Can’t quite figure out what your point is here, aside from something about your balls shriveling (and hey, speak for yourself – I’m aware of the rare but non-zero existence of false accusations, and mine feel just fine).
“You look particularly nice today!”
“That’s a nice new outfit. Very professional”
If the outfit includes a short skirt, there you go. You don’t have to have commented inappropriately, merely noticing it as new can be enough.
So never compliment anyone ever. Or say anything nice to anyone. Unless it’s a man. Yeah, great way to eliminate sexism and make people comfortable in the work place.
Factually incorrect.
“What was stolen?”
“How did they get in?”
If I came to my home, and nothing was different, and everything was properly locked, and I called the police about a burglary I was sure happened, how do you think they’d find out I was making it up?
Nothing was stolen and no sign of forced entry. First things they check.
Would you say this to a man in your office?
A realistic example might be something like this. A company hires a bunch of college new hires. A 50-year-old male employee is waiting for an elevator when one of the new hires comes up. The older employee introduces himself, asks how the new hire is enjoying the company, what they are working on, if they found an apartment, what they do for fun in the city, etc. There are a few ways this conversation can be construed:
- Idle chit-chat to make the new hire feel welcome and get to learn more about them
- The older employee is chatting to flirt with the new hire
- The older employee is just making idle small talk, but the new hire interprets it as flirting
If the new hire is a man, then likely both people take it as idle chit-chat. But if the new hire is a woman, then it’s not so clear. The woman has to be evaluating the conversation to determine if the older employee is trying to flirt. And even if the older employee is just making chit-chat, there’s always the possibility the new hire could misconstrue it as flirting.
Even if the older employee is just trying to be welcoming, he may not instigate conversation out of respect. Unless they will be working together, there may not be any need for them to actually talk to each other. He may not want to put her in the uncomfortable position of trying to decide if he’s a nice coworker or creepy older stalker.
There’s also more of a burden on the older employee to be cautious in what he says. He should be conscious if asking about things like what part of town she lives in or what she does for fun could be construed as being creepy.
While I think #MeToo is good and important, and it’s brought many issues of harassment to the forefront, it has also increased the penalties and reduced the amount of consideration given to the accused. If the new hire goes to HR and says the older employee was being creepy, there will be quick consequences to the older employee. Even if that’s 100% because the new hire misinterpreted the older employee’s idle chit-chat, that won’t matter a whole lot. HR has to take swift and decisive action in the #MeToo era. The safest thing for a man is not to interact unless necessary, but the consequence is that it’s harder for male and female coworkers to get to know each other.
I have. I typically follow it with “what’s the occasion?”
Most times it’s a vendor/HQ visit. A couple of times have been anniversaries. Once was a court appearance over a traffic ticket. Two times were job interviews (internal). A few times I think were lunchtime offsite interviews they didn’t want to acknowledge.
EDIT: I forgot, two weeks ago it was “Sears going-out-of-business sale. This is a $250 suit I got for $80! I look SHARP today”
Assuming this is all true… so what?
By what basis do you believe a new hire would be likely (even only a tiny bit likely) to make a report to HR based on questions about “how the new hire is enjoying the company, what they are working on, if they found an apartment, what they do for fun in the city, etc.”? That sounds ridiculous. Maybe it’s happened once or twice before on the planet Earth… but it’s also happened before that someone shat in the sink at work. Not sure if sink-shitting deserves any particular worry or concern.
I think all of this becomes very simple if you just realize that women are in fact just people, and if you treat all people with respect, then you’ll never have any issues. Just treat all of your coworkers as you would want any of them to treat you. I can’t really understand all of the hand wringing and gnashing of teeth here. How hard is it not to be creepy to your coworkers?
Doubtless, but that’s not the point. It is automatically inappropriate to send pictures of your junk to your co-workers, no matter how arousing or attractive they might find them.
How does one false accusation “cancel” even one non-false accusation, much less a hundred of them?
All such accusations should be taken seriously and investigated. That’s what the maxim “believe women” fundamentally means.
When the investigation finds that, say, one out of a hundred women was not being truthful in her accusation, nobody is demanding that you believe that woman’s false claims.
But you aren’t legally, ethically or socially entitled to disregard a hundred valid accusations (or even one) merely because you know of one accusation that was false. Or vice versa, of course.
What you’re not getting is that commenting on a co-worker’s appearance is by default inappropriate, even if you didn’t say anything explicitly sexual.
Commenting on a male co-worker’s appearance is by default inappropriate too.
The kind of butthurt obtuseness you’re promoting here is obscuring the simple professional principle that you should not be offering your co-workers any judgements about what they look like, unless something about their appearance is directly relevant to work issues (e.g., company dress codes, safety regulations, etc.). Not even if you intend your judgement as a compliment.
If you want to compliment your co-worker about something related to his or her work, feel free. If you want to engage in a gendered ritual of openly evaluating and praising a woman’s physical appearance that has jack-shit to do with work, save it for your social life.
The definition of creepy changes over time. The 45 year olds know this better than the 19 year olds, because it was true when they were 19.
Example: Buying someone a drink at a club, which is a commonly recognized social meeting place for initiating romantic contacts, is now considered creepy by some young people, when by middle-aged people it was considered a respectful no-pressure approach; rejection of the drink indicating the same thing as swiping whichever direction the kids swipe today.
If figuring out how to compliment people is too difficult for you, just don’t hand out compliments. Talk about the weather or something.
Jesus, do you need instructions in blowing your nose too?
Ah, but changes in behavior- dress, etc.- typically are indicative of changes in life. Not noting changes in fact can be isolating and upsetting for people, and working relationships are fundamentally that- relationships.
Interesting that you changed it to a purely female statement there at the end, which is exactly what I was commenting on: If one of my flannel and jean male coworkers shows up in a 3 piece suit, I’m free to comment and even admire the cut (which is a prelude to inquiring about the tailor, say, or offering them best wishes on their new job application), but if one of my flannel and jean female coworkers shows up in a formal blouse and skirt with sharply done hair, I should say nothing, even if she looks tight around the eyes and it gives her the opportunity to say she has to go to court and address a traffic ticket and doesn’t know how she’s going to accomplish updates on X, which gives me the opportunity to offer to help support.
Both of those have happened to me in the last year. Hard and fast rules don’t cover the nuance of social interaction because of the “fast” element.
Why should the guy take the risk in the first place? That’s what the article is about. If the guy does nothing, there’s no risk to him. If he chats, invites for lunch, works one-on-one, there’s always the risk to him of being falsely accused. Even if the woman doesn’t go to HR, she could still spread gossip about how the older employee was trying to flirt.
In the past, the accused was given way too much consideration. Even when they were explicitly sexually harassing in the workplace (e.g. Matt Lauer), the accusations were discounted. But now it has swung so far the other way that the companies have to respond to every allegation. If your manager hears gossip that you’re flirting, you’ll get reprimanded whether or not you actually were flirting.
For men who don’t known when they’re crossing the line (like that guy who complemented a coworker’s skirt), it’s best for them not to interact at all. If they’re so clueless that they don’t realize when they are harassing, then really they should not interact unless necessary.
I’ve been part of group interactions where a woman later said that one of the guys was flirting, but I thought he was just being his normal friendly self. This was a guy who was good at chatting, could tell good stories, etc. But I thought he was just being the same guy he always is. He was the same chatty guy he is when it was just guys. So whatever she took as flirting I didn’t see. Maybe she misinterpreted his friendly personality as flirting, or may he really was flirting with her and I didn’t notice. It’s that kind of stuff that can get a guy in trouble these days. Just being accused of flirting can get you reprimanded, regardless of whether or not what he said was actually flirting.
That’s the most idiotic non-sequitur ad hominem I’ve seen in years. Congratulations on being unable to follow the point being made by admittedly reducio ad absurdum.
Well, if your office has a genuinely social atmosphere where men and women alike are all comfortable talking about their special-occasion outfits and their reasons for wearing them, and if you talk to your female colleagues about their outfits the same way you talk to your male colleagues about theirs, then I don’t see a problem with that.
But also, if that’s really what your workplace is like, then I don’t believe that anyone there has ever actually gotten in any trouble merely for complimenting a co-worker on her new suit.
That’s because an atmosphere of social trust and friendliness in the workplace has to be earned, as Airbeck pointed out, by sincere respect and concern for one’s co-workers. If you’re sulking around the place insisting “Hey I just enjoy paying friendly compliments to the office ladeez, why bitches gotta be gettin so upset about that?”, then you are not actually being friendly or gallant, you’re being an inconsiderate asshole.
They have. I’m currently on a new job trying to create friendliness amongst my new team members, which I find takes a certain kind of aggressive even-handed niceness made always in groups so everyone of both genders can perceive the even-handedness. And that’s a disservice to humanity, in my opinion, that we can’t give the initial benefit of the doubt before concluding any remark must be intended as a microaggression. Wait for a pattern before concluding it’s harassment, it’s basic social courtesy that’s been lost in the modern era.
If figuring out sarcasm is too difficult for you, I would suggest you try another message board.
And again. You do or do not understand that my comment, and your response, are both in support of the article?
“If you are having trouble figuring out what’s OK in the modern world, talk about the weather or something”
The article, summarized:
“Because standards are changing and there’s no longer a presupposition of innocent error, business people are ensuring that even conversations about the weather can’t happen when there’s a chance of an unintended slipup.”
Again, so what? Yes, people can misinterpret things and “spread gossip”. That has always been true and always will be true. It’s irrelevant to #MeToo and the problem of widespread tolerance for harassment and abuse.
Or course they should respond to every allegation! Every accusation should be taken seriously and investigated.
I see no reason to believe that it’s true that minor interaction (“chatting” on mundane, non-intimate topics) has any significant likelihood of getting someone reprimanded.
As a working woman, I can assure you that none of us gals are sitting around on tenterhooks wondering if you notice our new business suit. And if we are, we really don’t have enough work to do.
Really, we don’t care if you don’t mention our clothing. Believe me.
Compliment our work ethic, or our production results, or our neat desk, or something.
Really, it’s not hard to do at all.