So after thinking about what happened with the guy that made a racial comment to me, I decided that I should at least let the company that I worked for know about what happened. I went to the Human Resources representative and explained to her the whole story. It was my second to last day so I wasn't too worried about what would happen to me. I was worried about the other people who witnessed the incident and how things might go over with them after I was gone. I kept thinking if this guy was disciplined he would probably blame one of the others that were there and think that they ratted him out when it was me. I told my story as accurately as I could and told them to sit on it till I spoke to the others involved.

After some thinking, I decided that reporting the incident was enough. I had went over to the guy who caused all this and apologized to him. I said "I just want to apologize if I said or did anything that offended you." He accepted my apology and likewise apologized saying that he was having a bad day. I said to him, "So we're cool?" He said yes and we shook hands and that was the end of it. I then went back to HR and told them that I had resolved the issue and to keep my report on file and that no further action was necessary. I felt that this would satisfy all. I got my resolution by getting an apology. I no longer felt guilty because I went out of my way to go to him and apologize. There was a report of the incident on file so if something similar were to happen again, action can be taken based on the history.

Not surprisingly, there were others that over heard his initial tirade and someone also reported it to HR. Today, I was asked to come into the office of the manager of the person in question for a quick recap of what had happened. My manager and my co-worker whom he was insisting to get his money from and his manager were present as well as the HR manager whom I spoke with. We went over the story again and verified to them once again exactly what had happened. I knew at that point that this was being escalated to a point that I had never intended it to reach. After we finished, we all walked out and headed over to the elevators. And guess who we run into... the man of the hour. We ended up riding in the elevator with him. That was a pretty tense 45 seconds. I thought those elevator doors would never open.

I later learn via email that the guy got fired. I really really did not want it to get to that point. I felt very guilty about the whole situation. I was talking to one of the witnesses of the incident via instant messaging and he made a joke that I should check my car implying that the guy who was fired might vandalize it. I got a little paranoid because my car has my last name as the license plate number so it wouldn't be hard for him to identify it as my car. I went down and found that it was fine. I ran into the HR manager in the parking garage and she explained to me that the incident that I reported was only the tip of the iceberg. Apparently there were other issues with this guy and this was more of a case of the straw that broke the camels back. She didn't go into detail nor did I want any details. It just felt better to know that he wasn't fired because of me and he was fired because of his own actions.

To add to the whole scenario, today was my last day at work. I felt pretty bad for leaving the company so quickly. I had only been there for 6 weeks and they had trouble finding someone to fill the role I was in to begin with. But I had to do what was best for me. I was offered a better position at a big stable company and it made sense to take it. I wrote a little email before leaving my contact information so hopefully we will keep in touch. On Monday, I start yet another new job. Hopefully this one will last a very long time.