Something came to mind for every point she mentioned but the one about HR was the biggest so I'm going to share yet another story about this crap.

I'm pretty sure I was 17 or 18 by this time at my first job where realistically the creepy old dudes had been being their creepy selves from the start. It was the kind of general creepiness that everybody working there was aware of but nobody really took seriously I guess because it wasn't specific enough. Fast forward to this incident and my new manager decides that he's concerned about a guy making me uncomfortable at work, a guy who happened to be my friend. A guy who this manager conveniently just didn't like for some reason. So now I have to have a meeting to tell them that no this guy is my friend and we are completely fine. Present is the manager with an agenda, the union rep that just want's to do something visible so people think having a union is important, another manager who apparently has something to do with the union at store level who happens to be a member of the creepy old dudes club, and the HR rep who probably would have actually listened to me had she ever got the chance.

The system just doesn't work and people will never understand just how many ways it fails. I mean having that many people in the room because a manager was suspicious of my being uncomfortable was supposed to help the situation. The policies that lead to that meeting where all put in place for my best interest by somebody who will probably never fully grasp the scope of the problem.

Honestly, name one system we've actually been able to fix so it works for everybody. It doesn't exist, somebody will always fall through the cracks. Intelligent people with dyslexia, girls with ADHD, quiet girls getting harassed/assaulted by guys who are above them, kids from dysfunctional functioning families, young adults who don't qualify for student aid because their parents apparently have money to give them, sick people who need financial aid but don't qualify because they made good money a year ago before they got sick, young people with anxiety or depression who don't get the help they need for fear of how it could affect their home life even though the resources are there, people who fear leaving/reporting domestic violence because nobody is actually going to keep them safe after the fact. Those are just examples I can think of from my own life that have either affected myself or somebody I care about and honestly I could go on if I didn't feel like it would get boring eventually.

I'm not trying to be pessimistic, I think there are ways to help these people but I don't think the answer is some system. It's about people listening, and just being good to each other. That will take a while but so will fixing the system. We can help victims of assault without involving the accused. "Justice" doesn't have to involve the other party, it can just involve the victim getting the help they need to achieve the life they deserve despite what happened too them.