Convince somebody to stop flirting with me

Question

Brief Summary

So, I've been in a bit of a situation recently: one of my co-workers (female, I'm male btw) started flirting with me. It started with her throwing things like "hey, beautiful", and I took it as a joke. But she became more and more pushy, and it is now a situation where it is a problem for me on several levels.

As asked, here are a few example of her behavior:

• Comments on my appearance, things like "Hey beautifull" or "Nice ass"
• Unwanted physical contact, things like touching my leg, pressing herself against me

What I have tried so far (chronological order):

• Be clear about my lack of interest in her.
• Tell her that I have a girlfriend, and therefore am not "available"
• Get angry at her when she behaves that way
• Talk about it to her husband, who doesn't seem to care
• Complain to our manager AND police, and they basically told me to "suck it up"

What I can't do

I can't ask to be put in another team, nor can I avoid her at the workplace (I'm working at a company of 5 people).

I cannot quit my job, at least not for now - due to many personal reasons quitting now would be problematic, and I don't think I'll be able to quit before 10+ months.

Any 'eye for an eye' tactics, violence, etc are not acceptable, for obvious reasons.

My question

Is there any way to get her to stop her behaviour?

Answer 1

Is there any way, to get her to stop that behavior ?

Unfortunately, that seems utterly impossible by human means. You have made yourself clear, ignored her, complained, moved around, threatened, and so on...

What's left?

1. Quit and move away from this toxic environnment (later, as you said).
2. Get help.
3. Take legal action.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a lawyer, but know french, speak french and could ask about it to people in France, and search the web in french. The following are based upon those. Links are not provided as they are not in english, but can easily be found by french users.

Step 2 : you can get help from the dedicated number 08 842 846 37 (Government run). This hotline is for people who suffer from sexual harassment (victim or witness).

You can also get help from your local unions, if any in your company, but also outside of the company. I believe it's quite easy to get the local phone numbers. NOTE: as an individual, you can go by yourself file a complaint to the Conseil de prud'hommes ¹ or Inspection du travail ².

Step 3 : file a complaint to the special court (Conseil de prud'hommes) or get help and advice from Inspection du travail) or to the police (can also be done online in France).

Be very careful, as you have to prove what you say, so you need to document everything.

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LAWS: (France): Criminal Code - Art. 222-33 (2012/08/06) / Labor Laws - L1153-1 (2012/08/06 - 2012/08/08) - Europe - Art. 2002/73/CE (2002/09/23).

And tell your boss that he's responsible even it this happens outside of the workplace ! (Cass. soc., 19 oct 2011, n°09-72.672).

This might help, because if he faces legal action, and found being responsible, he will probably make a move before, and talk to her / fire her.

To make it more clear (after comments): I would talk again to your boss, and explain carefully what's going on, how much you're bothered, and how it affects both your work and your private life. Choose your words carefully, he has to know, but also not feel threatened by legal action.

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^{1. This is a special court dealing only with labor laws and professional matters, as you know (for non-french readers).}

^{2. This is a government organization that rules work environnement for persons and companies.}

Answer 2

Another poster mentioned just ignoring her, which I believe is one of the better options. However, if you must interact with her any way for work purposes, the extinction response will be less effective.

Furthermore, you need to not only ignore her with your words, but also with your facial response. However, given the level emotion and frustration I sense in your post, I think this will be difficult for you.

Often, flirting by women (and sometimes men) is not a means of attempting to seduce you, but rather expressing a desire for validation.

Look for other ways to give her the validation she is craving, while attempting to ignore her flirtations. Eventually, she will see the flirting is not the best way to get what she is after.

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You, "Wow, that report you wrote up for the boss looks great! Gunning for that promotion, huh? We are so lucky to have you here! " :)

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Her, "Wow, looking sexy in that tie today!"

You, "whatever, the weather sucks today, let me know when you finish the report."

(You have completely invalidated her attempt to flirt with you)

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I know it is not fair for you to have to be one to provide her validation; it is not your job, but life is not always fair, and to my mind, this would be one of the more effective solutions. I am sorry you are in this situation, and will have to take additional responsibilities to deal with it.

Answer 3

As you put it, you can't change your work and don't get help from your manager and police. Well done for taking all the steps you already have taken!

I don't think you can change other people. You might be able to change how they treat you. That can be enforced, mostly in organisations. But your manager does not see your problem.

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But you can change how you handle this, so:

Document everything. So if you want to press charges, so you can prove what has happened.

Talk about it with your girlfriend, you need her support (and others family and friends) to handle this situation.

Know the law, if or when your co-worker steps over that line you know what to do. This is not a light thing to do. But if you must, know what your options are.

Ignore her flirting, let it slide, act like it ain't there. Act like you would with a child that seeks attention in a way you don't want. Or a puppy that jumps up. You have made clear you don't want to flirt, or anything else from her, so she knows. Ignore it. Try to keep your emotion out of it, let the interaction from your side be neutral. No anger, no fun, no flirt. Bring your poker face. Act like you don't care. And keep your (physical) boundaries.

This is not an easy thing to do. I wish there were better ways to counter (her) flirting, and I hope someone else will come up with one. But she has already shown she does not respect your boundaries. If this does not work, stick with your current job it till you can get an other one. Very few things last forever, this too, will pass.

For actions if / when she crosses the legal line, please see OldPadawan's answer.

Answer 4

I find it crazy that people are suggesting:

• Leave the workplace
• Ignore the behavior
• Insert clever reply here, to try and detract.

I think this is cut and dry. Though, I have never been on the giving or receiving end of sexual harassment, but my girl-friend has; fortunately for her the business is - I assume - is like 99.9% of every business out there and they fired the guy immediately.

I do not think the country you are writing from matters much. What she is doing is harassment, and is against the law.

Maybe the police will not do anything about it. But contact a lawyer, and they will.

Is not the company breaking a myriad of laws for not dealing with the sexual harassment?

I know it sucks, but it might kind of be your responsibility as a reasonable and just human to have the courage to contact a lawyer and proceed with bringing this lady (and IMHO more so) and the company to justice. The company telling you to suck it up, is the absolutely most nuts part of this story.

I know its kind of nasty, but you're on a website writing about a problem that is really stressing you out / emotional distress. In the eyes of the law, (i think...not know) I believe that has a price tag associated with it!!

DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. STOP THIS BEHAVIOR AND SET A PRECEDENT!

Answer 5

I say this with the caveat that this is not an interpersonal issue; it's a workplace / legal one. You are being harassed--it's inappropriate and wrong regardless of the genders involved. I don't know how the laws and culture of France differ from the US other than what I've seen in movies so my understanding is limited.

It seems you've taken this to the proper authorities with no luck, which is the only reason I'm giving other advice since you are unfortunate to have to deal with it yourself. Continue documenting, including your interactions with the people whose job it is to protect you.

I'd also suggest, if you haven't already, putting a firm "Do not do this" (without explanation or excuses or apologies from you) in an email to her and ccing your boss, HR, and anyone else you think is relevant.

I am not on board with telling you to just ignore it; however, other posters have a point that she's trying to get a rise out of you and may see this as a harmless game. When she says something inappropriate, an icy glare and an incredulous "Excuse me?!?" can go a long way into shaming someone into appropriate behavior.

Answer 6

Why does she persist in doing this to you? Well, because it's easy, safe, and fun. You can approach the problem from any of these three angles.

Safe -- No, you're not going to bean her with a stapler. And sounds like you've already gone to HR (who could threaten her job) with no joy, so let's leave "safe" alone for a while.

Easy -- Well, you're around and accessible, it's a small office. You don't fancy moving to a new job. Okay, let's leave "easy" alone too.

Fun -- Here's where you can take action. Make it not fun to flirt with you. Don't get mad, don't freak out. Do look annoyed and say "I don't have time for this, Smith. What do you want?" whenever she gets saucy on you.

Answer 7

You have the impression she wants to sleep with you ? but does she behave the same way with others?

It's important to put that in perspective before acting.

I ask because like you, a girlfriend of one of my friends calls me name like 'beauty', texts me for my birthday and even came alone to see me to talk during one of her breaks (my stepmom was there for that last event, and she quit when that happened because she felt a "malaise" there)

Yes, I felt the same way as you, asking why she did that, but ultimately I saw her do that with others and now I just don't care about such things, as she's a good person anyway.

I would ignore her or quit that workplace if you can't.

As the problem you face is that for the society, sexual harassment is a woman/girl problem, not a man/boy problem... People see that as a joke. For example: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19536167/ns/business-careers/t/male-sexual-harassment-not-joke/. The problem if you fight too much is that it can leave you with bad references for a future job, thus why I suggest quit or ignore.

Answer 8

You have made your point on many different levels to her. She wasn't discouraged by a possible complaint to the police too. It should be obvious by now that she does not care if you want her. Everybody who could influence her is not willing to help you.

You could probably switch her attention from affection to hate. For example if you embarrass her at work utilizing her affection to you. But with a person like this, it would be like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

There is no way to get rid of her attention to you. Try to minimize contact with her. Maybe you can change your table or office room. But ultimately you have to change your workplace.

Answer 9

I'd like to put my five cents here and state that leaving a workplace, because there is a single person, whose behavior you don't like, is a bad solution to the problem. OP has his own reasons to work at that place. The problem is not that big, the OP can't keep working as usual and doesn't worsen his work reasonably enough to quit it. The situation is as bad as if there was a person, who often(not 24/7 as i can guess from the information provided) jokes on the topic you hate and makes you irritated. So you can just deal with it(of course, after you try every other appropriate ways to solve the problem, but i didn't manage to think about any), as if there has been thrown an inappropriate joke, but the person likes joking even thou nobody laughs.

By the way since what time a grown man can pay so much negative attention to a flirt?

Answer 10

The best solution here is the easiest one. Simply ignore her.

If the topic at hand is not workplace or safety related, there is (as far as I can imagine) no reason to respond to that person.

The biggest problem I see in your question is that you are reacting to her behavior. That just reinforces it and causes it to continue.

If you do not respond to such behavior, I think she would either back off or turn up the heat.

In the case of the former, problem solved.

In the case of the latter, clearly harassment could be brought up. However, unless there are workplace or law enforcement actions possible (doesn't seem like it), that won't go far.

But I wouldn't count on your manager (or other management) or the police only. If they can't take any action, you should consult with a lawyer specializing in employment issues.
Just because they don't want to get involved does not mean there are not any legal protections available.

However, in taking such an action, you will have to address your involvement so far. If you are complicit in any way, that might cause problems. Basically it has to be clear that you did not encourage her behavior in any way.
And be careful since entrapment can be a motivation in cases like these (basically her doing something to get you in trouble).

I guess the bottom line is why you are reacting at all. If there are specific reasons you should add them to your question.

Answer 11

Based on what you stated above, it seems that you've tried most of the usual routes and nothing seems to be working. She doesn't care that you've said you're not interested and she doesn't respect your wishes since she isn't listening, so I'd say that gives you the right to stop respecting her.

I'm all for dealing with situations nicely, I get criticized for being too nice sometimes and not standing my ground. But for people who just won't quit, you have to draw the line for them and make them not want to. Make it a miserable experience for them. She is insulting you by not respecting your boundaries, so insult her back. Flat out tell her she's ugly or that she is obnoxious/rude for not respecting your wishes and that you can't stand her.

She might be thinking you're playing hard to get for whatever reason, but if she realizes that you actually dislike/despise her, that should take the wind out of her sails. It always sucks to be the mean person, but sometimes it has to be done.

If she isn't getting reprimanded for sexual harassment, then equally you shouldn't be reprimanded for speaking harshly towards her. She doesn't seem like the type of person who would stop if you just ignore her and the police/your boss doesn't take it seriously, so you will have to put your foot down. Yeah she might end up despising your guts, but that's better than being miserable everyday at work.

Answer 12

This not an advice to ignore her, but how you can ignore if you would do it, while you can't enforce law or something else on her.

1. Don't let her make your day worse when she's not doing anything or leave you alone. Have your day, do your job, talk to her only about the job and only the strictly necessary, then "disappear" from her again. This is mostly to take care of yourself and not let bad feelings come from her.

2. if she talks to you, be sure that it's about work. If it's not, mute yourself and stay that way. Don't tell anything on purpose, not even a "good morning". This is to keep her in isolation. Giving her attention breaks it and gives her the chance to feel confident about the situation. Acting like this has a chance to make her feel bad about what she's doing.

3. Don't feed her provocations, don't give her feedback, don't answer simple questions. Same reasons than 2.

4. Tell her to not touch you if she does it. If you think it's necessary, start to record with your phone. DON'T move away, don't let her take or limit your space, she must respect it. Harassment start with flirting, then provocation and then bullying. This is to let her know that this thing is goddamn serious.

5. Write about it and prepare to give the story to the media. Gather witnesses. Put in the story how you feel. Basically: "attack" back without being aggressive.

6. Give yourself the right to be angry and the right to be mean and bad to her. If you want do to something DO IT but keep the law on your side. Don't respect who doesn't respects you, don't be civilized with uncivilized people. You should keep confident and above her, not under. Bad people shouldn't be above us.

All these things (i think) can make you a bit less fragile not only about this situation but about others too.