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As a man, is there anything I can do or avoid doing in the workplace to make it easier for coworkers like you? Let's assume I don't know and don't suspect anyth

As a man, is there anything I can do or avoid doing in the workplace to make it easier for coworkers like you? Let's assume I don't know and don't suspect anything specific about my coworkers. I just want to know if there's anything that would be pretty easy to implement, that would make a difference.

zozbot234 5y ago
Mike Pence rule. Don't ever be alone with a vulnerable person without a neutral third party being present, it wreaks havoc on the threat-detection instinct. As the saying goes, "you're not paranoid if someone really is out to get you."
- Syonyk 5y ago
  Billy Graham was the originator of the concept in his ministry [0]. Not only does it help prevent things from happening that could be a problem later, it helps prevent even accusations of such, if it's well known that the person involved holds to this rule and expects others to hold them to it as well. Say what you will about Pence, love him or hate him, nobody is accusing him of sexual misconduct - and that's the point of the rule. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Graham_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Graham_rule
  - ars 5y ago
    It's much much much older than that, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yichud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yichud It doesn't prevent abuse by a close family member though.
    - Syonyk 5y ago
      Interesting, I'd assumed there was history before Graham (it's an obvious enough thing), but wasn't aware of the details. Thanks!
- deanCommie 5y ago
  Shocking that this is getting upvotes. The only way to treat this as gospel is to never be present with another woman alone. That the tech industry is so inept with opposite gender interactions that they have adopted tactics from religious zealot evangelicals is APALLING. Treat people as humans. Regardless of gender or sexuality.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Ironically, the tech industry has provided an alternative solution - cameras recording everything everywhere. Dash cams to provide proof of what happened in collisions, workplace cameras to reduce liability for employers and also helps protect employees, home cameras also for liability reduction as well as protection against police lying about what happened…etc.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    Costs vs. benefits and all. It's hardly unreasonable if you're risk-averse.
  - tomp 5y ago
    The whole premise of the workplace is to not treat people as humans, but as coworkers. Sex is one of the most essentially human things. "Professional" behaviour excludes sex. So "treat people as humans" is decisively not clear advice for cases like this.
    - tremon 5y ago
      That's a very dehumanizing statement to me. I would never want to work at a place that doesn't treat its employees as humans. That doesn't mean I condone sex at the workplace, but I would not accept to be treated as less than a full human being. Humans are not automata, and I don't aspire to be one, not even for "just" 8 hours a day.
    - deanCommie 5y ago
      The way you are expected to interact with humans in the VAST MAJORITY of situations is closer to how you are expected to interact with coworkers in a professional setting, than to a speed dating event or a crowded bar after midnight. We're not having orgies in the street. In modern society you are expected to treat humans in the vast majority of situations without "sex" being relevant to the topic of discussion, whether it's on the street, in the grocery store, on the tram, or in the library. Acting like this is not clear feels like an exercise in pedantic loophole seeking to justify sexual harassment. ("How are people even supposed to meet each other if I'm not allowed to <blank> to women in <blank>?")
- sp332 5y ago
  This can disadvantage those people in other ways though. Just trying to get work done, it helps to be able to drop into someone's office without arranging for a chaperone. Or stopping by somewhere without checking the number and gender of people who will be there ahead of time.
  - bzbarsky 5y ago
    One principled solution would be to apply the rule to everyone you interact with. In practice that's likely quite difficult.
  - ars 5y ago
    > it helps to be able to drop into someone's office without arranging for a chaperone. You can leave the door to the office open at all times. Or use a glass wall or door so people can see in, but maybe not overhear.
- Mezzie 5y ago
  He asked how to make things easier for his vulnerable coworkers, not how to cover his ass. Honestly, my suggestion would be to be open about your own experiences and the impact they've had on you. (Not necessarily abuse, but just offhand comments like 'oh, it's silly but I can't stand yelling because my dad yelled a lot' or 'I don't drink because my family's had issues with it', etc.) Be open and clear that a.) you don't judge people for being 'weird' and b.) you accept things other people need even if you don't need them. Don't be overly emotional about it. Just accept their human needs in the same way you would if a coworker had a disability. Oh, that person needs more space between us? Alright. Not any different than a hard of hearing coworker who needs me to speak up a bit, or a visually impaired coworker who uses zoom on their computer. My saying, "Hey, I have a bit of anxiety so I'm going to gather myself for a moment; do you think you could step back and give me some space and we could try to pitch this conversation a bit quieter?" shouldn't be much different than my needing a stepstool. I'm short. It happens. If you treat the people around you as individuals, then people understand they can ask you for what they need.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    > Honestly, my suggestion would be to be open about your own experiences and the impact they've had on you. I'd imagine that many people would disagree with this. Dwelling on people's supposed 'weirdness' is not a healthy attitude (least of all when the 'weirdness' is our own) and would not be seen as "open" or "accepting" by many, but more of a signal of entitlement. If you think that the other person would benefit from something, just behave accordingly without dwelling on it, and people will hopefully realize that they can ask you for these things with no fuss.
bittercynic 5y ago
Fellow man, here, but I think I have something of value to add: Learning to be open and friendly, and developing a sense for when someone doesn't want to talk to me has been an important part of growing up. I try to identify signals that a person wants to end their interaction with me, and respect their wishes immediately and in a friendly way.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Being "open and friendly" is no good when someone literally has shell shock(!) (aka PTSD) from interacting with people like you. You'll need to behave in such a way as to demonstrate to them that they can intuitively and securely trust you not to be an immediate physical threat, nor to pose any in the foreseeable future. The quick rule-of-thumb is to be courteous and respectful but also establish very firm physical boundaries, even erring towards being less friendly as opposed to more. You also need to proactively signal that you will stop interacting with them at the slightest sign of their discomfort; keeping interactions short and to the point is an obvious way to do this, even though this outwardly looks "rude" and "unfriendly"!
  - Mezzie 5y ago
    Developmentally caused PTSD and shell-shock/war/later event PTSD have some differences. For instance, those of us with developmentally-caused trauma often view every person as a threat, because we were abused by our caregivers. (In my case, my mother.) This is because we need our abusers to survive, so we're used to abuse being a necessary part of life and something that can happen at any time/during mundane interactions. We don't feel like anyone is safe. The only person my nervous system trusts is my baby sister. Trying to get me to recognize you as safe isn't going to work, because nobody is safe to me. I realize that not everybody is a danger and my feelings are the result of my failing the parental lottery and not a commentary on every person I meet, which means it's my responsibility/job to retrain/calibrate my 'who is safe' sensors. It just takes practice and some patience sometimes. People refusing to interact with me because they have different genitals than me isn't going to help, especially when most of my hobbies are male-dominated. It just conveys 'Ha, you're not a proper girl, so you don't deserve friends. Go learn to like clothes and boys if you want to hang out with people'. Now, if you've been burned in the past by people using their mental illnesses to blame you for not understanding social cues, or had that used against you in the past, and you don't feel comfortable in mixed-sex interactions, that's fine, but that's a need of YOURS, not the women.
SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
Ensure that there is more than one woman around in your company. Ensure your workplace policies are friendly and flexible for people who need mental health days, address family time, get pregnant, need sanitary equipment, parent children or other dependents, etc. Ensure all the women at your company have opportunities to work with and have women co workers, or women friendly gatherings like lunches, and be open to feedback to change policy accordingly once you have enough women coming together during their talks that they can suggest changes collectively. Being the sole woman in a company of men when means your superiors are men, your peers are men, and the only recourse you may have if any of them act inappropriately towards you is to report it to another man. Edit: respect boundaries and consistently remind that if they have a boundary they are free to enforce and you will respect that. Boundaries come in the form of more than “please don’t x”. They are also “I prefer x” or “can we y”.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > consistently remind that if they have a boundary they are free to enforce and you will respect that. The clearest and most effective way of doing this is to proactively establish and propose safe boundaries for the other person's benefit. This is the underlying dynamic behind many rules-of-thumb of ordinary courtesy and politeness (often wrongly dismissed as some sort of useless, obsolete 'traditionalism'). Not everyone is so assertive and comfortable with themselves that they should be expected to verbalize their boundaries to you, or even to understand them proactively.

zozbot234 5y ago

Mike Pence rule. Don't ever be alone with a vulnerable person without a neutral third party being present, it wreaks havoc on the threat-detection instinct. As the saying goes, "you're not paranoid if someone really is out to get you."

Syonyk 5y ago
Billy Graham was the originator of the concept in his ministry [0]. Not only does it help prevent things from happening that could be a problem later, it helps prevent even accusations of such, if it's well known that the person involved holds to this rule and expects others to hold them to it as well. Say what you will about Pence, love him or hate him, nobody is accusing him of sexual misconduct - and that's the point of the rule. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Graham_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Graham_rule
- ars 5y ago
  It's much much much older than that, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yichud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yichud It doesn't prevent abuse by a close family member though.
  - Syonyk 5y ago
    Interesting, I'd assumed there was history before Graham (it's an obvious enough thing), but wasn't aware of the details. Thanks!
deanCommie 5y ago
Shocking that this is getting upvotes. The only way to treat this as gospel is to never be present with another woman alone. That the tech industry is so inept with opposite gender interactions that they have adopted tactics from religious zealot evangelicals is APALLING. Treat people as humans. Regardless of gender or sexuality.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Ironically, the tech industry has provided an alternative solution - cameras recording everything everywhere. Dash cams to provide proof of what happened in collisions, workplace cameras to reduce liability for employers and also helps protect employees, home cameras also for liability reduction as well as protection against police lying about what happened…etc.
- jhgb 5y ago
  Costs vs. benefits and all. It's hardly unreasonable if you're risk-averse.
- tomp 5y ago
  The whole premise of the workplace is to not treat people as humans, but as coworkers. Sex is one of the most essentially human things. "Professional" behaviour excludes sex. So "treat people as humans" is decisively not clear advice for cases like this.
  - tremon 5y ago
    That's a very dehumanizing statement to me. I would never want to work at a place that doesn't treat its employees as humans. That doesn't mean I condone sex at the workplace, but I would not accept to be treated as less than a full human being. Humans are not automata, and I don't aspire to be one, not even for "just" 8 hours a day.
  - deanCommie 5y ago
    The way you are expected to interact with humans in the VAST MAJORITY of situations is closer to how you are expected to interact with coworkers in a professional setting, than to a speed dating event or a crowded bar after midnight. We're not having orgies in the street. In modern society you are expected to treat humans in the vast majority of situations without "sex" being relevant to the topic of discussion, whether it's on the street, in the grocery store, on the tram, or in the library. Acting like this is not clear feels like an exercise in pedantic loophole seeking to justify sexual harassment. ("How are people even supposed to meet each other if I'm not allowed to <blank> to women in <blank>?")
sp332 5y ago
This can disadvantage those people in other ways though. Just trying to get work done, it helps to be able to drop into someone's office without arranging for a chaperone. Or stopping by somewhere without checking the number and gender of people who will be there ahead of time.
- bzbarsky 5y ago
  One principled solution would be to apply the rule to everyone you interact with. In practice that's likely quite difficult.
- ars 5y ago
  > it helps to be able to drop into someone's office without arranging for a chaperone. You can leave the door to the office open at all times. Or use a glass wall or door so people can see in, but maybe not overhear.
Mezzie 5y ago
He asked how to make things easier for his vulnerable coworkers, not how to cover his ass. Honestly, my suggestion would be to be open about your own experiences and the impact they've had on you. (Not necessarily abuse, but just offhand comments like 'oh, it's silly but I can't stand yelling because my dad yelled a lot' or 'I don't drink because my family's had issues with it', etc.) Be open and clear that a.) you don't judge people for being 'weird' and b.) you accept things other people need even if you don't need them. Don't be overly emotional about it. Just accept their human needs in the same way you would if a coworker had a disability. Oh, that person needs more space between us? Alright. Not any different than a hard of hearing coworker who needs me to speak up a bit, or a visually impaired coworker who uses zoom on their computer. My saying, "Hey, I have a bit of anxiety so I'm going to gather myself for a moment; do you think you could step back and give me some space and we could try to pitch this conversation a bit quieter?" shouldn't be much different than my needing a stepstool. I'm short. It happens. If you treat the people around you as individuals, then people understand they can ask you for what they need.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > Honestly, my suggestion would be to be open about your own experiences and the impact they've had on you. I'd imagine that many people would disagree with this. Dwelling on people's supposed 'weirdness' is not a healthy attitude (least of all when the 'weirdness' is our own) and would not be seen as "open" or "accepting" by many, but more of a signal of entitlement. If you think that the other person would benefit from something, just behave accordingly without dwelling on it, and people will hopefully realize that they can ask you for these things with no fuss.

bittercynic 5y ago

Fellow man, here, but I think I have something of value to add: Learning to be open and friendly, and developing a sense for when someone doesn't want to talk to me has been an important part of growing up. I try to identify signals that a person wants to end their interaction with me, and respect their wishes immediately and in a friendly way.

zozbot234 5y ago
Being "open and friendly" is no good when someone literally has shell shock(!) (aka PTSD) from interacting with people like you. You'll need to behave in such a way as to demonstrate to them that they can intuitively and securely trust you not to be an immediate physical threat, nor to pose any in the foreseeable future. The quick rule-of-thumb is to be courteous and respectful but also establish very firm physical boundaries, even erring towards being less friendly as opposed to more. You also need to proactively signal that you will stop interacting with them at the slightest sign of their discomfort; keeping interactions short and to the point is an obvious way to do this, even though this outwardly looks "rude" and "unfriendly"!
- Mezzie 5y ago
  Developmentally caused PTSD and shell-shock/war/later event PTSD have some differences. For instance, those of us with developmentally-caused trauma often view every person as a threat, because we were abused by our caregivers. (In my case, my mother.) This is because we need our abusers to survive, so we're used to abuse being a necessary part of life and something that can happen at any time/during mundane interactions. We don't feel like anyone is safe. The only person my nervous system trusts is my baby sister. Trying to get me to recognize you as safe isn't going to work, because nobody is safe to me. I realize that not everybody is a danger and my feelings are the result of my failing the parental lottery and not a commentary on every person I meet, which means it's my responsibility/job to retrain/calibrate my 'who is safe' sensors. It just takes practice and some patience sometimes. People refusing to interact with me because they have different genitals than me isn't going to help, especially when most of my hobbies are male-dominated. It just conveys 'Ha, you're not a proper girl, so you don't deserve friends. Go learn to like clothes and boys if you want to hang out with people'. Now, if you've been burned in the past by people using their mental illnesses to blame you for not understanding social cues, or had that used against you in the past, and you don't feel comfortable in mixed-sex interactions, that's fine, but that's a need of YOURS, not the women.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago

Ensure that there is more than one woman around in your company. Ensure your workplace policies are friendly and flexible for people who need mental health days, address family time, get pregnant, need sanitary equipment, parent children or other dependents, etc. Ensure all the women at your company have opportunities to work with and have women co workers, or women friendly gatherings like lunches, and be open to feedback to change policy accordingly once you have enough women coming together during their talks that they can suggest changes collectively. Being the sole woman in a company of men when means your superiors are men, your peers are men, and the only recourse you may have if any of them act inappropriately towards you is to report it to another man. Edit: respect boundaries and consistently remind that if they have a boundary they are free to enforce and you will respect that. Boundaries come in the form of more than “please don’t x”. They are also “I prefer x” or “can we y”.

zozbot234 5y ago
> consistently remind that if they have a boundary they are free to enforce and you will respect that. The clearest and most effective way of doing this is to proactively establish and propose safe boundaries for the other person's benefit. This is the underlying dynamic behind many rules-of-thumb of ordinary courtesy and politeness (often wrongly dismissed as some sort of useless, obsolete 'traditionalism'). Not everyone is so assertive and comfortable with themselves that they should be expected to verbalize their boundaries to you, or even to understand them proactively.