creepy coworker is following my wife, interviewers want to talk about my feelings after rejecting me, and more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Can my wife report her creepy coworker to HR?

My wife is in a concerning situation at work. A coworker who started out as a friend began crossing the line, making it clear he was looking for more. The comments he made were more “creepy” than outright harassment. When she politely turned him down, he continued to ask her to meet her outside of work. She ended up texting him saying she was uncomfortable with their interactions and wanted to confirm they were just friends, nothing more. He said she was acting crazy and of course they were just friends. He then followed it up the next day with another creepy invite to meet outside of work.

Last night, a couple days after telling him they were just friends, my wife had plans to go out to dinner with her friends and had mentioned in passing to him that she was going to a specific restaurant and asked if he had ever been there. He said he was not a fan, yet while she was sitting at the bar, he showed up and sat a few seats away. They did not interact and my wife left a few minutes after she saw him.

She now feels unsafe at her workplace and is at a loss on whether this is something she can approach HR about. It is obviously a public restaurant that anyone can go to, but it seems a bit to coincidental that he showed up there. She’s also a bit concerned that this can be turned back on her because she did not immediately shut down his creepy comments but would generally just ignore them at first. What is the right thing to do in this situation?

She should absolutely talk to HR. Of course anyone could just show up at a public restaurant, but her complaint isn’t “I was at a restaurant and he showed up.” It’s “he has repeatedly asked me out, despite my saying no, and I am concerned that he has now escalated to showing up to at least one place outside of work where he knew I would be, at the time he knew I would be there.” It’s the pattern that paints the troubling picture. She’s being harassed by a colleague, and her company has a legal obligation to put a stop to it. Any halfway decent HR will spot that immediately.

Please don’t let your wife worry that she’ll be seen as less credible or at fault for not immediately shutting down her coworker more firmly. Her response — to be polite, to try to soften the message to preserve the relationship, to hope he’d get the hint and stop on his own — is an incredibly common and understandable one, particularly at work where she had strong motivation to let him save face and preserve their working relationship (and particularly in a culture where rejected men not infrequently lash out … and his accusation that she was being “crazy” is just the softest version of what that can look like). Her attempt to tread lightly doesn’t make her responsible for his choices.

2. Interviewers want to talk about my feelings after rejecting me

I’ve been applying for jobs in a specialized field of human services. Of course, not every applicant is a good fit for every job and rejections are inevitable. But a weird and unexpected thing has happened to me twice recently — the hiring manager who calls to let me know I’ve not been successful in my application then wants to see if I’m okay? How am I feeling about this? Tries to reassure me the candidate pool was strong, etc. In one case I flubbed a question in the interview. The hiring manager asked if it would make me feel better if I knew that that was not the reason I didn’t get the job. Kind of? I don’t know.

If a manager takes the time to let me know by phone that I haven’t been successful — which is fairly common in our field, since the hiring experience can be extensive — all I want is to pick up on any feedback on things I can improve in future, then thank them for considering me and wish them the best. If I’m feeling sorry for myself over not getting the job, that’s something I’ll work out talking to a friend or in my journal, not talking to someone I met once and may want to consider me in future. Is there a way I can cut this short, without saying “yes, I’m fine, really” in a way that could be construed as brusque?

What?! This is weird. I have a feeling it stems from hearing that applicants hate impersonal rejections and then trying to counter that — but trying to probe into and manage your feelings about their decision is a step too far.

The best thing you can do is to be a cheerful wall — by which I mean you stay upbeat but refuse to entertain attempts to probe into your feelings. So (abbreviated to remove any discussion of substantive feedback):

Hiring manager: “I’m calling to let you know we went with another candidate.”
You: “I appreciate you calling to let me know.”
Manager: “I know that’s rough news to hear.”
You: “It’s never the answer anyone wants, but I understand the process was competitive!”
Manager: “Are you feeling okay about this?”
You: “I appreciate being considered, and it was great to get to know your team a bit. I’d love to stay in touch. Well, thank you again for letting me know, and good luck with the work you’re doing!”

Cheerful wall.

3. My boss got upset that I tried to keep her email after she retires

My boss will retire in two months. She has worked for this company for 24 years and, as far as I understand, her job is a big part of her emotional support system.

When they hired me, we discussed mailbox privacy policy. I expressed a doubt that I should check a mailbox of another employee when they are on their day off and was told, “Work mailboxes are not personal, you don’t need even ask.” I still ask though.

A couple of weeks ago, my boss and I were discussing that her mailbox and email address should stay in our department after her retirement. And, as far as I understood, she wanted me to contact our IT department to say that. It was her idea; we even discussed in which terms exactly I would ask for that.

I wrote the letter. Basically: my boss will retire on this date, please keep her email in use in our department because Reasons. I send it to my boss first, because I didn’t feel good doing it without her approval. She didn’t reply. So after a week, I sent it to IT with our boss copied. They opened a ticket to fulfill my request.

My boss called me, expressing extreme anger and being terribly hurt. I have never seen her like that. She said, “I’m still alive, I am not dead, I should handle that.” I apologized immediately and tried to speak with her, but she said that she would cry and no. She wrote to the IT department to stop the ticket processing.

We haven’t spoken about the situation since then. My boss is speaking with me very sparsely and only about job tasks. I would like to apologize for my mistake. I am very sorry that I did it and still don’t quite understand why my boss’s reaction is this extreme. What I can do? Why did this situation even happen?

Two possibilities: either you somehow misunderstood her initial direction, or she’s having an emotional response to retiring that has nothing to do with you. It doesn’t sound like the first is true (the conversation was clear and explicit, she asked you to contact IT, and then she had a week to review your message, during which time she said nothing) but even if it were a misunderstanding, her reaction would still be over-the-top. It’s much more likely that she’s having mixed feeling about retiring, doesn’t like feeling pushed out even though she’s leaving by her own choice, and maybe is having an visceral but irrational reaction to seeing clear plans made for The Time When She Will Be Gone.

Any apology you make would be about smoothing over the situation, not because you actually owe her one. But it would be fine to say, “I’m sorry I misunderstood our conversation. I thought you had directed me to send that email to IT. I would never do that on my own.” Frankly, that’s more responsibility than you need to take (it would be reasonable to just say, “Did I misunderstand our conversation? I thought you’d explicitly told me to send that email to IT”) but if you’re looking to smooth things over with someone who’s clearly struggling about her upcoming departure, it might help.

4. People are pressing me to attend the staff Christmas party (it’s August)

I currently work in a convenience shop that belongs to a big supermarket chain in the UK. We’re a close-knit team, and I genuinely enjoy working with the majority of my colleagues. I’m leaving at the end of this month so that I can pursue the career that I actually want to be in, and everyone has been genuinely supportive of me, except for one small detail: they all want me to still go to the staff Christmas party.

Yes, I know it is only August.

For the record, I have only attended one Christmas party, which was my first year working for the shop. I decided that it was not my scene, and volunteered to cover other staff shifts so they could attend the party the following years (we normally got outside cover). So even if I was staying, I likely wouldn’t attend anyway. However, while my colleagues are lovely people, they seem to struggle with taking my “no” as a full answer. They even joked about making it my unofficial leaving do, which I very quickly shut down.

There are other reasons I don’t want to attend as well. For one, it would just be awkward? Yes, these people are my friends outside of work but … it’s a quarter of the year away. Secondly, it is £60! That’s not a small sum to me, even if they have set up an unofficial pay-in-3 system (I should note it is other colleagues who chose the venue, not management). Third … it’s just a bad menu. Limited choices, and they can’t even promise the vegan option will be free from non-vegan contaminants.

I just don’t know how to stop them from asking me to go! Should I just leave it until I actually go? Any advice or a script you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

I’m assuming you don’t actually have to buy your ticket this month, right? So: “Sounds like fun! I don’t have any idea at this point what December will look like, but I’d love to attend if I can!”

Or: “I can’t even plan for September at this point, but I’d love to come back and see everyone.”

Is this is a lie when you know you don’t plan to go? Yes! But it’s the sort of white lie that gets used in these situations all the time, where people are pressing you and you don’t feel comfortable saying, essentially, “Nah, when I’m out, I’m out, and by the way, that sounds like a crap time.”

I wouldn’t advise this approach if the stakes were higher — like if they were asking if you’d be available to do a work project as a freelancer and might plan around your answer. But for the question of whether you’ll return to attend the Christmas party, it’s fine.

5. I want a job without much variety

I’m hoping to harness the power of the AAM commentariat with my question. I think it’s pretty common to have job listings that tout how “no two days are the same!” For some people I know, this is ideal! But not me. I don’t actually want a job that’s always different. I’ve thrived the most in jobs with a fairly scheduled process flow to them. I used to be a payroll specialist, and I loved the bi-weekly cycle of things. Sure, we had special projects and unusual situations pop up from time to time. But overall the flow of the job duties was pretty consistent. I knew what to expect on a general level, which I now understand is very important to me. I don’t function at my best when the unexpected is the rule.

I’m currently in an analyst job where I’m always working on several different projects at once. And at any moment, something completely out of left field can be added to my plate with urgency behind it. I haven’t had this role for long, but I do not think it’s right for me. I’d love to get more examples of jobs that are more consistent. I’m talking the type of jobs that people who love excitement avoid like the plague. Can I please get some input from the readers?

Let’s throw it out to readers for ideas.