Ok, with my last day at this job fast approaching, I’ve considered having a discussion with one coworker.
The story:
I’ve been at this job just over 2 years, and I’m leaving to go back to grad school for a completely unrelated field. Shortly after I began working at this company, it became obvious that one coworker developed a crush. I wasn’t interested, though I’d talk to him - he was a nice enough person, and we did have to deal with each other for work related situations (plus we had to travel together), but there was no attraction to him on my part. He would ask me out (pester me about it, continuously, on some days), but I’d always say no.
Flash forward to this past April: I’ve been accepted to grad school, meaning I’m leaving the first part of August. He suddenly ceases speaking to me at all. If he has to ask me something about work, there’s an e-mail. This doesn’t stress me out, except for the fact that he’s so obvious about it - I’d ask him a question about something, he’d give a short answer, then go write out a detailed answer that I could have been told. In meetings, I was never addressed directly, even if I directly addressed him.
It’s gotten less obvious the last couple of weeks - he will actually speak, but I would like, before I leave or just after, to send an e-mail telling him how rude it was. But not a nasty e-mail, just one that explained what I observed. It would be very carefully worded so as not to come across as hostile, hateful or otherwise insulting.
Is it a possibility, or should I just go - knowing that the chances of running into him again are rare because of the switch of fields of focus (again, totally unrelated fields)? Is it not worth even worrying about?
I’d say don’t even worry about it. Fact of the matter is that you don’t have to see him or speak to him anymore, so what he does shouldn’t really be of any concern to you. It’s obvious that he was rude, but an email telling him that probably won’t change his behavior.
If it bothers you that much, and if you have an exit interview at your company, you can bring it up there. Otherwise, I say just leave and enjoy not having to deal with him anymore.
I’d let it go. There is very little return on investment.
Once you are gone, he has control of the propaganda flow. An email, no matter how well-worded will allow him to tell people that you sent him an angry email.
You probably won’t really change his future behaviour. The only ROI is a chance to vent - and you can use this forum to vent.
It may have nothing to do with you (maybe his dog died or his mom’s sick and he’s preoccupied or something) and if you bring it up you may end up with egg on your face.
He is probabally hurt due to multiple rejections and that any future chance is kaput.
I had a simular thing to me from the other end. Well almost we started dating and it just wasn’t working but I wanted to try to make it work, she moved back the the friends only stage. When she found another b/f I basically lost interest in her. I wasn’t rude about it and would talk to her when she called and helped her a few times but we both could see my heart wasn’t in it.
Now after reading this and re-reading the OP I see that they are not as simular as I thought except for one part…
Even though I wasn’t rude I still felt bad about it and still do to this day somewhat. If I felt bad not being rude he will feel bad being rude. He knows what he did, let it go.
Thanks y’all. You’ve pretty much straight up confirm where my gut was headed - I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t completely off base in that feeling.
Now if I could use Pit words to his face…but that’d really be burning bridges.
Knowing no more than I do about the situation, it’s impossible to say for sure, but there’s another possibility that you don’t seem to have considered. His prior behavior, as you’ve described it, meets some folks’ standards for sexual harassment (particularly the consistent repetition of asking you out after you made it clear you weren’t interested). It seems possible that he has either been made aware by someone else, or has realized himself, that this is the case, and is deliberately minimizing his non-written contact with you to protect himself and/or the company from any such claim by you. You don’t seem to have been bothered by his conduct to the extent that you’d consider such an action, but neither he nor anyone advising him regarding his behavior could be sure of that, and if a supervisor or HR person has spoken to him about it, they’d likely have directed him to avoid mentioning the possibility to you for fear of instigating something that wouldn’t have occurred to you on your own. Don’t discount the possibility that a supervisor or coworker has noticed his attentions to you and your reaction to them, and taken steps to curb his behavior. I’ve managed people in several situations where a romantic relationship developed between coworkers or where someone developed a one-sided attachment to another person in the office, and I knew that something was going on there long before my attention was drawn to it by any of the parties directly involved – indeed, they’re usually certain that they’ve been subtle enough to escape notice when in fact they’ve been nothing of the sort.
In any event, if I became aware that one of my employees was attracted to another, that the attraction was one-sided, and that the attracted party had continued to “pester” the other party, I very well might direct the offending party to behave more or less as you describe your coworker having done – keep things strictly business, minimize verbal exchanges, and deal with work issues in writing wherever possible.
If you want to think the best of the guy, you could assume that that’s what’s happened. To my mind, it accounts for the behavior better than your hypothesis; if you’re leaving, he’d be theoretically more motivated than ever to put on a full-court press to change your mind before you go, and he’d be running less of a risk of you complaining about him to your supervisor. That his behavior changed after your announcement that you’re leaving may simply be coincidence.
Semi clueless though persistent person X pursues unobtainable woman Y, and invests enough effort and ego into this effort that the rejection becomes a personal issue for him. It’s not woman Y’s fault she’s not attracted to person X, it’s just nature’s way. While you were hanging around there he still (in his mind) had a chance. The finality of your leaving makes it clear to him that what he wants will never be.
Many men and women in this scenario will become distant and cut down on interaction with the object of their desire to spare themselves further humilation, and having to deal with the uncomfortable feelings that personal interaction with this desired person creates.
Don’t send him some “I’ve observed” stealth nasty gram on the way out. You’re leaving him in a month or so with a bruise on his heart. Just let him be for goodness sake, don’t punish him further for protecting himself even though it’s coming off as rudeness. Let it go.
