This morning's commute (the 'ugh' edition)

+1 to what Bothwell said too.

Given that this happened during work, your employer should have procedures in place for dealing with sexual harassment. That sort of behaviour is totally unacceptable in the workplace (doesn't matter that is happened at a dinner, it was still work). More difficult given this is a client, but you shouldn't have to keep quiet and suffer.

Make it official, document everything up to this point, and document everything from now on.

Call me cynical, but I would not be surprised by your employer making this about you, and not about the creepy client.

The person who had put me in that position was the unreasonable one,
not me.

This is the most difficult thing to put in my own head.
I think I was going to not mention anything to anyone and just sit in that workshop with a knotted stomach all day. The idea of gathering the courage to talk about it and to maybe face someone minimizing / ignoring it made me feel so sick.
I was thinking I'd prefer to pretend nothing happened that to find out my colleagues didn't believe it was wrong.

But all your reactions made me feel much less out of place.
So I brought it up to one of my colleague who is going to sit in the workshop today but wasn't there yesterday. His reaction and those here comforted me in the idea that I was not making a big deal of something small and random and was right to feel sick and should do something about it.

I then brought it up to my superior, who was really sorry to have not noticed it when it was happening and genuinely upset. They didn't diminish what happened in any ways, they were concerned and sad that we have to work with people who'd act like that.
They said they'll pay extra attention in the future, and that I should bring it up immediately if it was to happen again, with that client or with anyone else. And if talking wasn't possible for any reason, I should text.

As for today, a few colleagues are now informed and we are going to lead the workshop in a slightly different way to make sure we can all do our jobs the best we can and with peaceful minds.

I'm glad I voiced this here, I'm grateful for the courage you all gave me, and I'm happy to know I work with people who do take harassement seriously.

Result!

Glad you got a positive and supportive response. In my experience most people you'll encounter in the workplace are sensible and surprisingly sympathetic under these sort of circumstances - but you don't necessarily discover this until you have to go somewhere uncomfortable in raising a genuine concern or grievance.

On info. available the client's behaviour was completely and utterly unacceptable. Sexual harassment, bullying & inappropriate and uninvited physical contact are a scourge in the workplace. Do not tolerate or suffer in silence.

I'm a ruffty bloke but have been on the receiving end a couple of times and it's not pleasant to have to deal with. I go to work to work, not have my arse touched when I'm sorting out a network printer.

Good result! Glad you had the courage to speak up and that your colleagues are doing all the right things too. :)

Yey! I'm so glad it worked out like that, well done for speaking up, it is a very awkward situation but not because of anything you had done which makes it worse. Good on your colleagues for being decent humans too.

Hope the workshop has been going well, Ecunard, and you've managed to recover somewhat from this distressing experience.

Workshop over and pretty productive.
Altho this man didn't bring anything constructive to the table.

When I popped back in the room to say goodbye to all the client team,
he took a photo of me, with his iphone all sounds on
WTF man ?!
I said "what are you doing?!"
He pointed at my shoes (I'm wearing silver brogues, they are GREAT).
I stared at him not knowing what to say then walked off.

Really I wanted to break his chair on his head.
Or to have said something along the lines of "yes those shoes are great. I'd happily tell you where to get some for yourself and I would appreciate if you didn't take photos of me without asking."
But once again I was just petrified. fuck this fucking shit.

It may be worth writing down all the things that happened and passing them to your manager, for the record. I don't really know what other steps can be taken (difficult with a client relationship, I suppose--no idea if a high-level dialogue can be held), but it's always best to have a contemporaneous record.

I'm glad your colleague & superior were so smart about this. The guy is a real creep.

Do you think it would be possible for your supervisor to complain about his actions to the creep's superior (if there is one)? I bet with a cheek like that it wouldn't be the first time he'd done something like that. And even if not, if I had people working for me I'd definitely want to hear if they behaved like that when they represent my company (or anywhere else, really).

https://www.facebook.com/CoolerMagazine/videos/931051286968902/

/generic 'exasperated about sexism' post

http://profeminist.tumblr.com/post/132765670807/feminismfuckyeah-preach-tw-for-sexual

tfw you have to remind people that feminism is the pursuit of equality

more kisses blown at me on my commute from van windows last week btw. i hope other ladies' rides have been interrupted less frequently by gross bros

Came on here to have a little rant about some gross man blatanly taking photos of me while I unlocked my bike.. this is what i get for wearing a cardigan?!

@Ecunard good on you for reporting it to you colleagues and that they helped as much as possible. Esp since you said most colleagues in you role are male

Nic's had a couple of rough commutes recently with men being aggressive and rude towards her. One bloke was so upset that he couldn't keep up that he decided to half wheel Nic for a while and box her in. When she called him out he got rude and defensive.. then started flirting.. what the actual fuck!

ha! only two default modes of interacting with women?!

"I will shout at her until she notices me and then she will want me!"

"I will shout at her until she notices me and then she will want me!"

also, totally had that before - men reacting to me (a woman) going faster than them in a different way to if it had been a man. impossible to prove and i be a lot of them would deny it.

@kati seemed to be getting those more regularly now (as in getting fitter/faster everyday)

relevant (thanks @hanrob_):

and when you chat back and get called a bitch:

This isn't very commute related but resonated a lot to me today, following up the client story and every questions about my work that came from it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZx7rYoq1Uw

I'm at this mtb interview with a 3 time world champ and they opened up questions from the floor and some of them were so fucking sexist, like how many women did you pull from being a world champ.

I made no friends by asking what the Sponser could do to promote women's downhill mtbing, but I couldn't let that crap go unchallenged.

Respect for asking, I really couldn't believe how poor the questions were tonight.

I found Greg's answer to be interesting, saying enduro drew more female competitors than pure DH.

Can't wait to see you out on the trails.