update: can I speak up about the portrait of a child abuser in my office?

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

Remember the letter-writer who wanted to speak up about a portrait of a child abuser in their office (#2 at the link)? Here’s the update.

A few days after I initially wrote in, I heard statements from my boss that made it pretty clear they wouldn’t support me speaking up about The Portrait. Shortly afterwards, the diocese filed for bankruptcy to deal with the financial fallout from the mounting sexual abuse cases. This probably isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s been keeping up with the Catholic church in recent years. My workplace’s response was to assure us that we were fine and since we were a separate entity with separate finances, anything that happens to the diocese would not affect us directly. We were not considered connected to the Catholic church in that way. This detail will be important later.

To give you some highlights of what’s transpired since the bankruptcy: at least one coworker has quit per month since I wrote in and positions were not being successfully backfilled (read: an ever increasing workload), anyone who was hired in that time ended up quitting within a few months, a new manager was hired who I can only describe as an Olympic gold medalist in Micromanaging, and I was being bullied by my boss over my ADA accommodations. To sum it up, my workplace was becoming more and more toxic and we were hemorrhaging employees. Things had gotten so bad that I found myself crying in the bathroom at work multiple times a week and I felt like I was days away from walking out with nothing lined up.

I had been desperately job searching and probably applied to over 100 positions but only received two callbacks, which led to one interview, which led to nowhere. I know 100 applications probably doesn’t seem like a lot for someone who desperately wants a new job, but I was truly so exhausted. It felt like I was using every ounce of my mental bandwidth just to get through the workday and by February I ended up going on FMLA for two weeks at the recommendation of my doctor. During that time, I went hard applying for other jobs and I’m very happy to report that on the second to last day of my leave I was offered a position with a nonprofit that has an incredibly positive reputation in our community for not only the work they do, but the work environment they promote. The only downside was that I had to give four weeks notice to my current job in order to receive my pretty substantial PTO payout, but after the literal hell they put me through I wasn’t about to let them screw me over on that. To quote Goodfellas, “F*ck you. Pay me.”

I gave my notice the day I came back from leave and the response from my boss was, “Well, I can’t say that I’m surprised.” That reaction definitely put me in the mindset of, “Well, if you don’t care, then why should I?” The day after I gave notice, we had our yearly town hall meeting and our CEO asked for our thoughts on the overall work environment and why we were having trouble keeping employees. I used this as an opportunity to talk about our workplace’s attitude towards WFH, the culture of gossip, and our weirdly neutral stance on what was going on with the Catholic church. I used that last bit to bring up how our Child Abuse Awareness display was placed within view of The Portrait and how odd of a message that sends, and how I thought it was in poor taste that The Portrait was still on display to begin with. I asked if they were willing to put out a statement explicitly denouncing the cover-up of abuse by the church, even if it was just internal, and was told, “What exactly do you want us to do? Since we’re so intertwined with the Catholic church, there’s nothing else we can say or do.” So much for not being connected, I guess.

A few days after the town hall, I found out that four more coworkers had given their notice within a week of me. I genuinely don’t know how they’re going to move forward, but at this point it’s no longer my problem.

I’ve been at my new job for a month and a half and it’s been incredible so far. My coworkers are helpful, my boss actually makes me feel competent, and I’ve been told by several higher-ups how much of an asset I already am to my team. I leave work every day feeling like I’ve accomplished something. While I don’t have my own office, I do have a pretty nice cubicle to myself and I’m ecstatic to say that I no longer have to pass a portrait of a child abuser on my way there.