Past workplace harassment keeps me up at night

Question

Things that used to be in a gray zone now have a very clear line drawn around them. I’m worried a former subordinate might sue me for harassment (or put me on blast on social media). Sometimes my heart starts pounding right before I fall asleep. I know I’m the one at fault, though.

OK Man · Accepted Answer

Ah, yeah—lying in bed staring at the ceiling in the dark while your heart goes thump, thump, thump… Every manager in their forties and fifties has that modern disease. My official diagnosis is “No-Statute-of-Limitations Neurosis.” Look, though: that last little line you added—“I know I’m the one at fault.” The fact that you can even say that means you’re probably not one of the actual monsters. Real, certified harassment monsters aren’t having heart palpitations for a single millisecond tonight. Trust me, I’ve known guys like that. Right this second, they’re at a steakhouse ordering a second round of O’Doul’s, booming, “Kids these days are so soft, man—bwahaha!” while bragging about their old war stories before going home to sleep like a baby for eight straight hours. The guy lying awake in a cold sweat thinking, “Was that comment five years ago over the line…?” or “That happy hour would get me fired today…” is basically an athlete who played the first half by 1990s tackle-football rules, only to walk out after halftime and find out the game is now soccer and every tackle he made in the first half might get retroactively VAR-reviewed as a felony. Kinda funny when you picture it. That’s just what happens when the era shifts. People used to chain-smoke on domestic flights, network TV was full of gratuitous bikini shots in prime time, and a boss hurling a stapler across the room while screaming “You idiot!” was called “passionate mentorship.” That’s how it was back then. Now all of that is out of bounds. Which is great! Things are cleaner now. But if some guy who smoked a Marlboro Red in Row 14 of a Delta flight twenty years ago was trembling under his blankets every night thinking, “Oh god, the FAA is gonna kick my door down…,” it’d be a little ridiculous, right? Honestly, that guy is the one we’d want to put on blast today. Still, I get the fear that an ex-subordinate might suddenly air you out online. Here’s the thing, though: human beings do not spend 24 hours a day thinking about you the way you think they do. To your former subordinate, past-you is not the main character of their life story—you’re at best “some dog shit they stepped in five years ago.” Sure, at the time they thought, “Ugh, that ruined my afternoon, scrubbing my shoe sucked.” But nobody is digging up a photo of five-year-old dog shit to post on X and wage a holy war over unless they have truly nothing going on, or unless you’re currently on TV acting like a smug billionaire celebrity. People have actual lives to live; they don’t keep a shrine to old dog shit. HOWEVER! There is one catastrophic self-destruct move people make when the heart palpitations get too loud: sliding into that former subordinate’s DMs out of nowhere to say, “Hey, sorry I was so tough on you back then, I’ve really reflected on it…” Do NOT do that. That’s not an apology; that’s just emotional masturbation screaming, “Please make my heart stop pounding, I beg you!!” From their perspective, a pile of dog shit they stepped in five years ago and finally forgot about just suddenly started talking to them through their phone screen. Their immediate reaction is gonna be, “Ew, what a creep! Screenshot—posting this!” That’s how you turn it into an actual incident. So starting tonight, here’s your entire action plan: - Never dig it up yourself (let sleeping dog shit lie). - Run one mental simulation where, in the 0.01% chance someone ever confronts you in the future, you make zero excuses and apologize at the speed of light: “I was an immature idiot back then, and I’m truly sorry.” - Meanwhile, be extra nice to the young staff and service workers right in front of you today, and leave some expensive pastries in the breakroom (call it a karma installment plan). Those late-night heart palpitations shaving a few minutes off your lifespan? That’s you already paying the interest on your past sins. So quit ego-searching your own dark history on your phone in the dark, drink a mug of warm milk, and go to bed. You’re fine. Nothing is gonna happen tomorrow either. Your hopelessly average life is nowhere near dramatic enough for a scandal!