Because it is the One Minute Manager not the One Minute Subordinate it is a manual for how Managers treat their **employees. **
That’s for your physician to declare. If normal human interaction is causing you physical discomfort, he or she may be able to look into treatments for allodynia, haphephobia or similar very real disorders to improve your ability to function in society.
I am functioning just fine in society, thankyewverymuch. I would also thank you not to try to diagnose me over the internet.
And I have no problem whatsoever having physical contact with people – when both of us want that contact.
I disagree that touching someone is better than saying, “We need to wrap up now.” The verbal request includes other attendees. The wrist touch is patronizing.
Context matters, but in 25 years+ of working in everything from VA research to computer security I have never seen a male do this to a female. It’s not normal behavior in a business setting.
There are a few of us on this thread. What would you like to know?
I don’t think men realize how difficult it is for women to confront men directly in matters pertaining to touch, let alone anything more serious. From reports elsewhere in this thread, the woman got a great deal of flack for complaining about this. Going directly to the source is degrees of magnitude more difficult.
I agree that context matters. I also agree that not everything needs to go straight to HR. Issues involving bodily autonomy, however, should go to HR. HR needs to understand if this is a one-time thing or something that happens repeatedly. HR needs to make their own assessment of the seriousness of the complaint, and decide appropriate actions.
I understand that there are cultural differences. When I make trips to Europe, I cheek kiss and embrace. When I make trips to Asia, there is no touching, but there are other rituals, such as bowing when presenting a business card. Again, context matters.
That said, if I take you at your word that touching is “perfectly natural and usual way to communicate”, what I hear is that you do not respect the bodily autonomy of others, that you won’t respect my bodily autonomy, and that you think it’s a shame that you can’t just do as you’ve always done.
The world has changed (or, more accurately, is changing slowly). Someday, I hope that women will have the same rights over their bodies that men have over theirs.
One should have prior consent for all touch. If that has been established through friendship, great. Long working relationship and mutually understood boundaries, fantastic. One cannot presume that one has permission in the absence of verbal assent, however.
In fact, I’d encourage everyone to evaluate how much permission they actually have and how much they are just assuming they have, because that’s the way they’ve been doing it.
Exactly. Report it.
What you are describing was normal to YOU. It was not understood or experienced by women in the same way. I always wonder about the motivations of men when they talk to me unexpectedly or in any way violate the social norms in our interactions. I will tell you that I do not want to be touched by co-workers who are not also social friends. I do not want to be touched by strange men at the store. I do not want men to touch me at all without my permission.
This demonstrates that you have never been on the less dominant side of an interaction. Women always wonder. Others doing “it” too doesn’t make it ok for the next person to do the same thing.
In summary, while context matters, one should have permission to initiate personal contact. Don’t touch unless you know it’s welcome.
Many, even most, women, have huge inculturated inhibitions about telling men straightforwardly not to touch them inappropriately. Touching of women by men is filled with complicated implied messages about gender roles, power, etc etc. I am not surprised she did not tell him.
I’m a little confused by this. Of the co-workers whom I touch on the shoulder, and who touch me on the shoulder, there’s never been any verbal assent given. Boundaries are established through friendship and through workplace norms. I’m having trouble squaring your last sentence with the previous ones quoted.
Part of my thinking, and I recognize I may be wrong on this, is that touching someone on the shoulder seems like a fairly small harm under the worst of circumstances. If someone just a little bit doesn’t like to be touched, can they respond to the first time by saying, “Actually, I’d rather not be touched”? If someone has a phobic response to touch, can they be responsible for that?
I’ve got a pretty stupid-serious phobia of needles, to the extent that discussions of drawing blood, or talking about carrying Epi-Pens, freaks my ass out. I handle that by mentioning it to people if it’s relevant, and if folks start talking about needles anyway (“Oh, then I don’t even know if I should tell you the story about when…”) I interrupt and laugh and say, “For real, no, you shouldn’t,” and if they persist, I literally walk away. I figure my stupid dislike of needles is so rare that it’s my job to handle it.
That is, perhaps, how folks who dislike shoulder-taps should handle it. (edit: please note that I’m only comparing a severe severe dislike for shoulder-taps to my needle aversion, not the run-of-the-mill don’t like 'em dislike.)
Unasked-for backrubs? Those are the equivalent of needle-jabs. You don’t give those without permission, full-stop.
A form of control? Maybe, sometimes. Context is everything.
This came up the other day at my workplace. A bunch of us, all on the same level on the org chart, were in a videoconference with our counterparts in another office of the firm, in another city.
There were, I think, about a dozen people involved. We had a limited amount of time. Each of us were speaking for a few minutes on a particular technical issue (this is an IT department).
A woman in my office was rambling. Way over her allotted time. A (male) colleague touched her arm (her hand, actually) in such a way that it was not visible to the camera.
He did this so that he could draw her attention to the fact that she was way over the time limit without embarassing her, without everyone seeing and hearing him say, essentially, “shut up, you’ve talked too long.”
Was he wrong to do so? In my opinion (and hers, as it turned out, but that’s hindsight), he was trying to help her, and succeeding.
It really is harder and harder for me to be sure anymore but I do think that both of you are engaging in humor but it really does seem to be true for more and more people.
Again, non-sexual non-aggressive touch has throughout history been a normal and important communication channel (with some religious-based gender prohibitions in certain cultures and sub-cultures). We are in what is by the scale of history a very abnormal time in regards not only to touch but in regards to communication in general.
People (or at least some people) are not just uncomfortable with touch, they are increasingly uncomfortable with face to face, even voice to voice communication. They just have less and less of it. They go out in the world in their own bubbles, earpods in, engaging with their phones and private (or at least physically disconnected) worlds rather than with the people around them. Calling someone is increasingly considered intrusive and weird compared to sending them a text. Teens are growing up spending more and more time Instagramming and texting and less time talking face to face or even on the phone. A neighbor knocking on your door without calling (or texting first better yet) is something odd. I’m getting the sense that making direct eye contact is beginning to make more people uncomfortable.
It exactly would have been relatively disruptive to the group get my attention verbally. Talking to me above a whisper would be disruptive to the group and as I am listening to the person who is presenting at the time talking to me in a whisper alone would fail to get my attention.
Touch can be a less public communication within a public context.
Even though I am not someone who communicates with touch much at all I find the overall arc that this seems to be a part of to be very sad.
That’s a big assumption, in my opinion.
To take an example, let’s assume an extreme case. A society where the normal way of greeting people is to grab their ass. Do you think that women whose ass is grabbed would feel the same about it as women whose ass is grabbed in our society? I think you would agree that they would think nothing of it. There would be of course some outliers who don’t like ass-grabbing, as we have on this forum a woman who is extremely uncomfortable with men shaking her hand, but the overwhelming majority wouldn’t care about ass-grabbing.
People don’t feel the same about being touched (or about anything else) across all cultures, through all times. They adapt, their perception changes as social norms change. Someone who has been told all her life that a man touching her is trying to exert control on her or to derive sexual arousal from it, and that touching a stranger requires consent and is best avoided if it’s possible isn’t going to react to being touched in the same way as someone who has been told all her life that being touched is a perfectly normal occurrence.
People do more than adapt in fact. They endorse the new norms and values. They’re almost always convinced that their current values are objectively better and have the greatest difficulties in even considering the possibility that they might not be. Convinced that the current norm is a proper answer to a perceived issue. Someone living in a society making “bodily autonomy” a matter of great importance will have difficulties envisioning that a society not protecting properly the right not to be touched and where being touched isn’t at all considered as a significant issue isn’t objectively wrong. And difficulties in envisioning that people raised in a different environment won’t perceive being touched as a violation in the way they do.
The problem is that adapting behavior to every individual’s preferences doesn’t work well. You have to remember that Timmy doesn’t want to be touched at all, that Johnny doesn’t mind to be touched this way but doesn’t want to be touched that way, that Rickie will feel bad if you don’t hug him, etc… Trying to guess or relying on your perception of how people seem to react is even worse. Projecting your own preferences on others even worse. The result is that you end up facing the HR guy for having touched someone in a way that you felt was innocuous.
You just can’t keep track of everybody peculiar preferences, and of course you can’t know them before either trying or asking. And you aren’t going to ask all your coworkers in advance : “can I touch your wrist to catch your attention and if yes in what way? What about your shoulder? What about your back?”. No, you need general rules, that are generally agreed upon, and allow you to know what you can do and what you cannot do, and are the same for everybody. If the general agreement is that you can touch someone’s wrist to catch his attention, then that’s the way it is, and too bad if someone doesn’t like to have his wrist touched, there no inherent right to not have one’s wrist touched if the social norm is that wrists are touchable.
We can see in this thread that we’re at a confusing point since people report not only strikingly different preferences and strikingly different assumptions, but also strikingly different experiences. There’s no generally accepted clear rule anymore about this issue that people could safely rely upon. Some believe that the wrist touching was outrageous and oppressive and totally justifying the intervention of HR, others that it’s probably fine but potentially suspicious, others that making an issue of wrist touching is absolutely laughable. Some report that they’ve never seen and instance of arm grabbing in their whole life, and others that arms are routinely grabbed where they work. Such a situation can’t last with some people being laughed at when they report what they feel is an assault and others being fired for what they feel was an innocuous contact. There’s a need for generally accepted ground rules that can be opposed to anybody.
And my belief is that these ground rules will eventually be that no non specifically authorized touching is acceptable because that the only one that takes into account this bodily autonomy/ people have the right not to be touched thing and because it’s obviously pretty simple.
I’m being half-serious. I was raised in a house with relatively literal interpersonal physical contact, and I got into (of all things) computer programming as a career, which is a bastion of poorly-socialized male nerds. There is no reason for us to touch each other, and little reason for us to interrupt each other - when I leave the office I check to see whether people look like they’re working and refrain from calling out “goodbye” if I think it’ll disrupt somebody’s chain of thought.
I’m quite certain that in the two decades that make up my employed life no other programmer has engaged in physical contact with me, outside of maaaaye a handshake or two. If that. We don’t even tap shoulders - we’re more likely to rap on the desk or cubicle wall if we want to get somebody’s attention. That or simply lurk silently in the fringes of their vision in the hopes they’ll finish what they’re doing and notice us on their own.
The only at-workplace physical contact I’ve had in recent years is our elderly, really-oughtta-be-retired boss has done a shoulder clasp or two, and this friendly lady who sometimes naps on the same couch I read at in one of our break rooms has casually touched my arm once or twice. The shoulder clasps are super-awkward, and the casual arm touch elicited surprise more than companionship or whatever.
(As for outside-of-workplace physical contact, I get clumsily farewell-hugged a couple of times a year by visiting sisters as they’re about to leave for home. That’s pretty much it.)
**Because HR is not your friend. **
It will go down as a black mark for him, and* you *the reportee. It, even tho perfectly innocent and one time, could cost him (and you) a promotion.
Let me make this clear, we’re talking about a light shoulder touch, a wrist or hand touch, not a pussy or ass grab. Absolutely anything sexual or out of line should be reported. But many people have no issue at all with being lightly touched in a innocent and non-sexual manner, and in fact they appreciate it.
Does that include handshakes?
That is a extreme way of thinking. And, itOk for you to feel that way, but not Ok for you to make everyone else hew to your personal standards.
If* you *feel uncomfortable to a light, innocent touch on the shoulder, that’s Ok. It’s your body. Just let them know.
I assume then, you refuse to shake hands?
If you report a light, innocent touch to HR, it will not go well for anyone. Including *you. *
This is absolutely true. This is a fundamental truth.
I have posted this very same thought in threads here for years. If you bring a problem to HR, anywhere, at any company, *you’re *the problem. That’s it, that’s all, that’s how it is.
Yes. My dating history is quite sexist and homophobic.
This seems strange. So who should someone go to if they are constantly unwantedly touched by their manager?
Full-body-contact smoochies are still okay though, right?
Go to another company.
Or, if you’re satisfied with your job, and don’t have any desire for promotion, go to HR. The touching will probably stop. But you’ve identified yourself as “difficult.”
Your career at the company will now come to a standstill. At best, you’ll get to keep your job. You probably won’t get fired on the spot. But, when the next economic downturn comes around, you’ll be first on the list for layoffs.
It isn’t right. It isn’t the way it should be. But it’s the way it is.
What did we say? You need to talk to whoever first, explain you dont like being touched.
If the touching is sexual or continues “constantly” yes, you should go to HR.
But dont take “Hey, Dave, the guy who shares my cubicle? He touched me on the shoulder to ask me a question. It only happened once, but he should be fired right now. Unwanted touching!!!”
It’s the difference between:" I saw my manager stealing from the petty cash" vs “My manager made a* personal phone call*- on company time!”
For the purpose of this discussion I’m going to assume both Sally and touchy-McFeely are rational adults who are both acting in good faith.
Let’s start with touchy-McFeely. It’s completely acceptable for HR to speak with him about boundaries. However, unless there’s a past history of unwanted touching, it’s not necessary to fire him or even give him a written warning. It was just a pat on the wrist. I would ask him to apologize to Sally though.
Let’s move on to Sally. I don’t feel as though it’s my place to tell Sally what she should be offended by or how much she should be offended by it. If she doesn’t like anyone touching her on the wrist like that then I can’t make any good argument for why she should accept it. I would happily listen to her concerns and I would speak to Mr. touchy-McFeely about what is and isn’t acceptable on her behalf to make sure she works in a comfortable environment. I would also ask Sally what outcome she would like to see result her speaking to HR.
This is true. But I also wonder whether she might have discussed a previous incident privately with the person who touched her, and this might have not been the first incident but the second or third or more. I don’t know whether this is known for sure.
I don’t know how well he knows her; maybe he already knew that she wouldn’t mind. If so, then I don’t think he was wrong. If not: I think he had a better option, which would have been to hold his phone with the time showing, or his watch, similarly out of line with the camera but in her view, and tap on that to draw her attention.
Let me just throw in here that absolutely none of that is true of me. I wear no earpods. I carry my phone in my pocket, turned off, unless I’m expecting a call. I prefer phone to text. I do usually call my neighbors before stopping by, but I have a couple of neighbors who just drop in, and I have no problem with them doing so.
And I have been uncomfortable with unwanted touch since, probably, about 1951, though I can’t actually remember about the first few years. That’s unwanted touch, specifically; though it’s got nothing to do with whether it’s sexual or not. I only want to be touched by some people, and only when I’m in the right mood. I do fairly often want to touch some specific people, and, presuming they also want it at the time, do so. If the impulse comes over me during a business meeting, however, I have no problem resisting it.
– Direct eye contact can actually be legitimately a tricky matter. A direct intent stare that’s held too long can easily come across as aggressive. That reaction goes way back in the head – such a stare in many other species is a sign that the starer may be about to attack (or thinks they may be about to be attacked), though it can also be a sign of intimacy. Humans do look each other in the eye, in most cultures, for longer than occasional glances; but the length of the look that’s considered normal, and whether one looks at the speaker (who mostly looks elsewhere, with only occasional meeting of eyes) or the speaker looks at the person being spoken to (ditto), or both, can also vary.
So if you’re noticing people who have problems with the amount of eye contact you want to make with them: it may be a cultural issue.
Or, of course, they may be uncomfortable with something that you’re saying; or signalling a lack of interest.
Or they might be actually uncomfortable with personal contact in general. It’s possible. But I wouldn’t assume it before ruling out the other possibilities.
– clairobscur, too late to quote you, but I see your post.
I very much doubt that most women in a culture in which grabbing asses is normal would be happy about it. They might of course be expected to put up with it; which is not the same thing.
Cultural variations are certainly real, and they can be pretty drastic. However, I’ve never heard of a culture in which men grabbing the asses of women they don’t have an established sexual relationship with doesn’t imply that the men are controlling and/or harassing the women.
There have been people all along who didn’t want to be touched except by certain people in certain contexts. In some cultural situations, they’ve had to put up with it. I don’t see why your desire to be able to touch anybody whenever you feel like it should trump somebody else’s desire not to be touched by you if they don’t want to. (I am curious as to whether you extend this attitude towards your boss/superiors in rank in general.) If you can’t keep track of who wants to be touched by you and who doesn’t, then don’t touch people without checking.
You can generally tell that Rickie wants to be hugged by the fact that Rickie’s coming toward you with his arms out, and that Timmy doesn’t by the fact that he’s backing away if he sees you looking like you’re going to hug him. When everybody’s sitting relatively still at a conference table, that’s a different situation. That’s one of the reasons (though not the only one) that it’s usually a bad idea to start touching people at a conference table. It’s also a bad idea to touch people to draw their attention to you, because by definition they don’t see the touch coming – if they do, you’ve already got their attention – , and therefore can’t signal if they don’t want it.
And I don’t think anyone on this thread has suggested that anyone should be fired for a casual touch with no harm meant.
I’m tired, and it’s a fast moving thread. Not sure all the above is entirely coherent.