may have enough employees to have to comply with sexual harassment laws and may even have a written company policy. Does her office have this and to whom one should report and offense? If they have trained the staff, there should be a reporting loop and investigative procedure in place for allegations, as well as repercussions for retaliation.

If your wife doesn't want to make waves, though, because of your career and house situation, she can stick it out or try to get others in the office to complain about the OM to the doctors or upper management.

Another thing she can do is not to threaten violence against him if he touches her...just the opposite. Take a notepad out every time she is touched by him or witnesses someone else being touched, with the time, date, victim, and what occurred, and politely ask him to not do that again. Each time he repeats could be interpreted as an act of sexual harassment, since he apparently has become to physical with the just female workers.

She could calmly mention to him that, although he does not realize it, touching her and the other staff are acts of battery. While that may not be his intention, that is how it is perceived, and it does have an intimidating factor on the staff, which would be considered assault. Therefore, it's probably best to refrain from such behavior.

Eventually, she will have to decide if it's worth having a harasser as a boss or not and report him to upper management. The approach to use with upper management is one of her protecting the company from the damage the office manager could cause to them in potential lawsuits for sexual harassment and breach of confidentiality in discussing 401K contributions, not to mention his discussing confidential corporate financial matters with the staff and criminal charges of assault and battery--assault because of the perpetual threat of having to report to him at work each day and battery because he touches the female staff.

Who knows who else outside the company he's told? These are risks to the company. She could say that she's soon going to be working out of the office remotely and won't be bothered by him, but the risks will only grow if nothing is done. She can also suggest that management's silence may imply consent; so he will only get bolder unless this matter is addressed.