I could have sworn I’ve bitched about this before, but I couldn’t find the thread so I’ll just start a new one.
I’m currently training an attractive lady at work. She herself, is a nice intelligent lady. I have no issues with her.
What grinds my gears is every swinging dick in that place has to stop by to chat this girl up or to flat out flirt with her. Normally, I wouldn’t give two shits, but when your mid conversation with your trainee, trying to teach them some very technical stuff, that requires uninterrupted focus and attention, it’s a little annoying when you have guys constantly stopping by trying to be witty or charming.
Seriously. Today we were both sitting at my desk going over some stuff on my computer. I got up for two seconds to go get some papers. When I came back, there is some dude sitting in my chair chatting this girl up. I actually had to tell the guy to get up.
Despite the title of the thread, I think it is pretty clear that is who he is Pitting and not the trainee.
Can’t you just tell them straight up that you are in a new employee training session and to get the hell out and stay out until they are invited? That is what I would do. If that doesn’t work, tell their manager that their subordinate is disrupting your training session and it is inappropriate.
It sounds like you have some assertiveness issues yourself that you need to work on. If people are walking in and taking over your space, that is a general issue with you and not just with this specific situation. I have had that happen to me as well but never twice with the same person because I do not put up with that shit.
If I was in your position and getting my work constantly interrupted by horndogs with raging hormones like apes catching the scent of a female, I don’t think I’d long have the patience to be polite about telling them off. I might even put up a sign:
Meeting in progress. No mating rituals.
Employees with raging hormones wishing to preen themselves in front of the female staff will kindly do so on their own time. The female staff would also like us to inform you that you are pathetic.
I’m in a tabletop gaming group. We have a pretty large membership which includes a number of young women. And several of them are unhappy because some of the young men in the group seem to feel that it’s open season on any woman they see in a social setting, even when the purpose of the gathering has nothing to do with dating. We’re actually having to start women’s only gaming nights so they can enjoy playing games without getting hit on all night.
No. The only thing I said about women, is the same thing lots of women have said they hate about being a woman. And that is, the constant non stop attention they get from men.
It absolutely fucking kills me that gaming, and fandom in general, still hasn’t gotten past this shit yet. It’s been almost thirty years since Bimbos of the Death Sun came out, and the whole “OMG A LADY!!” thing was being mocked by then. Goddamn nerdboys.
I know it’s hard to identify in the wild, because people misuse the term so often, but when your expectations are subverted, and you get the opposite of what you expected, it’s ironic. In this case, the irony is employed for the purpose of something called humor. Humor often arises from an element of surprise followed by recognition.
These things are all much more enjoyable once they’ve been explained. Thanks for giving me an opening.
Ugh. I fucking hate this. I enjoy both sports and tabletop games. I can’t bring my sister without somebody hitting on her. She already has a boyfriend and she’s not at all interested, but she’s too nice to tell jackasses to fuck off and the jackasses mistake that for encouragement. It really angers me because I’m certain that most of the time when she blows off a gaming night, it’s because she doesn’t want to deal with it that night.
The Pit title could have been better, but I get it after reading the OP.
As for shooing away co-workers, I would need better information. If some of these louts rank higher or are well connected with higher ups in the company, that may be easier said than done unless they are engaging in obviously sexual harassing behavior (and even reporting that is a fine line career-wise).
Its always easy to sit back and say “you should do this” and “you should do that” when in fact, if Grrrr was comfortable with doing telling his/her coworkers how they feel, most likely they would not have not vented here out of frustration of not offending their co-workers.
So, rather than taking aside the offenders, who are ruining it for not just the women, and informing them on what suitable behaviour is for your group, you chose the segregation route. And how are these clueless men supposed to then learn the correct behaviour? Absorption through the ether?
A little 2x4 straightening behind the barn might improve how they act and consequently how others act, and it might even make them civilized enough that some girl would eventually care to entertain their advances. Everyone wins then.
