- Joined
- May 19, 2009
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but do you exhibit schadenfreude?
I enjoy a certain degree of schadenfreude.
I can be quite empathetic to some people's suffering, including strangers, but there are others that, when they get theirs, there is a degree of satisfaction to that.
For instance, a man I worked with when I was in my early 20s sexually harassed me, asking for sex in exchange for preferential treatment at work, and then broadcasting my pregnancy and telling people that I would probably quit as soon as the baby was born. He was my supervisor. Back in those days, before Anita Hill, the issue of sexual harassment, as you know, was a difficult one. It could actually be more damaging to the victim than the perpetrator to try and deal with it legally through your employer. I put up with his nonsense until I changed jobs, just sucked it up, took it, and tried to do excellent work in spite of the rumors and allegations that he spread about me.
When I heard a few years later that he'd been fired and civilly sued for sexually harassing a few other women on a subsequent job (and then had to file bankruptcy and was divorced by his wife), I must admit...I smiled.
He got his. And karma is really a bitch.
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