I’m not interested. I thought we had that pretty straight already. Well, at least I did. You apparently haven’t gotten the idea. I’ve tried to be straight with you. You didn’t get it. I’ve tried being mean. You didn’t get it. I tried being nice and treating you exactly like the others in the office. Ummm… that doesn’t mean that I’m into you, that I want to go out with you, or that I really want to know about your life. What I care about is whether you do your job or not. Got it? Do I have to ignore you before you get the idea? It was flattering for about 2 days. Now, it’s just annoying.
Do NOT ask me out again. Do NOT try to get into my head. Do NOT try to understand me beyond the level necessary for daily work. That’s all there will ever be. Accept it, deal with it, and get over it.
but lsura… obviously you’re interested in him… otherwise you would tell him every 5 seconds that you hate him… You’re refusal to do so reveals your deep hidden attraction to him
I would recommend that you read The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker. This guy sounds like a classic case. The book will help you see why this guy is still bothering you, even though you don’t want him to. It will show you that your “clear message” is “mixed signals” to him. It will tell you how to get him to leave you alone.
DeBecker explains it better than I, but until you get a chance to read the book: Understand that ANY attention you give him will be seen as encouragement.
Lsura, if you’ve told him outright to leave you alone, and he hasn’t, it would be in the best interest of you and your company to speak with your manager or Human Resources representative, or someone similar. This sounds like a classic case of sexual harrassment. If it’s only you he’s harrassing, then they can politely ask him to knock it off. If he keeps on doing it, or if he’s done this to other women, it really needs to be documented. The way you make him sound, my bet is that he’s done this before.
This is true in California. Sounds like he has already created a ‘hostile work enviroment’ for you. Take the matter up with your boss and drop the phrase ‘I’ve retained counsel’.
Or you could take a more direct approach. My Granny always said nothing takes the fire out of man like a sucking chest wound!
Batting her eyes back at Milossarian I know you’re not my co-worker, baby.
Yeah, I know I need to document, and make a complaint if necessary. To me, though, it has seemed more like he’s a child and has no idea how to accept what’s said by anyone at face value. It’s that there has to be an ulterior motive behind everything someone says to him(male or female).
On the other hand, this is a very small department, and any friction between people has repercussions throughout the department.
sigh Sometimes I wish I had never had to change jobs. It was so easy when I worked with all women before the layoffs.
I’m a little paranoid since I read John Douglas and Mark Olshaker’s book Obsession. I was horrified at how innocent such things often start out, and how quickly certain folks that seem pretty well-adjusted can turn to violence. Just be careful, is all I can say. Be careful and don’t ignore it.
On Malcolm in the Middle, Lois was held “hostage” in the store when the big dorky guy [name escapes] blurted out what she knew all along but didn’t acknowledge - that he loved her. She said. “Great! Now I have to hurt you.” and proceeded to list off a string of “NOs!” i.e., no to what you are thinking, no to any future ideas, etc.
It was a bit sad that she had to do that to him, but since he had opened it, she had to shut it - definitively.
I don’t know exactly what you told him or how, but if you have said nice things like, “I have a boyfriend,” or “I’m not interested,” or even “I’d prefer to keep our associations strictly on a business level,” this may not be strong enough.
As you know, document everything. Yes, there may be friction, but you deserve a comfortable working environment and he has no right to unsettle you in any way. This is his doing, and you should not feel, in any way, guilty for setting him VERY straight.
Lsura, I really want to encourage you to document and report this. As I’ve just noticed spritle saying on preview, you should not feel responsible for the awkwardness caused by friction in a small work environment. He is responsible for any friction – you haven’t done anything wrong.
Although, until this whole thing blows over, maybe you should stop wearing the leather chaps with the bare ass.
PunditLisa: “Cow-orker” has been around a while. Just makes a fun word out of “co-worker” by moving the hyphen.
We had a rather interesting discussion on a Great Debates thread I started on workplace sexual harassment a couple of months ago. You might be interested in checking it out.
While I was defending the scenario there as not being harassment, I do have to say that I disagree strenuously with spritle on this point:
Any or all of those statements should be strong enough to make him cut it out. If he doesn’t after such statements are made to him, the problem is his; not Lsura’s.
Agreed, they should be strong enough, but I should be able to keep my door unlocked without worrying about someone stealing my TV, too. I think spritle’s point is not that Lsura did an inadequate job of saying “No”, but that some people need a very forceful “No” before they listen.
I agree that it shouldn’t be that way, and I agree that it’s unfair, but, to be honest, it still is very much Lsura’s problem (or, if you prefer, his actions present her with a problem, which is almost-but-not-quite the same thing), whether that’s fair or not. As such, she’s gotta figure out what to do about it, and spritle offers a concrete suggestion: don’t bother trying to be nice about it, make sure to tell him off very strongly.
To me, though, it has seemed more like he’s a child and has no idea how to accept what’s said by anyone at face value.
Oh, he is one of those. If this is anything like the two other cases like this that I’ve seen during my career (they happened to other people; I was just near by) the kindest thing you can do is go directly to HR, right now.
If you go to HR right now, they can have a word with him, document it, and it never has to come up again (unless he is a really moron, in which case he deserves the consequences). If you don’t, he may decide that you are being too subtle, and start in with the long undying-love letters. Then you will have no choice but to go to his manager, and the company will be left with no choice but to fire him. And you will have had to put up with this nonsense for way too long.
Go to HR, explain the situation, let them handle it. Other posters are right - there is probably nothing you can do to get him to back off. Acting right now can de-esculate a bad situation.
Document Document Document. Talk to HR now, pick up your phone right now and see if the nice HR lady is there…Why are you still reading this? I had an ‘admirer’ who was married but didn’t seem to care. I ignored him until one day he “slapped me lightly on the back” while joking about stealing my lunch. He hit me hard enough to knock the wind out of me and move a vertebra out of place. Because I hadn’t documented everything up to that point, they forced me to quit. He was eventually fired for harassing someone else, but only because my lawsuit was finally in place, and the company could not ignore the 2nd and 3rd complaints.
It doesn’t matter if he’s young and clueless, it’s still about him believing he has power over you.
