completing all the training about workplace ethics is harrowing if you’re someone with decent reading comprehension and critical thinking skills.

like. All these lessons will have a part that says something like

“If you see these rules being broken, you can call this anonymous line and report it. Don’t worry, the line is anonymous! And also it’s illegal for anyone to retaliate against you for making a good-faith report.”

Which is trying to sound reassuring, but really:

“The line is anonymous so they can’t know it’s you who reported it”

Yeah, but they know which people would have had access to the info that was reported. And they have their guesses as to which person they’d suspect to be the snitch.

And hey… if you’re certain that’s not you, then sure, maybe you’re safe! But, that just means someone else will be punished who didn’t do anything.

“It’s illegal for them to retaliate against you…”

Yeah but if they’re already in the habit of doing illegal stuff, that might not stop them. And it might not be easy to convince anyone they did it for that reason.

(Especially since the line is anonymous and they can’t know for sure who even reported it. And if they’re wrong, their retaliation might not even be against that person. Good luck trying to prove it was retaliation then.)

“…for making a good-faith report”

This is a terrifying loophole, because now you also have to convince them that your report was in “good faith” and not malicious.

Which gets much harder if it ends up not being possible to prove that what you reported was true. (And in some cases your testimony would have been the only possible evidence anyway.)

Plus, in some training modules (like ones about what to do if you witness abuse or sexual assault) …it’s clear that you CAN be severely punished for making a “false” report (which, in practice, means one that they can’t prove is true)… But, you can ALSO be severely punished for not reporting, if you’re a mandated reporter.

So, there’s situations where your choice is VERY much gonna have to depend on how likely you think it is that anyone will believe you.

And that is not reassuring AT ALL.