Toxic behavior takes many forms—from harassment and belittling to…fart noises?!? Listen in for all the YIKES.
Boundary-trampling coworkers. Absentee HR reps. And a whole lot of weird boss behaviors. This week, Sara and Jen help listeners make sense of toxic, abusive, and otherwise harmful situations—so they can process their feelings, get the support they need, and take meaningful action.
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Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:00 Even if you don't know the word boundaries, even if you've never articulated what your boundaries are, you do have them.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:04 Hey, Jen, how are you?
Jen Dionisio 0:24 Hey, Sara, the show notes say to start by acting naturally. So, how are you doing today?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:31 How do you think that's going, Jen?
Jen Dionisio 0:33 I feel a little practiced.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:37 Oh, my gosh. That's okay. I think we're doing great.
Jen Dionisio 0:42 Yeah, we're getting the swing of this.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:45 Are you ready to record a podcast?
Jen Dionisio 0:47 I sure am. So hey, everyone, this is Per My Last Email, the show about what to do when work gets weird. I'm Jen Dionisio.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 0:57 And I am Sara Wachter-Boettcher. And I cannot wait to dig in today. Jen, what is on our agenda?
Jen Dionisio 1:04 So I'm gonna warn you. Today's dilemmas are a little bit heavy. But also, I think really important, because we're going to talk about bad behavior at work and how to deal with it. Are you ready?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 1:20 I am.
Jen Dionisio 1:21 I do want to share with everyone listening: today's questions are going to touch on a few things like sexual harassment and sexist behavior at work. There's nothing graphic, but you know, I do want people to know, if you're not in the right place to hear that, it might be time to wait for the next episode.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 1:42 Yeah, you know, I was bummed to hear how common these stories are. But I'm also glad we're talking about it, because I think a lot of people feel so alone. And nobody should feel alone if you've been through an experience with things like sexual harassment or other kinds of abusive behavior. So let's yeah, let's get into it.
Jen Dionisio 2:07 All right. Well, our first story is from a designer that I'm going to call FJ. And here's their dilemma:
FJ 2:17 I was in a brainstorming meeting being led by a teammate who was visibly nervous. We were all quietly brainstorming in our assigned areas on our FigJam board, when our manager came into the Zoom call, and played a fart noise on his noise machine. My teammate leading the meeting tried to laugh it off, but then our manager went on to derail the meeting even further as we each presented our boards. He began to quietly snicker and move our answers around and add pictures of our heads morphed onto animal bodies on the FigJam board. While we were sharing.
He calls us after hours, he assigns us tasks on Fridays that he expects by Monday, he yells at and belittles specific teammates in group calls. He once wrote a "that's not what your mom said last night" sex joke into a document I was editing. He spends money that other teams definitely don't have access to. He moves the target on every project, and he's worshipped by the rest of the org because he's so charming and hilarious. He's related to the CEO, which makes everyone scared to speak up. I've had a couple of frank but careful conversations with him about some of this behavior, specifically that fart noise meeting, because my teammates are tired and intimidated.
He always thanks me for being so radically candid, but nothing ever changes. I even anonymously reported him to then watch him get promoted to VP. How do I deal with this nightmare?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 3:53 Nightmare indeed. Is FJ for FigJam?
Jen Dionisio 3:56 It's definitely not FJ for Fart Joke.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 4:01 Boy, there's a lot packed into this. And it started out with something maybe that could be a little bit lighter, right? Like, playing a fart noise, I could see a scenario where that might be funny. And then as each new layer was revealed, I was like, "Oh, yikes, Yikes. Yikes." Gosh, I read this, and I think FJ has done so much already here. Like, I hope that they are really proud of themselves for finding ways to advocate for themself and advocate for their team's safety, even though this person has so much power in the organization. And FJ has gotten like very little indication that anyone's going to do anything.
Jen Dionisio 4:40 Yeah. And it shows so much how these little seemingly, maybe innocuous boundary crossings like the fart noise maker can really quickly start to escalate into much more intense boundary violations like what FJ is describing here.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 5:00 Right. Like all this stuff about being, you know, expected to do something over the weekend, belittling comments, sex jokes, stuff that's just really patently is gonna make people uncomfortable and feel unsafe. And you know, I think I really want to start with a basic fact here: FJ, this is not yours. His behavior is his, and you have done as much as you can do to try to get that behavior to stop. He will change his behavior when he decides to change his behavior. If he does not want to change his behavior, or if he refuses to see that this behavior is not acceptable, then he's not going to change it. And you just don't control that.
I also think it's really important here to mention the company, because what I'm hearing is that the company has accepted his behavior. And that's on them. Their lack of action, it speaks volumes about what their values are, regardless of what they say their values are. They're telling you by their decision to continually promote this person, give this person resources as opposed to make it clear that this person's behavior isn't okay.
Jen Dionisio 5:24 Yeah. And they should be looking out for you and your teammates when this kind of situation is coming up again and again and again.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 6:19 Yeah. So that said, we could spend all day drumming up more ways that FJ could speak up, new ways they could describe the behavior, like, new arguments to make more, and more, and more. And I want to be very clear: I don't want to do that here. Because I think the last thing FJ needs is the message that what they need to do is more. They've done a lot.
Jen Dionisio 6:39 Agreed. So Sara, what would you tell FJ to do if you were coaching them through this scenario?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 6:46 I think the first thing here is to just acknowledge that it sounds like this has caused a lot of pain, and to really look at those feelings that it's brought up. What I find is that in a lot of scenarios, people feel ashamed or blame themselves. They'll blame themselves that they couldn't make the behavior stop, right? Like, "Why couldn't I just explained it in a way that HR understood? Why couldn't I just get them to listen to me? There must be something wrong with me and the way that I'm doing this." And then the other thing I see people do is start to blame themselves for being too sensitive. "Maybe this shouldn't bother me so much. Well, they're being funny and charming. This is how other people think they are. So maybe I'm just the problem here."
Jen Dionisio 7:29 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 7:29 And the reason I think that's really important to look at, if that's coming up at all for you FJ is that self-blame is a way that our brains look for control. Your brain is actually trying to protect you when it blames you. Because see, if your brain can make it your fault, then it can tell you that there's a way to solve it, where if you just try harder, if you just do more, if you just try another time to make it change, then you can fix it. And if you instead have to accept that what's happening is not in your control, that their behavior is theirs, that can feel a little bit powerless.
But my belief is that once we accept the reality of the situation, that's where we can find out where we actually hold power. Because once we stop telling ourselves, "Well, I should say this in a better way, or I should just like, not feel upset about it." Once we let go of that stuff, then we can start to say, "Okay, I can't fix him or the situation, and I'm not in control of my company's values or choices here. What are the things that I can control? And what are the things that I can change for myself? Because I know this is not okay behavior for me.
Jen Dionisio 8:39 Yeah, and God that feels like so much of a hopeful path forward when you're in that position where you just feel like you're subject to the whims and behaviors of other people that you can't fix or change. So yeah, Sara, where can FJ start to distinguish what is in their power?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 9:00 So if you let go of the idea of trying to get this person to change, because again, FJ has done a number of things where if this person wanted to change, they would have changed. So if they let go of that, then I think we can start looking at other things that might be possible. And I'll admit, none of them are ideal, because in an ideal situation, when you speak up and say that something is hurting you and violating your boundaries, the other person stops, or never does it in the first place.
Jen Dionisio 9:25 Wouldn't that be nice?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 9:26 Right. So none of the things that we're going to talk about are going to be perfect solutions here. But I think there's a few things you might want to start brainstorming around. For example, is it an option to move teams? In some companies that is a relatively frequent thing that happens. In some companies that's pretty hard. It depends on the roles. It depends on, like, are there other managers available? But is it possible that you might be able to move teams and get further away from this person? And if you could, like, would that be enough? Would that help you have enough sense of safety and security? Another thing that could be helpful here is, Jen, have you heard about the concept of gray rocking?
Jen Dionisio 10:03 No, that's new for me.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 10:05 So gray rocking is this idea of like, when you are dealing with somebody abusive who is not interested in treating you respectfully, but you can't get away from them, it's essentially, like, becoming a gray rock, becoming the most boring and uninteresting thing in the room. So disengaging from them and giving them as little as possible to work with.
Jen Dionisio 10:25 Fascinating.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 10:26 I mean, look, again, that is very far from a perfect solution.
Jen Dionisio 10:30 Yeah,.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 10:31 That is one thing this person might be able to do is like, "How might I give them as little of me as possible, so they have the least material as possible? Again, I think that that could also have some real costs, I mean, you're still in the situation at that point. And that may well not be enough. I often think that that strategy is a very temporary way to cope with something that is long term going to harm you. So keep that in mind. In general, anything you do that's about avoiding them, gaining more distance from them, sounds like it would be positive.
But I'd also just remember that those may be temporary. And they also might take a lot of energy, I think being in this place of self-protection is pretty heavy. I don't think that we are designed to live in that self-protective zone indefinitely. It kind of puts us in that perpetual stress state. And that chronic stress over time has a really high cost on your mental, physical, emotional health, on other relationships. It can really drag you down. So something I would also encourage you to think about is, "What would it look like if I left?"
Jen Dionisio 11:44 Yeah, especially when now that self-management feels like it's taking up all of the energy you have at work.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 11:52 Right. It's like, "I'm spending all of my time at work thinking about how to protect myself. And then I'm also supposed to do my job? And I'm also supposed to, I don't know, like, get excited about my work or like, 'grow in my role.'"
Jen Dionisio 11:53 "Be a thought leader?"
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 12:06 Right. I mean, like, we often, you know, talk about, like, "Why don't people from marginalized and historically underrepresented groups and tech do X or Y to be more visible?" And it's like, they may not experience the same results when they do that as other people, but also, because they're oftentimes dealing with this crap. It's like,
Jen Dionisio 12:24 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 12:24 Because they're already exhausted, because their job is already harder, because they're already doing twice as much work just trying to, like, live and not be targeted. So I think it's important to think about here, it's like, what is the energy that you can give this? And the reason I'm really encouraging FJ to think about what it would look like to leave, is that oftentimes, we will mentally default to staying because it's the known entity: "I can't leave." And it shuts down our brain at that point. And I also know that there's a lot happening in the job market right now. Like, there's lots of layoffs in tech and design roles. So it can be a pretty scary time to think about leaving a job voluntarily. However, I really think that it is important to put leaving on the table, for almost anybody.
Not because there's not risks and tradeoffs to leaving. And there are right, yeah, it might be a financially tough choice to make or like, you might spend a few months unemployed and have to think about how you can afford that, or all these other things. But I think that as soon as you can say, "Okay, I can leave. If I leave, what are the tradeoffs? What are the risks? What do I lose out on?" Then you can start evaluating your options more fully, and start seeing "Oh, maybe leaving is the best option, even if it has some fear associated with it, or some risk associated with it." Because the other side of it is like, what is it costing your psyche and your wellbeing to continue living in this cycle of being harmed, trying to speak up about the harm, and having people not take it seriously, and actually go to the person who's harming you and give them more power? I just think long-term wise, I don't see that as being a very healthy or safe place to live.
Jen Dionisio 14:04 Yeah. And it feels like too, especially when people aren't taking your input seriously, that unfortunately, sometimes it does take a big move, like somebody's leaving, or multiple people leaving because they don't want to deal with this anymore for companies to actually wake up and take some action or not.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 14:27 Right. And that's the thing. You don't really know what the company might do over time. Sometimes a company will have multiple people leave, and then they'll go, "Oh, wow, I realize that this toxic person is the reason they're all leaving," and then they'll do something and you know, good for them. But also like, that's not your job. It is not your job to be responsible for this company dealing with its HR issues. That is the company's job, and it is currently choosing not to do it. And so I would say to FJ, I think the real thing I would hold on to here is like you have already done so much. It is not your fault that this is happening. It is not your fault that it continues to happen. And it is not your job to fix it.
Jen Dionisio 15:08 Yeah, FJ, we're thinking of you, and we are sending you strength through this time. And we're really sorry that you're having to deal with somebody else's poor decision making and poor behavior, because it's not you.
Jen Dionisio 15:29 So, Sara, unfortunately, our next question touches on some similar themes. Are you ready for this one?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 15:35 Is it another fart machine?
Jen Dionisio 15:37 There's no fart machine, but definitely still some questionable behavior. So here it goes.
BI 15:44 I work with mostly married men and was very recently sexually harassed by one of them. During my performance review, which my boss held out in the open, my boss told me that my work was great, but all of my peer reviews said that my coworkers want to know more about my personal life. Understandably, I'm avoiding them and protecting myself for a reason. She's new and based on this, I don't trust her enough to share details about the sexual harassment. I had shared with my previous boss, who's now her boss. She told me I should have made a presentation about my recent vacation to share with everyone that I should ask my mostly married male harassing coworkers to lunch. She tried to give me ideas to overcome my shyness.
Again, literally no actual constructive feedback on my work, other than "it's great." I now avoid said boss at all costs, because I feel she crossed a lot of boundaries and honestly, kind of harassed me too. She recently was promoted, and I have no idea why because no one likes working with her. In fact, my peers have actually asked me for my help in figuring out how to get along with her and work with her. How am I supposed to deal with this?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 17:03 Yikes. Like this gets an immediate yikes from me. No, this person does not owe their vacation photos to their team. You don't owe that to your team.
Jen Dionisio 17:12 I've been really surprised at where people have let lines get really blurry between what's connection on remote teams versus "we all deserve to have parts of our private lives that are actually private."
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 17:25 Yes. I mean, like, don't get me wrong: if the person wanted to share their vacation photos with their team, like that'd be totally fine.
Jen Dionisio 17:32 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 17:32 Unless they made them sit down for like a three-hour slideshow of their vacation photos. Which like, don't do that.
Jen Dionisio 17:37 Or if it was a vacation to a nudist beach...
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 17:40 Right, exactly. Yeah, there's some boundaries. There's some boundaries, but like, no, you do not owe this to people. And in fact, like, what a misguided way to try to foster connection. You know what fosters connection is people sharing things out of a desire to connect. You know what doesn't? People sharing things because they're forced to.
Jen Dionisio 18:03 Forced fun is never actually team building.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 18:07 Right? Well, and particularly like forced disclosure of personal information, and not "Share a fun fact," which I can at least choose a fun fact about me. And then I will spend 10 minutes racking my brain thinking like, "what's fun, what's fun, what's fun, I'm not fun." But that's me.
Jen Dionisio 18:24 I've had that a lot, too.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 18:26 But at least, at least in that scenario, I get to choose what the fact is. And in this scenario, it's like you're telling me, my job is to show you my personal vacation photos. You know, what really strikes me here too, is that this boss just does not seem curious about this person at all. They don't seem particularly interested in learning about this person's wants and needs and experiences. And I will say I do wish that the bosses were the ones writing us asking, "How could I have handled this better?"
Jen Dionisio 18:58 "Or how can I make this person feel more comfortable in the future?"
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 19:03 Yeah.
Jen Dionisio 19:04 But alas, so going back to let's call this person bonafide introvert, or BI. So how is BI supposed to deal with this?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 19:16 Yeah, okay. I think my drum beat today is going to be: this is not your job.
Jen Dionisio 19:21 Trademark.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 19:21 If BI's boss's boss, so aka grand-boss, I like to call them grand-boss, boss, etc. Yeah. So if the grand-boss thinks that their boss needs to get better at equity and inclusion, then it is the grand-boss's job to go deliver that feedback to BI's boss and hold them accountable. That is not BI’s job.
Jen Dionisio 19:45 Oh, interesting. The manager should manage to the person that reports to them, eh?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 19:51 Uh huh. Correct. I know, really sharing some controversial opinions today.
Jen Dionisio 19:59 Spicy.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 19:59 Right but I think that this is a common thing where you'll go talk to somebody who is in a powerful role who actually has power over the person who has a problem. And you'll say, "I'm having this issue." And they'll say, "Oh, yeah, that person needs to get better at that thing. Or they should do something about that." But okay, then go make them do something about that. And don't get me wrong. Like, I do think that there are plenty of conflicts, disagreements, situations where it is healthy to like, talk it through directly.
Not everything is like, I have to go talk to the boss and the boss goes and talks to you, it is very healthy to try to solve things yourself, when that is possible, and when that feels safe. But in this scenario, I think it's clear that BI does not feel particularly safe with this person. So I really think it's important to say that BI's boss's boss should be getting more involved here. And just know BI that this again, this is not your job, to hold them accountable to be better at diversity and inclusion, if they are not doing that part of their job that's on them and their manager.
Jen Dionisio 21:01 Yeah. And Sara, I feel like this is making the B word come into my head, which is, are there boundaries that BI might be able to introduce—
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 21:13 I had another B word also in mind, but let's do boundaries. I think that's a better one. That's more useful one, more productive. Okay. Yeah, yeah, boundaries. So I think that if I were working with BI, I would definitely talk to them about boundaries, to try to work out a little bit more about what their boundaries with their team and their new boss are. When I talk about boundaries, I think of them as the limits that protect your wellbeing and your self-integrity, so that you can thrive. It's basically the limits you need to have in order to keep yourself well and healthy. And I think boundaries are really important. Even though they're hard and often trampled on in workplaces, it is really important to know your own boundaries, because you have boundaries, whether you know how to articulate them or not. Whether you've even been able to identify them to yourself. Meaning there's a limit for behavior that works for you. And when behavior crosses the line, it hurts you.
So even if you don't know the word boundaries, even if you've never articulated what your boundaries are, you do have them. And the more clarity you have about what they are specifically, the easier it is to identify when they're being crossed. And then also to get specific about what that hurt is, "Oh, that's why that felt bad," as opposed to just a generalized bad feeling. So I would really say is, BI, you know, can we get crystal clear here on what are the kinds of communication that make you feel safe versus unsafe? What specifically about your boss's review didn't work for you? There were a few things I did hear, like they gave it out in the open instead of in private. That seems like a big one.
Jen Dionisio 22:55 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 22:56 Which also, that seems like one on one or not even one on one. It's like, remedial, right? Like if you're gonna give somebody performance feedback and do it privately.
Jen Dionisio 23:04 I've never heard of this group performance review process.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 23:08 Right? Or like, let's just have it right in the busiest table at the campus cafe everyone, you know what I mean? Like, what are we doing? I think that even if the review were all good, right? Like, even if you were like excelling, excelling, excelling, I still think if I am receiving feedback about my performance, I deserve to receive that in private, particularly formal feedback that is going into my permanent record. You know, that seems like a baseline. I would hope everybody knows that. But I think what we're seeing in the questions we get on this show is there's some foundational things that are missing in some workplaces. So that was one of the things I heard. One of the other things that I heard in BI's question was that their boss made a bunch of assumptions about them and assumed that the problem was shyness. So what I'm hearing in there is that it felt bad and was violating to be assigned this label, and not asked about what was getting in their way.
Jen Dionisio 24:11 Yeah, I feel like I'd be pretty shy too if I was in a situation that made me unsafe, like you were saying gray rock to try to play as small as possible.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 24:22 Well, exactly. I think just labeling this person as “shy,” which means it's a you problem. You're shy, and that's the problem. So for anybody who's a manager listening, I think anytime you label your person as, "Oh, they're a shy person," or they're an aggressive person, or they are cynical, they're just whatever, right? Anytime you start doing that, the thing that that does is it cuts off your own curiosity, because you've labeled them and categorized them.
And so now, you are not going to ask yourself a lot of other questions about what are the things that might be influencing their behavior? Where is this coming from? When does this person display this trait? And when does this person not display this trait? So we start really oversimplifying people. And I think what that does is it really cuts us off from better understanding who they are, what they need, and also understanding their experience, and how their experience might be impacting the way they're showing up.
Jen Dionisio 25:15 And I imagined too that puts people in a position where they start to believe the labels that other people are assigning.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 25:21 Oh my gosh, I see this often actually, you know, one of the things that often comes up with coaching clients, right is like, people have been told over the years that they aren't confident, or that they need to speak up more, but they find it hard to speak up more, and they'll start saying things back that are like, "You know, I'm just not good at having ideas in the moment." And I think some people are, some people are not the ones who are gonna jump up and be like, "Oh, I have this idea," and then be able to come up with a fully formed thought that sounds clear and compelling in the moment.
And that's totally fine, you do not have to be good at that. But at the same time, what I find is that oftentimes, people have internalized this often very sexist or racist feedback that they've received, and then turn that into a belief about themselves. And it cuts them off from even knowing what they're good at, or knowing who they are. You know, like they can become alienated from their own power and their own voice. And then that makes it really hard. Like, “I don't even know what I would say.” And it's like, yeah, because you've been trained to believe you don't have good ideas. And now those good ideas, you need to do some work to unearth that part of you.
Jen Dionisio 26:32 Yeah.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 26:33 Okay, so we talked a little bit about the ways that BI might be able to figure out what some of their boundaries are, I think one of the ones we didn't talk about that is important here is what are the boundaries that you need from the people who have harassed you, in order for you to feel safe? If BI has experienced harassment, then they may need some pretty rigid boundaries with those people—meaning like, keep them away from me. And I want to acknowledge that that might be difficult in your workplace without making more drastic changes. But it sounds like those are the boundaries that you might need based off of what you're saying here, BI.
So I'd say, really think about what would make you feel safe, in terms of being around or not being around specific people. So once you figure out what your boundaries really are, what communication works for you, what kinds of behavior makes you feel okay, that kind of thing, then start looking at, "Okay, what are some ways that I can protect those boundaries in this workplace?" And to do that, I would also think about, who can help me protect those boundaries in this workplace? I think somebody who might be really crucial here is BI's grand-boss.
Jen Dionisio 27:47 Yes.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 27:48 Yeah. Like they know this person. They know that the boss needs to work on being more inclusive. They even know about BI's past harassment. So in my opinion, they should already be doing something here, I think they should have already done more. But I would say, knowing these things, and knowing that BI has a good relationship with them, I would say that they might be a good person to talk to more specifically or explicitly about your needs and boundaries and to say, and what is it that you want to request of them? So again, it would be nice if they recognized that this was a spot where they ought to step in, because of their position of power, and because of the severity of the situation.
But if they don't recognize that, I would talk with BI about okay, if you were going to talk with them, what would you want to request that they do? If you got to decide how your grand-boss showed up to the situation? What would you have them do? And that might be you know, do you want them to sit down with your boss? Do you want them to ask about, you know, moving you to a different team? Is there a different role for you? What are the things that would help you here? And what are the ways that that grande boss can show up for you if they are in fact somebody that is trustworthy?
Jen Dionisio 29:06 And that has your back.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 29:07 If they have your back then, all right, have your back.
Jen Dionisio 29:12 Yeah, do it. Especially when you're not feeling safe around your own boss, you need other people to be a bit of a wall for you.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 29:23 And speaking of that, I think that's an important thing to unpack a little bit too. So BI does not currently feel safe around their boss. So I would really encourage them to think about what would you need to see in order for you to build trust with them in the future? What are the specific behaviors that build trust for you? What are the behaviors that erode trust for you? And is it still possible for you to rebuild trust with them? Is that still on the table? Sometimes when people really violate our trust, it is not on the table but it sounds like with BI they don't have a ton of experience with this person.
So if they saw some shifts in how their boss was showing up, they might still be open to to building that safe relationship. So when you start thinking about those behaviors that help you feel trust and help you feel safe, you might want to think about things like asking questions versus making assumptions, having conversations about what are our communication norms? How do we align on those, providing constructive feedback? And then also, like, holding the sexist team members accountable, right?
Jen Dionisio 30:31 That would build some trust for me as an employee.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 30:33 Right. And it would also tell me, "Oh, my boss cares about my safety." And I think right now, BI is not getting the message that anybody is really going to show up to make sure that they're safe. Yeah. And so if BI can work up some courage and take the risk, I would say, to have a conversation where they're explicitly requesting those trustworthy behaviors from their current boss, that would give them an opportunity to see how the boss reacts. And it would give the boss an opportunity to show up to their role, and to really be the kind of boss that BI needs. I said risk there, because I don't think that's risk free. I think if you make specific requests of your boss, if you tell your boss that the way that they are managing you isn't working for you, they may have opinions about that. They may be frustrated by what you're saying, they may disagree, they may get defensive, etc. You don't really know.
But I think what you can know from that is BI would be able to walk away from that situation, knowing they communicated their needs directly, honestly. They gave the boss an opportunity to meet them. The boss may or may not change, but BI would know that they did what they could do. And I think that that is meaningful for also putting this to rest sometimes and not getting into that place where it's like, "Well, maybe if...if I did this, I did this, if I did this," right? If I only asked a better way, if I only..." that spiral you can spend 700 years in. It kind of takes you out of that. And it says "I did my part, I did what was possible from my side of the fence, what they chose to do was their decision."
Jen Dionisio 32:11 Yeah, you know, I can relate to BI, as a fellow introvert who has also been named as being a little shyer or quieter. And in these moments, I feel like there can be a lot of self-pressure, like "I should really be standing up, I should be taking all of these people down." And you know, I just want to reassure BI that drawing your boundaries, knowing them, being aware of them doing your part in that way. That's enough.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 32:43 Yeah. And I think if BI feels like they've exhausted their options with communicating their boundaries, then once again, I think that this is a situation of like accepting reality and saying, okay, the reality is that BI's team is populated by sexual harassers. BI's boss is not helping. And while BI's grand-boss might mean, well, they're not taking responsibility either. And none of that is fair. None of that is okay. But if that's where BI is left, I think it does create clarity, they can start thinking about "what do I need to do to get out? What do I need to do to protect myself while I'm here?" Potentially, if they want to, "What do I need to do to escalate this outside of that chain of command?"
And I think it can create space to stop worrying about how do I fix this, and instead give themselves permission to say, my job is not to fix this, my job is to survive this and then figure out how I can leave or stop having to tolerate this. But my job is not to like, fix this.
Jen Dionisio 33:46 Yeah, your behavior is not the problem here. It's the behavior of your team BI. And we really hope that you know, that the cause of these really tricky and terrible feelings that you're having is not your shyness. It's not your introversion. It's the people around you and what little self awareness they seem to have about their behavior.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 34:13 Also, whatever fun, exciting, interesting things BI has to talk about. Doesn't sound like this team has earned hearing them. So you are fully justified to keep whatever you want to keep to yourself until and if you feel safe and excited to share it.
Jen Dionisio 34:31 Or share it with your new team when you land somewhere that truly deserves you. All right, Sara, are you ready for our last question?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 34:45 I am. These are heavy, but I am.
Jen Dionisio 34:47 So this one, unfortunately, is also about some sexist and inappropriate behavior, but with a bit of a twist.
MM 34:58 I have a direct report that is used vulgar language towards me and has repeatedly been offensive towards women on the team. When he said something offensive to a female colleague, it sparked an investigation that almost got him fired. But he was put on a performance improvement plan and is still a terror to work with. Recently in a call, he told me that he thought the reason I was critiquing his work was because I had a personal relationship with one of the other designers, and that I'm unable to separate my personal and professional feelings. I'm his manager.
The matter went to HR, and they concluded that I have to go to mediation with him to repair the relationship. But if I were not at work, this is someone that I would just eliminate from my life, because it is not psychologically healthy for me to deal with them. In what other life scenario, are you forced to do therapy with your abuser? How do I position these matters to HR in a way that they can understand?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 35:57 Hmm, well, I'll call this person MM for manager mediation. And the first thing I want to note here is that it sounds really destabilizing to be this person's manager, MM, and to have put them on a PIP and to still be afraid of his behavior and feel like you have so little control. So to MM, I really want to acknowledge this sounds really challenging, because here you are, as a manager, trying to do the thing we wanted these other managers to do in the other questions, which is like, step up, right? Do something. And to have you still feel like, you don't have the power to simply solve this problem.
Jen Dionisio 36:38 Yeah. And to feel like even that PIP did not lead to any self-awareness or change of behavior, and it's still letting him believe that he can treat you however he wants.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 36:53 Gosh, you know, a couple episodes ago, we talked about PIPs, and how often they're deployed to, like, usher people out the door, or convince them to quit. And here's like, one of those situations where the behavior is so obviously atrocious, this is not just somebody's job performance is mediocre. This is a threat to the people around them. And yet in this situation, it's like, "No, no, let's like continue trying to repair things." Which yeah, this raises a number of red flags for me. But here's our person, MM is in this situation. This is where they're at. They're the manager and a person on their team is unsafe. So the first thing that I would ask them is, you said you want HR to understand your point of view? What if you don't need them to understand it? Meaning, what if you reframed your goal from, “I need to get HR to understand me,” to, “I need to set a boundary with HR.”
And again, I know that this might not be easy. But I would encourage you to ask yourself, what would it look like to tell HR “no”? To say, "No, mediation is not an option for me, because I do not feel safe around this person." That might sound difficult to do, you might feel like I cannot do that. But I would encourage you to actually consider it. I'm not saying you have to do it. But I would encourage you to play that out and say, "Okay, I can tell HR, no, I am unwilling to go to mediation with this person, because I don't feel safe around them. What am I afraid will happen if I do that? What are the potential risks or trade-offs of being firm?" And just really getting clear with yourself what are the reasons that you feel like you might not be able to just say no?
Because you can, you can say, "I absolutely will not do this." And they might dislike it, they might write you up for it. I guess theoretically, you could lose your job over it. But I think it's really important to try to evaluate a little bit what you're afraid will happen if you absolutely refuse so that you can then calibrate like, maybe that's a risk that you're willing to take, maybe it's not a risk you're willing to take. But I do think that that is worthwhile to dig into here.
Jen Dionisio 39:11 And the thing that I keep thinking about this story is, can you imagine saying no to HR, that you don't want to do mediation with somebody that you don't feel safe with and them saying you have to? That feels like that could put the company into a pretty tricky legal or ethical situation where they are forcing someone who has been victimized to be revictimized again.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 39:41 Yeah, I mean, I think this is an HR playbook that I'm deeply uncomfortable with. I'm not an HR person. But I hear this and I think, what problem do they think they're solving?
Jen Dionisio 39:53 Yeah. Or if it's not to solve a problem, is it simply to make the problem go away?
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 39:59 Right. And this sounds a little bit like it's a box-ticking exercise perhaps where it's like, "Okay, well, we did the PIP, you know, we did this, we did this. Did we try to 'repair' the relationship?" I understand why that might be a box on their list to check because I do think there are a lot of scenarios where there is tension, disagreement, conflict, hurt feelings, whatever, where this is a perfectly reasonable response to say like How about we send you into mediation, you have a third party there to help you through it.
And the goal is to repair. The thing about this, the reason that I think it's perfectly reasonable for you to not want to do this is that that only works when both parties are there in good faith. It's like if you go to couples counseling, where one partner is abusive to the other partner, that is not a good faith couples counseling relationship, and that's they're not going to get anywhere, right, unless both parties want to be there, are willing to look at their own behavior, and are there because they want to actually repair the relationship together, including changing their own behavior, in order to do that, it's not going to work.
Actually, it's a well-known thing that like, in relationships with abusers, that is often something that will be used against the victim of violence. And recreating that system in the workplace, I think is absolutely unhealthy. So I would say this, though, I think that if you are not willing to try to repair the relationship—and again, I think that's perfectly reasonable—but if you're not open to repairing the relationship—because again, this person is unsafe, it's not healthy for you to be around them, they are abusive—then I do think it also means they really cannot be on your team.
Because you cannot be a manager to somebody who you are not open to having a repaired relationship with. You can't be a manager to somebody who you cannot come out with some kind of working agreement with. And so if that is the truth for you, then I think it might be more useful to say, "Look, if this person is going to continue working here, I need them to move teams, or I need them to somehow get away from the team that I am on. Do I need to move teams?"
Because I think that fundamentally being in a manager/direct report relationship with somebody who has abused you is a place where nobody can win and that situation like it is not possible to exist in that place and have you be the kind of manager that I would assume you want to be or have this end up in a place of resolution. And so I would really encourage you to think about, where could you draw some firmer boundaries around what you can and cannot accept going forward? What are you unwilling to tolerate? Because this sounds extreme enough that continuing to tolerate, it sounds like a pretty high price to pay.
Jen Dionisio 43:00 And MM, as you're thinking about those lines that you want to draw, maybe think about not drawing them as yourself, but drawing them as if Sara and I were in your head, cheering you on, feeling a little spicy, feeling very angry and upset on your behalf, that this is the kind of internal conversation that you're going to have to have.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 43:23 Yeah. And the other thing I think you can tap into is that part of you that is doing it for the team. I know that is sometimes easier to step up and stand up for your team than for yourself. I have a lot of opinions on that for another day. Because I think you deserve to do this just for you. But it sounds like this is a problem for other people as well. And other colleagues, people on your team are getting hurt. And I think it might help you tap into a little extra courage and energy to really think about, "How do I put my power as a manager on the line in service of keeping my people safe?" "My people," including myself.
Jen Dionisio 44:02 Yeah, you are important. MM, please let us know how this goes. And what ends up happening. We are rooting for you and cheering you on and just want you to remember that your health and safety matter.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 44:20 And the same for everybody whose questions we've answered this week. I mean, again, lots of heavy stuff this week, lots of tough stuff. But I think that one of the things that I really want to come back to is this idea that like when we are being hurt when people are violating boundaries, we often get stuck in this idea that what we need to do is get other people to agree with us about the problem or see the problem the same way we see it. Like, "Why can't I just get HR or my boss or whoever to like see this?" And I think sometimes that can really lead us astray. I do wish more people could again, see it through your lens, be empathetic to your experience.
But I would really encourage anybody who's having these kinds of issues and who has some of those feelings to really think about "What are my needs here? And how can I get those needs met? How do I communicate those needs? How do I communicate those boundaries? And how do I be explicit about it?" Because if you let go of the idea of like HR agreeing with you or your boss agreeing with you, then it opens up like, "Oh, what if it doesn't matter if they agree, it just matters that they act? It just matters that they respect this." That actually can really focus the situation down to the very specific things that you need to have changed, and less about trying to convince somebody to believe something that they don't want to believe, which is a lot harder and often impossible, and often not really what is going to change your experience anyway.
Jen Dionisio 45:56 Yeah, the thing that I hope all of you keep close to you if you're facing any situation similar to this is the goal is not to get people to agree with your boundary or even understand it fully. But it's to honor it, and follow it.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher 46:22 Per My Last Email is a production of Active Voice. Check us out at https://www.activevoicehq.com/ and get all the past episodes show notes and full transcripts for Per My Last Email at https://pmleshow.com/. This episode was produced by Emily Duncan. Our theme music is "(I'm a) Modern Woman" by Maria T. Buy her album at https://thisismariat.bandcamp.com/. Thank you to everyone who submitted their story for today's show. And thank you for listening. If you've got a work dilemma eating away at you, send it to us. Head to https://pmleshow.com/ and click “submit a dilemma” to share it.