Speak up: what I lived at my last agency

I'm sure this video has crossed your path. Come along as I sue the agency that fired me without settling what they owed me. Me and plenty of others. Only with me they messed with the wrong person, because I've got more guts than HR to fight for my rights. And if you take a close look, I appear in that video. So buckle up, because this little drama is about to get a lot stronger, because I did work at that agency and I have stories.

The girl making that video is a friend of mine; we worked together at that agency. I quit before they fired her, but only after going through homophobia, discrimination, and a surgery I needed where they refused to take responsibility. Since everything can't fit in one video, I'm going to focus on one of the things I suffered the most there: discrimination and homofobia.

Appearances deceive

When I joined the agency I was part of the first cohorts of content creators hired — roughly the second or third wave. One of the first people they introduced me to was a woman who worked as a content creator, and she turned out to be the person I had the problem with. Seriously, as I always say: how appearances can deceive. An educated, learned person with two degrees. Someone you'd never expect to have a discrimination problem at this level.

We met and got along great; we had a lot in common. But soon things started happening that caught my attention, and stupidly — I was new, I'd just been hired — I didn't want to stir trouble. I said nothing. That was a mistake.

Hate with a polished accent

She started badmouthing coworkers she, honestly, envied because they were posting better numbers: more sales, better ratings, better live-stream metrics. Of a woman on another team she kept saying: «Have you seen Betty the ugly one?», «look at what Betty the ugly one is doing now». Nicknames happen; no big deal. The problem came when a teammate — an openly gay man — started getting great results too.

This woman referred to him with a derogatory slur. I won't even write it down. «That one thinks way too highly of himself», «he copies me», «he does this, he does that». Everyone working with us got deeply uncomfortable.

It went over the line one day at the office reception, with five or six people present: «I told my kids that if they come out, I'll beat them; if they come out, I'll kick them out of the house, because in my family nobody is going to be…». Said out loud, about her own children. She also called one coworker «negra» and another «chaparra» — remarks about skin color and height.

When the office found out

One coworker went to HR about the comments on her skin tone. Another day, this woman went off about her kids while Roberto was right there — and she knew he is gay. HR went to talk to her… and then sent for me. They asked: «Has this person said such things to you? What do you know?». And I said: well, if the cat's out of the bag, I'm going to talk too. I told them everything I had observed and heard, and how it was affecting me. Being around her was deeply uncomfortable.

HR went back to talk to the woman. From that moment on she treated me differently: extremely curt, rude, during live broadcasts she wouldn't even look at me or address me. Everything went wrong. She believed I was the one who had talked to HR, when it had nothing to do with me.

My direct boss told me: «Robert, what's going on? It looks bad on camera». I told her everything. She answered: «Go to HR, talk to them again, because if I go they won't listen to me». So I went, I talked, and I told them what was happening. There's one thing I don't allow: messing with my work.

And what did HR do? They put the two of us face to face. The woman — who is also an actress — started crying: «Oh, you're my little friend, I didn't mean to hurt you, forgive me…». Between actors we know each other: not a single tear came out. But HR didn't know that and felt they had a success story. In the end we hugged in a thoroughly hypocritical way. I said: I'll leave it here; as long as she doesn't touch my work, we're fine. But that's not how it went.

Daily harassment

We finished the project and got separated. That's when the disaster started. Every single day, this woman complained about me: «He makes too much noise, he won't let me work, he's bothering me». Every day my bosses, the PMs, other coworkers would come peek into my room. I was doing my job. They'd go to her, tell her everything was fine, and she'd keep insisting. I started feeling intense harassment.

It all crossed the line the day she said: «If they don't shut Roberto up, I'll go shut him up myself». My area manager showing up at my room with his laptop, like the staring-cat meme, watching me for 15 minutes. Deeply uncomfortable. Then he went to her and said: «What's the problem with Roberto? Everything is fine». She kept saying that if they didn't silence me, she would take matters into her own hands.

I went to the big boss — the man in charge of the Mexico office — in private and laid out the situation. I was on the verge of filing a formal complaint; I just wanted to see whether the company would do something. His solution: move us to different rooms. Me in this hallway, her in the other. Done. And even that didn't work: she kept complaining about me and started complaining about my friends, badmouthing me to others.

Worth mentioning: when I talked to my boss I was so desperate and full of rage that I broke down in tears in front of him. I asked him one favor: «Keep it professional; I don't want retaliation». I just wanted to keep doing my job well, everyone calm. But this woman is chaos.

No backup, no projects

After that they started taking work away from me. Other coworkers got moved to other projects; I didn't. I asked for feedback to know whether I was doing my job well or badly: nobody told me anything. They just kept moving me around. They paid her practically double; I was, without a doubt, doing more work.

At the end of the day, this woman's harassment, the lack of support and the feeling of being alone, defenseless, leave a deeply bitter taste. No matter how much I asked for help and for the situation to be fixed, it never happened.

The problem isn't only her

The problem isn't even this woman: it's an agency that keeps covering for her, protecting her, and prefers getting rid of other team members instead of her. Half the company went to HR about this person — discrimination, homophobia, insults toward the people operating the computers and running the live shows, belittling other people's work in public — and nothing was ever done. She still works there. She's one of the protected ones.

And there's more: commission issues, and the time I needed emergency surgery, the agency refused to take responsibility for the insurance. They left me alone. They even told me that if I wanted, I could leave with no problem, get the surgery, recover, and if I wanted to come back and they «had the opportunity», well…

Don't stay silent

Being a content creator and joining an agency — this one or any other — demands real care: read how your contract is written and how the place is run. As a service provider with a completely illegal contract, nobody had my back. I had never suffered discrimination and homophobia like that. How hard it is when someone who calls themselves your friend and coworker does these things behind your back. How hard it is to be in a toxic work environment where, even while you're being attacked, nobody supports you.

If this agency claims to be one of the best in Latin America, working with the biggest brands, imagine what it can be like at less regulated agencies. And if this one isn't even regulated, imagine elsewhere.

I hope this testimony helps everyone who has suffered discrimination, homophobia, or any kind of discrimination. Don't stay silent: speak up, demand your rights, demand respect. Because if you don't, the people who are supposed to have your back often won't do it either.