# Is touching co-workers OK? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 3, 2019, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424 "2019-05-03T15:42:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/421 "2019-05-08T16:22:03Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Know what’s fascinating? None of your examples are of the specific touch that was mentioned in the OP. Again, the OP is kind of a hot mess. The OP is based on a story in another thread, a story that’s widely doubted. Do we go specifically for that incident at face value? Then Czarcasm comes along and criticizes for treating it, even provisionally and hypothetically, at face value. Do we change circumstances? Then you come along and criticize for not addressing the story from the OP. Moreover, few people here are defending touching someone on a bare wrist. That’s not where the controversy is. The controversy is around less personal touches, like shoulder taps. So of course folks aren’t spending their time discussing the kind of touch that, broadly speaking, folks agree isn’t ideal. A lot of folks, in criticizing workplace touch, have linked to articles that talk about things like hugging subordinates. Again, I think there’s broad agreement on that kind of touch (i.e., except under exceptional circumstances, avoid). But I linked to three different articles talking about the kind of touch that is controversial in this thread–taps on shoulders. The broad consensus among workplace advice stuff I can find is that tapping someone on the shoulder to get attention is acceptable. Is anyone finding any professional advice that says to avoid this specific sort of touch? The other question I have is this: is there any data to show how common it is for folks to have averse reactions to this sort of touch? If it’s one in ten thousand people, I’ll feel pretty differently about it than I do if it’s two in three people. I know there are several folks here who report disliking even a shoulder-tap-for-attention. I’m not sure this board represents a real cross-section of society, to put it mildly :). I’d love to see some statistics on broader societal attitudes toward shoulder-taps and the like. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/422 "2019-05-08T16:37:30Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Know what’s fascinating? None of your examples are of the specific touch that was mentioned in the OP. I think it makes it clear that delicately touching someone on the wrist is an unusual thing to do that’s very different from a tap on the shoulder. People keep trying to turn the discussion into ‘a tap on the shoulder’, but the specific example a kind of touch that is overly intimate and so unusual that people won’t even list it in an example along with a tap on the shoulder. “A woman was talking at the end of a meeting, and a man put his hand on her wrist and said essentially ‘we’re out of time, let’s table this discussion until later’.” It’s hardly common for me to notice someone touching someone else in a business meeting, but of the times I’ve noticed it, the touch was either on the elbow or the wrist. Pretty much the part of the arm closest to the hand of the person doing the tapping. If I saw someone covering someone else’s wrist with their hand for a couple of seconds, I would think that was odd. A touch on the top of the wrist? Not odd, and in my opinion, not inappropriate. As far as shoulder taps go, isn’t the tapper generally above and behind? That doesn’t usually happen when people are seated at a table. I’ve seen a shoulder-tap in a business meeting once that I can recall. There were more attendees than seats so people were standing against the back wall. A pregnant women came in slightly late and a co-worker tapped a seated man on the shoulder so he was aware to give up his seat. > [@](#): > > In my experience, unwanted touches between office colleagues are done by people who don’t respect boundaries. They might be the ‘I believe I should be able to touch anyone’ types from this thread, or they’re actually bullying or harassing people, or they’re the kind of person who buys into the ‘our office is friendly, we must hug each other’ initiatives, or something else. But in all of those cases, unwanted touch is not actually friendly communications, and the ‘I will keep touching you until you tell me to stop’ is a horrible default. Many things can be categorised as good, neutral, or bad. High-fives between colleagues who like high-fiving? Good. Someone grabbing someone’s ass in the kitchen? Bad. Does lots of physical contact fall in between these two? Of course. The word unwanted implies unasked for. I’ve had both men and women put their hand on my shoulder while they pointed at something on my workstation screen that we were discussing. It was unasked for contact that I didn’t necessarily want. But I hardly took it as sexual. It was just physical contact from someone leaning in. I will note that as a man, I’m unlikely to make that contact with a woman. But I’m not going to be apologetic if we happen to bump shoulders. People looking at a screen together, and pointing at figures on the screen is the norm in my office. If someone finds that an infringement of their personal space, they either need to tell that co-worker, or send out a signal such as by moving away. Otherwise, if I’m in someone’s proximity, man or woman, I’m viewing the fact that we’re a few inches away from each other as neutral, not bad. > [@](#): > > In a great many bars, touching the bartender will get you roughed up by the bouncer and banned from the establishment. So I’m not sure this is a good example. Other than ‘person so drunk they’re obviously about to make a forced exit’, I’ve never seen someone reach across the bar to touch a bartender, that’s seriously bizarre behavior in my experience. Do people really reach out and put their hands on the bartender in bars that you frequent? This discussion is about co-workers. I thought it was obvious I was discussing co-workers serving drinks and managing the area behind a bar. In most of the pubs I go, that area is about a metre wide, sometimes less, and anywhere from 2 metres – 6 metres long, sometimes in an L-shape or a horseshoe shape. At busy times, that area is full of bar staff working on top of each other. My observation is that in that crowded space, the bar staff are constantly bumping and tapping each other. Maybe you don’t go to pubs very much? ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/423 "2019-05-08T16:42:36Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > A friend of mine (Hi, Kristie!) used to bartend and had very serious personal space issues. The bar had no bouncer. One night someone grabbed her hand and she _screamed_. The grabber was immediately subdued by the rest of the male patrons. I remember I had his left ankle. He struggled, screamed, freaked out, but we all hung on and dragged him out the door. Never saw him again. I’m sure you do go to pubs very much. Do you find the working area behind a busy bar to be an open, uncrowded space where no-one is sliding past each other, reaching over each other, or using touches and gestures for communication? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/424 "2019-05-08T16:45:48Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > If there’s room, step around them and let the clerk take you next. We are talking about things that are socially unacceptable. It’s definitely socially unacceptable to do something like this. You will create an unpleasant situation. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/425 "2019-05-08T16:49:06Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > A friend of mine (Hi, Kristie!) used to bartend and had very serious personal space issues. The bar had no bouncer. One night someone grabbed her hand and she _screamed_. The grabber was immediately subdued by the rest of the male patrons. I remember I had his left ankle. He struggled, screamed, freaked out, but we all hung on and dragged him out the door. Never saw him again. Wait, you bodily threw someone out of the bar for inadvertently violating the personal space of someone who has “serious personal space issues?” Or because that person was actually trying to assault someone? Is it possible he freaked out because he was attacked by multiple people? ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/426 "2019-05-08T16:50:55Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > There’s that false dilemma again, where the only choices are yelling or touching. Except I’ve already stated that a wave or a polite comment is a perfectly valid way of getting someone’s attention. That’s what happens more often than not. But if someone chooses light physical contact as a non-disruptive method of getting someone’s attention, absent any other information, that’s an appropriate action and preferable to a noisy disruption. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/427 "2019-05-08T16:54:17Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > I’m sure you do go to pubs very much. Do you find the working area behind a busy bar to be an open, uncrowded space where no-one is sliding past each other, reaching over each other, or using touches and gestures for communication? It’s a crowded space, yes. That said, people who work together work out a routine. When my friend Kristie was working, she would opt for slower shifts, even though her earnings suffered. ETA: she no longer bartends in part because of the crowded situation behind the bar. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/428 "2019-05-08T16:56:51Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Wait, you bodily threw someone out of the bar for inadvertently violating the personal space of someone who has “serious personal space issues?” Or because that person was actually trying to assault someone? > > Is it possible he freaked out because he was attacked by multiple people? It was complicated. He was hitting on her, she was ignoring him. He grabbed her hand, which was totally out of line. It freaked her out to the point that she quit bartending and is now running her own landscaping business. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/429 "2019-05-08T17:11:15Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I know there are several folks here who report disliking even a shoulder-tap-for-attention.\*\* I’m not sure this board represents a real cross-section of society, to put it mildly\*\* :). I’d love to see some statistics on broader societal attitudes toward shoulder-taps and the like. Re: the bolded … I’ve had this same thought myself while reading through this thread. Additionally, those who are especially touch-averse (noting that there is a spectrum _within_ touch aversion) will be much more likely to engage in this kind of thread than those that either appreciate casual touching or else have no strong feelings one way or the other. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/430 "2019-05-08T17:15:04Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Sure, because NO ONE would every take objection to THAT! Of course they might. I was going to say that I can’t think of anything at all one can do in that situation that nobody could possibly object to; but I suppose you could go away without buying anything, and write, email, or call the store telling them why, suggesting that they instruct their clerks to beckon the next person up. That’s not going to get you your purchase, however. > [@Dinsdale](#): > > Or, in other words, just about anything OTHER than a gentle tap on the shoulder. I think part of what’s going on here is that people who are used to touching as the default don’t think of any other options. And people who are used to touching as the last resort do think of other options. > [@Dinsdale](#): > > I guess I shouldn’t post anymore. We each consider the other unreasonable, and are unlikely to persuade each other otherwise. Why would that stop you? Even aside from just wanting to make your point, there are plenty of other people reading this thread; including undoubtedly some who aren’t posting, and probably some who aren’t even signed up. > [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > One example: A project team member was giving a presentation on behalf of the team. During the question and answers, they were asked a question that should have been referred to another team member. When the presenter struggled to answer the question, the project manager brushed the person’s elbow, causing the speaker to pause, and then the PM deflected the question to the team member who should have been answering the question. I would have just said “I think [other team member] has an answer to that.” And I think you’re not realizing the extent to which “brushed the person’s elbow, causing the speaker to pause” is learned behavior; or the extent to which it would be in many places very odd behavior to do so deliberately. I would probably just have taken that as accidental. > [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > Opposing example: At a Finance workgroup meeting, the financial director asked a woman a question. Halfway through her answer, a loudmouth decided to take over the question and started talking over her. The FD tried to politely get his attention verbally twice, and then had to yell at him to tell him to shut up. Everyone in the room was embarrassed, and the loudmouth was gone a month later. Why do you think that touching this person would have made him stop any faster? If this sort of situation comes up often, I’d get a gavel. Though we manage without one, at planning board meetings; occasionally somebody will knock on the table. > [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > These are anecdotes, but the point is that a tactile interruption can be effective, and more importantly, is quiet. Sure, it can be. It also might not be; and/or might have other unintended consequences. And we apparently disagree as to whether “is quiet” is more important than “don’t touch”; as well as to whether there are often other quiet options. > [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > I’ll also note that a touch to get someone’s attention, in my experience anyway, is much more common among non-speakers at a meeting, than someone leading a presentation or discussion. One recent example I noticed at a meeting was a junior employee being “told” to put away their phone via an elbow tap and sign language. What’s wrong with a tap on the table or chair, and sign language? > [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > I consider stepping in front of someone, and putting your hand above someone’s phone screen to both be far ruder than a tap on the arm and a point at the cashier. For that matter, with “put part of your hand between their face and the phone”, how are you going to do that without invading their personal space? You would be invading their personal space; that’s why I said it was rude, but a possible last-resort option. It’s less invasive of their personal space than touching their actual person, however. And if I’m one of several people standing at a wide enough counter, or waiting in a line where there’s room enough to move around, and the one who’s next up isn’t interested in using their turn, I don’t see anything rude at all about the clerk’s taking the next person who is actually ready to be served. I may not have phrased that well – if said next person actually has to push the phone person out of the way to do this, then no, that’s not an option. – I don’t remember anybody tapping other people when I worked in restaurants, either. We would say ‘Behind you’ to make sure the other person realized we were there, to prevent collisions. And of course people who have to work in tight quarters may occasionally brush against each other; that can come under the heading of ‘necessities of the particular job’, though I don’t suppose every bar is so set up that it’s necessary. But I don’t think anybody on this thread has said that there are no jobs which might require touching. And a customer reaching over the bar to put hands on a bartender is an entirely different thing from a co-worker brushing against another while carrying something through tight quarters. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/431 "2019-05-08T17:33:11Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > … > Moreover, few people here are defending touching someone on a bare wrist. That’s not where the controversy is. The controversy is around less personal touches, like shoulder taps. … I dunno, man. That was why I posted my snarky comment about wrists as erogenous zones. I can shake a woman’s hand, but I can’t touch her wrist? Or I can touch her wrist if she is wearing long-sleeves, her upper arm if she is wearing short sleeves…? > [@](#): > > It’s hardly common for me to notice someone touching someone else in a business meeting, but of the times I’ve noticed it, the touch was either on the elbow or the wrist. Pretty much the part of the arm closest to the hand of the person doing the tapping. If I saw someone covering someone else’s wrist with their hand for a couple of seconds, I would think that was odd. A touch on the top of the wrist? Not odd, and in my opinion, not inappropriate. … What **Wrenching Spanners** describes is spot on w/ my experience. people don’t go around grabbing or caressing each other on the wrist or shoulder, but a light tap to get someone’s attention is not even close to being out of the ordinary. Just thought of another somewhat common incident. At our meetings, often handouts or an attendance sheet is circulated. Sometimes a person has the material, and needs to give it to someone who is unaware because they are paying attention to the speaker/screen. I would imagine that in such situations, the standard action would be for the person to tap the other - most likely on the shoulder or arm - either with one’s hand or the materials. Never occurred to me that there could be anything wrong about either approach. Hell, if I tap someone with the papers, they can say I “struck them with an object!” :smack: And again, I post all that I have in this thread from the perspective of someone who truly tries to avoid most physical contact with people outside my closest family and friends. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/432 "2019-05-08T17:38:59Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > … > I think part of what’s going on here is that people who are used to touching as the default don’t think of any other options. And people who are used to touching as the last resort do think of other options. … I don’t know that people necessarily say touch is “the default.” Instead, I (and I suspect others) are fully aware of the alternatives, and conclude that in many situations, a light touch is the best approach. From this thread, it appears that there is some non-zero percent of the population that believes a light tap on the wrist/shoulder is NEVER appropriate. OK - I won’t contest that. But - before agreeing that society as a whole must take action to accommodate them, the questions remain, how large is that subset, and how reasonable are their concerns. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/433 "2019-05-08T18:33:39Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > From this thread, it appears that there is some non-zero percent of the population that believes a light tap on the wrist/shoulder is NEVER appropriate. OK - I won’t contest that. But - before agreeing that society as a whole must take action to accommodate them, the questions remain, how large is that subset, and how reasonable are their concerns. By way of analogy, think about two things that make some people uncomfortable at work: hearing discussions of the consistency of your vomit when you were sick last night, and hearing a story about an incompetent nurse at a blood drive. I’d be much more bothered by the latter than by the former. But I think most folks are the opposite. And because of this, openly discussing vomit details at work is taboo, whereas telling the incompetent nurse story isn’t. If someone were telling the nurse story and I were there, I’d speak up, and say, “Hey, do you mind not telling this story right now? I get super freaked out by needles.” If they continued, I’d get out of there, even if doing so were rude. I’ve done this before. But that’s because my reaction to needle stories is, although severe, really rare. It’s so rare that it’s on me to guard my interests, not on society to preemptively look out for them. If someone tells the detailed vomit story, they’re out of goddamn line in most workplaces. What I genuinely don’t know is whether shoulder-taps are more like vomit stories (which are so commonly reviled that you should know better than to tell them in the first place) or more like incompetent needle-stick stories (which are very disliked by a very few people, but are generally okay to tell unless you know that a specific audience exists). I tend to think shoulder-taps are more like needle-stick stories, but I don’t have stats to bear this out. ---
**Author:** ![Hirka\_T\_Bawa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/db5fbb/32.png) [@Hirka\_T\_Bawa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hirka_T_Bawa)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/434 "2019-05-08T18:58:49Z")
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is peoples industries, and their gender ratios. I work in healthcare, and in my work environment, there is probably about 75% female, 25% male ratio. I haven’t seen or heard of issues brought up in this thread. We work in close quarters and there is a lot of violations of “personal space” due to required closeness. I’ve never heard or seen anyone complain. As a male, I’m in the minority, 2/3rd of my “bosses” are female. I wonder how much of the issues are that the males in certain jobs aren’t used to looking at females as equals, and treat them as subordinates even if they aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/435 "2019-05-08T19:18:27Z")
LOL - **Left Hand**! if tapping vs grabbing confuses things, I highly doubt that vomit and needles is going to clarify things! > [@Hirka\_T\_Bawa](#): > > One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is peoples industries, and their gender ratios. … > I wonder how much of the issues are that the males in certain jobs aren’t used to looking at females as equals, and treat them as subordinates even if they aren’t. 30+ years in government law offices. Unusually for law offices, our lawyers were generally \>50% female, including highest management. Support staff probably 75% female. I’ve known some assholes. Thinking of one supervisor who thought it amusing when he made a young female attorney cry. No, I wasn’t sad when he got shot some years later. But as a general rule, I think most male attorneys go out of their way to treat females the same as male attorneys. And none of the male attorneys would think twice about the wrist/shoulder tap. Both the male and female attorneys are generally aware of and make efforts to avoid inappropriate behavior. Hell, our office litigated sexual harassment actions. My WAG is that any responses to contact would be entirely situation determinant. If a guy was known to be an asshole, or had a history of being a jerk to one or all women, then any touch would likely be unwelcome and viewed negatively. But fortunately, the majority of guys I’ve worked with haven’t been like that, and occasional casual touches such as the wrist or shoulder tap have not been viewed as anything other than one of several ways to get someone’s attention or otherwise interact with co-workers. And there have been a couple of co-workers of both genders whom I considered unreasonable - tho none specifically regarding touch. I would definitely be careful about touching any of them or doing anything that might cause them to react in a manner I thought unreasonable. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/436 "2019-05-08T19:54:27Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I don’t know that people necessarily say touch is “the default.” Instead, I (and I suspect others) are fully aware of the alternatives, and conclude that in many situations, a light touch is the best approach. . Some people do seem to be doing that. But I’ve seen quite a few posts in the thread – and replied to some of them – in which it seemed to me that only very limited alternatives had been considered, and I could easily think of at least one and possibly several things which would be less intrusive. Sometimes there’s been disagreement about what counts as less intrusive; but I haven’t seen anybody say that tapping on the table or a chair is more intrusive than tapping on the body, and I think quite a few people just don’t think of doing it that way. And here’s an example of your own, in which you seem to me to be genuinely puzzled about the existence of alternatives: > [@Dinsdale](#): > > Let’s say you are seated next to someone, but in a manner that they are partly turned away from you - maybe looking at a screen or speaker. You want to silently get their attention - for any number of reasons. How do you do it? Any part of the body that CAN be touched? > [@Dinsdale](#): > > From this thread, it appears that there is some non-zero percent of the population that believes a light tap on the wrist/shoulder is NEVER appropriate. No, I really don’t think anyone is saying that. I think everyone’s said, or at least not denied, both that there are some sorts of workplaces where it’s a necessary part of the job, and some individual situations where it’s necessary; and that if you already know that the person to be touched prefers it then it’s fine. We’re just saying, it shouldn’t be way up near the top of the list of alternatives, under the assumption that everybody other than a few weird outliers think that it’s fine. – as to the representativeness of this board, that’s a good question. But I will note that multiple people on this thread, who as near as I can don’t all live in the same place and don’t all do the same sort of work, say that they simply don’t see this sort of touch happening in their workplaces. We get quite a mix of people at planning board and related meetings in this area, for instance; and, yet again, tapping people and/or putting hands on arms or shoulders or backs or whatever at meetings, let alone nudging them (on purpose, not accidentally which happens) under the table, just plain doesn’t happen. (FWIW, the board runs generally majority male, minority female. Information presentation meetings are generally pretty well mixed, probably leaning a little male. Some farm meetings run around 50/50; some heavily male.) The first few posters in the thread, and some besides me since, seem to me not to be saying ‘other people do this all the time but it bugs me’ (though some others have indeed said that) but ‘who does that? That is not professional behavior.’ Now, it’s clear to me from reading this thread that there are a lot of people who think it is indeed professional behavior; and not just if your work is instructing yoga or working in noisy hazardous environments, but around the table at an ordinary meeting. But it’s obviously not just a few oddities who think that it isn’t – if it were just a few of us, then all of those who object to it would be repeatedly running into situations in which we were the only ones in the room who didn’t do it, or didn’t like it. I do wish that more people would post their general location in their visible data; even if somebody’s mentioned it somewhere on the boards in a post text, I can’t keep track. I’m wondering if this is partly a regional difference – though people in the USA move around a great deal. Oh, and I and others have said this before: but touch does not need to be sexual to be unwanted and/or inappropriate; and while it’s come up, most of this thread has not been about sexual touch. So it’s got nothing to do with whether wrists are erogenous zones. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/437 "2019-05-08T20:24:40Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I don’t know that people necessarily say touch is “the default.” Instead, I (and I suspect others) are fully aware of the alternatives, and \*\*conclude that \*\*in many situations, a light touch is the best approach. > > From this thread, it appears that there is some non-zero percent of the population that believes a light tap on the wrist/shoulder is NEVER appropriate. OK - I won’t contest that. But - before agreeing that society as a whole must take action to accommodate them, the questions remain, how large is that subset, and how reasonable are their concerns. Completely concur with you conclusion but would comment on the bolded part. For those who use non-sexual non-aggressive touch as part of communication I don’t think there is usually a conscious thought process of decision making involved. This complementary communication channel is just naturally used. As much conscious decision involved as whether or not to raise an eyebrow or lean towards or back and whether or not this person needs one or three feet of personal space. The conscious thought is what they want to communicate and they automatically use cultural norms and gestalt/responses of the person they are communicating with to shape the form the message takes. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/438 "2019-05-08T21:33:28Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I do wish that more people would post their general location in their visible data; even if somebody’s mentioned it somewhere on the boards in a post text, I can’t keep track. I’m wondering if this is partly a regional difference – though people in the USA move around a great deal. I’m pretty sure that the non-contact atmosphere of my office has less to do with location and more to do with the fact we’re all programmers. It probably helps that we don’t have meetings where verbal interruptions are disallowed or undesirable, but in any case we just tend not to poke at one another. Though I do have a co-worker who has the habit of, when he comes to look at something on my screen over my shoulder, leaning his weight on the back of my chair, rocking and destabilizing the whole thing I’m sitting in. He’s not actually touching me, but I still want to murder him. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/439 "2019-05-08T22:15:10Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > For those who use non-sexual non-aggressive touch as part of communication I don’t think there is usually a conscious thought process of decision making involved. This complementary communication channel is just naturally used. As much conscious decision involved as whether or not to raise an eyebrow or lean towards or back and whether or not this person needs one or three feet of personal space. Yup. Works the other way too. I don’t think, each time, ‘is the best way to ask this person to let somebody else talk for a while to touch them?’ I just don’t touch them. I may well be careful about my tone of voice, volume, and/or word choice when I ask them to let somebody else speak, or to get off that subject entirely. But I’m not carefully thinking about whether somebody’s going to be horribly upset that I communicated verbally; because I assume that’s the normal way to do it. That’s the way it’s been done (not always by me) at every meeting I’ve been at (well, not counting the one with the talking stick.) This is pretty much what I mean by using something as the default. I expect the default to be words; sometimes you can’t use them, and then you have to do something else, which might take a moment’s thought. But I don’t expect putting my hands on the person, in any fashion, to be automatically the next item down the list. It’s on there; but it’s quite a ways down. – If somebody new to a group did get all worked up about my using words, I’d now have a guess why. Before this thread, it would never have occured to me that they might be thinking ‘she should have just touched me!’ ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2019, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424/440 "2019-05-08T23:53:24Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > leaning his weight on the back of my chair, rocking and destabilizing the whole thing I’m sitting in. I actually hate this more than I would hate a hand on my shoulder while NOT touching my chair. Get off my chair! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-touching-co-workers-ok/833424.md?page=23)