!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
These sound like bread and butter small talk type work interactions.
Just gonna be blunt... meditating at work and adopting a yoga like position is going to attract attention and will invite co-workers to enquire after your well being.
If this guy is your biggest problem at work then you have a pretty great job.
That depends on the type of work OP does and when exactly are they adopting the yoga stance. People can do whatever they want during breaks.
But ultimately I agree with your last sentence.
Of course people can do what they want during their breaks.
What I'm getting at is, mediation or yoga in the break room is an unusual behavior and well meaning co-workers "just trying to be nice" will enquire after your well being.
If you don't want to interact with co-workers on your break, put your head phones on while you play with your phone.
I totally see your point, which is why I mentioned this really depends on context. I've worked in places where people actually did stretches or meditation during their breaks and nobody cared for it. But I can totally see how that wouldn't fly in other places.
Also, from experience - some people will still talk to you even if you have headphones and your attention on the phone.
I think there are diplomatic ways for you to express your preference. You could say: “I don’t mean to be rude, but I prefer to really stay focused at work and socializing can drain my battery or distract me for a while afterward. Is it all right with you if I keep to myself for the most part?”
He’s obviously taking your behavior as a sign that he’s done something wrong, and not just your preference for how you like to be at work. He’s probably trying to fix it or improve relations with you, and this is making it worse. The standoffish behavior you’re showing him is feeding his sense that there’s a problem he needs to address with you, so take a different tack.
People like him are dangerous.
For the love of God, do not directly say it to this person, speak to HR or your supervisor and tell them you are feeling harassed at work and can't do your job.
If you say anything to the man all he's going to conclude is that you are against him, and his paranoia will kick in, and he will make problems for you that you can't anticipate.
Wtf. Just talk to the person first, and THEN go to HR. Why escalate immediately?
It's in my original comment. Try reading instead of outbursting.
If you're a guy, I have found treating these interactions as mindfulness exercises is helpful. If you're a woman, he's in love with you, I'm sorry.
Dude, even if OP is a guy, he might still be in love with him.
Yes, and all the variations thereof. But you get the idea.
Bring or get some large ear covering headphones. Wear them all the time regardless of if you are listening to anything. Ignore attempts to distract. Practice and say, “sorry, focused right now” and go back to work.
If I may rephrase what I’m reading: You don’t want to tell him to leave you alone because you would be upset if someone told you that.
Here’s the thing: you don’t know that will upset him. TL;DR of the rest of my post: he probably won’t take it the way you would, and I highly recommend being straightforward with him.
I suggest reading about the difference in Ask Culture vs Guess Culture. Those of us who grew up in a guess culture manage our own actions based on what we think will be acceptable to those around us and won’t even initiate something if it would be deemed inappropriate, so it’s rare we have to be told “no”. Those in ask culture will just ask and be totally fine if told no, because they haven’t already done the pre-work to figure out if their request will be approved.
One of the best lessons I’ve had in the past few years is that other people don’t respond like me. I mean, that should be obvious. But it came up in the context of being a manager at work with an underperformer. I would be devastated if my boss told me I was not doing well at my job, and so I was terrified of telling my direct report that. I communicated the gaps in her specific actions for months, but we finally got to a point where I needed to have the conversation that I didn’t think the role was the right fit for her. It was one of the hardest days in my career. And she thanked me for it!
I was so scared because I was imagining how I’d feel hearing what I was going to say. But she’s not me! And instead of being upset, she felt relief to hear someone else say it.
You’re afraid of being rude, and that shows you have compassion and care for others. But I bet you that this coworker of yours just needs to be told, and not communicating with him is actually less kind.
A quote from a favorite book series of mine is a take on our “golden rule” through an alien culture: “The Iron Rule: Treat others less powerful than you however you like. The Silver Rule: Treat others as you’d like to be treated. The Golden Rule: Treat others as they’d like to be treated.”
Why do people seem to have such a hard time with being direct? Just tell him to leave you alone, if you hurt his feelings it's not your problem.
He'll probably be mad, he might try to kill her. The odds of violence after social disagreements are slightly worse for women so most try to avoid being the 1 in 1 million today.
Buy a Subaru and a nice pair of Doc Martens.
No one seems to be mentioning what I suspect might be the problem here
He’s a man and you’re a woman, is this the case ? and he will NOT leave you alone. I don’t blame you for not mentioning that part, given all the bullshit that straight guys do.
If that’s the case: this is an issue for HR and when they don’t believe you, it’s an issue for a lawyer (because then they might believe you)
"Please, leave me alone."
Nicely, no more than 2 episodes.
If additional episodes occur:
"Please, leave me alone or I'll complain to HR."
"Not now, I am busy"
"Great! I need to work now, see you around!'
You don't need to be boring - I am telling you, working woman to working woman, that is an ineffective strategy with determined guys. You need to convince him you do not have time for him in your full and interesting life.
If you're trying to salvage a work relationship and 'say the right things' I get it, but sometimes being blunt and abrupt is exactly what's needed. Something short but courteous like 'its always great catching up but I need to get to work' or even more direct like 'im sorry but I don't have time to be doing this in the mornings and these conversations are putting me behind on my work.' or if this isn't a situation where you're trying to preserve a work relationship go the abrasive route and state that you've tried to be kind but if he doesn't stop talking to you you'll be forced to go to HR. You have protections for exactly this situation if you do report to HR.
What did he say when you directly told him to leave you alone and give you more space?
Nobody here noticed the tinny little fact that you seem to be a woman. One that works out and attracts attention (i.e. your story about a dude eyeing you in the park). The coworker might simply find you attractive.
Or he's under the belief all women live to serve men cute little fascinations in their mundane lives. That they exist to smile, sound angelic, giggle, and put a hand on their arms in normal conversation. Based on an attraction thing, but not necessarily targeted at OP.
How about direct communication? Saying you don't like talking about non work related stuff at work is not rude. Saying you are not interested in a conversation right now is also not rude.
Rude would be to disregard your request and tbh I find the methods you tried quite rude.
Short phrases like "I can't talk, I'm working" and "I don't really want to talk thanks."
Then ignore them until they leave.
Everyone’s different, you sound like you may loathe this person, but regardless work is not recreation. If needless social interactions are impacting your ability to work, consider talking to your supervisor. Speaking directly to your coworker may offend, exacerbating the issue for you. Give your supervisor an opportunity to resolve it, who should have more experience and/or training in dealing with conflict.
I'm torn because I want to tell him to leave me alone, that I don't care about his life, but considering the 'offense' this seems too much and knowing me I'd immediately regret it and feel bad about it.
So instead you'll like youre ruder than you are, hoping he will eventually get it.
You don't think weeks of having to do this is making you feel worse than perhaps one night of feeling a bit sorry after telling him straight on?
And I know he will appreciate it eventually if the direct reaction isn't such. You will finally make sense to him. If you're being rude, ignoring him, why don't you understand that might make him want to bring you to a normal level of social contact. That he feels he's done something wrong by just being a chatty person.
Maybe just tell him you're sorry but you're not as chatty as him and would like to focus.
And yes, I have also done that to a worker. Told her I'm there to work, not to make friends. Kinda cold? I don't think so. Colleagues, not friends. Co-employees can be friends but don't need to.
Seems like you tried all the regular tricks in the book. Try telling your manager or HR and see if they can do something about it. You want to work and the company does alse but this guy clearly doesn't.
The easy way: one word answers to everything. This can include just saying yup or nope to every response. I am the kind of person to lean in on obnoxious responses while very much not paying attention.
The hard way: get HR involved. Inappropriate attempts to get close to you count.
Example of solution 1: https://youtube.com/shorts/KdmMiZqskzc
I dont have an answer for you sorry, but i might be able to point you somewhere you might find inspiration to find your own answer
If there is a lemmy equivalent of the subreddits maliciouscompliance, pettyrevenge, prorevenge, or nuclearrevenge or you are willing to go look at the originals, theres a lot of stories that are entertaining and will be a mine of ideas
Just tell Brendan to shut up.