u/Shot_Platypus_8811

I was finally able to sit down and finish a whole book in one sitting without any flashbacks or panic attacks. I feel like I have my life and personhood back. I no longer get snappy or testy, and I’m back to being the happy and peaceful person I was before everything went to shit.

Life feels smoother, people feel nicer and safer, and I’m no longer looking over my shoulder every second or always on the verge of snapping. Many people also noted the change in me and said I seemed more sure of myself, and more like a trusted adult.

It’s an amazing feeling and I love this tranquility!

My manager has been creeping on me and my friend and is now giving me a hard time after I rejected him

I’m (23F) Canadian working in a Korean company, and I’ve run across an issue. I’m training to help manage every department and I need to get help learning the roles, duties and how to do the jobs of every department.

When I first came, the sales manager (35M) was super helpful to me and went out of his way to be kind (e.g. gave me a free box of face masks when I said I had allergies, would offer to pick me up if I got lost, bought me a league of legends account, and talk for 30 minutes to teach me sales stuff, ask me if I think he’s handsome, if I have a boyfriend, what my type is, and always ask for alone time together and tell me im different).

But it was also weird because he told me he’s very Canadian and westernized and doesn’t get along with Korean people because of cultural differences since he lived in Canada for about four years and that he’s very respectful towards women. But I suspect now that it’s not true; our coworker says he’s desperate for a girlfriend and hits on women outside of work that he finds attractive on the street, asking for their number, and rates the bodies of all the women he sees.

When I talked to him previously he said he only likes girls for their personality. Yet, he acted like he had a crush on me as soon as we met and was so nice up until I friendzoned him hard because I don’t like him and don’t feel comfortable with my superior acting like this, where I feel like I have to cozy up to him or have my job be jeopardized.

A new hire who I quickly befriended recently joined, and now he’s asking her if she’s eaten, telling her he’s sleepy, calling her out at night for drinks, one on one time and being aegyo. She’s been extremely uncomfortable because they work in the same department so he’s her direct manager, but told me she can’t reject him outright or report him to HR because she’d be the one fired instead.

I totally understand her position and I remember crying myself to sleep or doing 12 hour shifts to prove my worth to others because I didn’t want to sacrifice my dignity to keep my job and felt like a total slut every time I smiled at him or couldn’t shoot him down outright. It hurts so much seeing her do the same to prove that she’s not just a pretty face, and working herself to death so people don’t think she’s sleeping her way up.

At the same time he’s ignoring my work requests for documents and acting very cold. I asked him for case studies and his past records with clients, and he told me he doesn’t have any. When I asked him to give me any info at all, he flat out ignored my message until my boss asked him for case studies and past records, which he then promptly produced.

I thought it might be a coincidence but my friend told me he asked “why should I help you” and called her fat when she first came as a new salesperson, so it’s obvious he’s only selectively helpful and not the nice person he tries to make himself out to be.

I’m a nepotism hire (dad used to be CEO’s boss) but didn’t complain to my dad because it felt like an overkill to get him involved, and I want my boss to respect me for my own merits and achievements, so I wanted to keep my head down and tolerate my manager even if it meant getting creeped on. No one knows I’m a nepo hire because I want to receive proper feedback for my mistakes and work my way up on as much personal merit as I can, but it’s really annoying to hear my manager use the CEO’s name to be a total creep and tell me he can guarantee my job if I stay with him because she supports everything he does.

But now that my friend is involved, I went and had a talk with him from my own perspective and told him I felt like he didn’t really respect me and noticed that he tends to treat the other women in the office with the same level of disregard, and he should fix his behaviour. He didn’t really say anything and just acknowledged he’d heard me, and then went and yelled at the whole sales department and asked who tattled!

The thing is, he’s not doing anything too out of line by local standards. Yeah, it’s creepy and crosses a boundary, but not enough to get him fired. Just enough for a talking-to if I really whine at the CEO, and then he’ll take it out on the rest of his employees again and I’ll lose any chance of making it because I’ll be seen as the soft nepo hire in my CEO’s eyes forever. If I invoke nepotism and get my dad directly involved, I might as well kiss my chance for a meritocracy and normal work life goodbye, and it might not even solve the problem because my dad isn’t doing any favours for my boss who can tell him to fuck off, and I’m pretty sure she hired me because she feels like she owes him instead of me being competent or my dad giving her anything in return, while the sales manager is actually fairly decent at selling stuff even if he’s really lazy and doesn’t train girls unless he finds them pretty.

I feel so damn selfish not doing it when I might be able to fix the problem. But an insane tiny bit of me wonders if it’s fair to single him out when it’s literally a cultural issue and 99% of the male managers here are like this. He doesn’t know any better, right? But even as I say this I know it’s not true, because otherwise he wouldn’t be hiding all of his shady behaviour. I feel so drained. I’m working 12-14 hour shifts to climb up the ladder ASAP and learning all I can so I’ll be able to feel smarter and do something about it but it feels like nothing I do is fast enough or good enough and I’m so fucking scared he’s going to make some other new girl’s life hell while I’m working my way to a solution that might never even materialize. He has 10+ years of experience that I need to catch up to and I need to rack up achievements and become a company asset but I have so little time.

What do I do? I’m so tired, paranoid and feel like I’m going nuts and just want to cry all the time and it’s hard to even think straight and organize my thoughts, sorry if I’m rambling. I know I’m insanely privileged and have it better than everyone else and can just quit, but it feels like an honest to god disgrace to run away and leave my friends to deal with this on their own, and to leave such a big problem in my CEO’s company when I owe her so much for giving me a chance even though I’m so dumb.

I have a work trip with his best friend in four hours and i haven’t slept. I really don’t want to go and I don’t feel comfortable around his friend group because I know how they treat women.