Ask Aunt Dorcas: Boundaries for a Woman at Work

 Dear Aunt Dorcas,

What are some good guidelines for interacting with men in the workplace? I work for a business where my interactions are primarily male. I enjoy what I do, but at the same time, I think/worry about crossing professional boundaries.

This is in the context of mostly married men. I grew up without a lot of male interactions, so I feel like I’m navigating new territory in some ways. Some ways that I’ve tried to think about this in the past: I try not to say anything that I would not say if his wife was standing right there, especially if we are talking about my personal life.

I am a very outgoing, cheerful person. This seems to add an extra challenge. In turn, people seem to feel safe with me. Just today, I had a conversation one on one and later I wondered if it was okay for him to tell me that.

What about messaging outside of work? Is it okay if its casual? For example, if someone sends me a message like, “You wanna come join us for supper tonight?” or “I appreciate your cheerful personality in the front office.”

Do we cross boundaries if the messages get too personal as in, "I think I miss you when I’m gone," or "I don’t wanna play favorites at work, but girl! You’re pretty awesome!"

Can I ever trust my gut? This feels okay/this doesn’t feel okay? I’m sure that there are things and situations that vary. But seems like there are some pretty standard things to keep in mind. From your repertoire of wisdom, what would you say to me? Where does blessing each other as people come into play? Does Jesus' life in the New Testament give us any insight? He certainly wasn’t afraid of women!

--Katie

 

Dear Katie—

I showed your question to some of my adult children who have more experience in the workplace than I do. Our son Ben said, “Instead of answering her question, you need to clarify the context. I don’t know what she’s asking, which means she probably doesn’t know what she’s asking.”

I’m guessing you’ve been embarrassed, accused, or otherwise burned by personal experiences you can’t share publicly. You are naturally friendly and engaging, but you know that a woman being too friendly with men at work can get complicated and end badly.

Reading between the lines, I think you are a caring person who can be fully trusted.

You know your heart and intentions, but you also know others can only see your actions.

The obvious question is your first one—" What are some good guidelines for interacting with men in the workplace?” But other questions are implied: “Are my words going to be misconstrued? Is my behavior appropriate? If someone thinks I’m flirting, does that automatically mean I am? Am I responsible if someone texts me inappropriately? Where, exactly, is that invisible line that has loads of trouble waiting on the other side?

As a housewife, I can’t answer you as someone who’s been in the work world. However, I can share my experience as a writer, an observer, and a wife and mom of people in the work force.

I meet and hear from both men and women. I’ve had many conversations with male readers, and I accept facebook friend requests and messages from men. My husband is free to read all those messages. I’ve learned to quickly sniff out who is a nice, interested reader as opposed to what my children irreverently call a SOOM—Slightly Obsessed Old Man.

Those are the ones who shake my hand a little too long and gush a little too much at book signings. Or they send a nice message about an article, and then the next message says my husband is such a lucky man. Out you go, Sir.

I also share your trait of being someone that people confide in, which carries its own rewards and dangers. Again, experience has helped me discern what’s ok and what’s not. I’m not able to give needy people lots of my time, unfortunately, and no man gets very far telling me about his troubled marriage.

I created my current boundaries gradually after learning that I can’t be all things to all readers and that certain words give instant clues that a man is a SOOM.

You asked if you can trust your gut. My answer is yes. That’s what I do, but my gut has been informed by long experience, input from others, and a commitment to Jesus and my marriage.

Your dilemma comes from a number of factors, I think.

1.     You’re naturally a bubbly, caring person, and people confide in you.

2.     The rules at work don’t seem to be clearly defined.

3.     You worry that your intentions will be misconstrued and your words taken wrong.

4.     You feel responsible for how you’re perceived and how others respond to you.

5.     Your work life seems to overlap with your life outside of work. For example, an employee invites you over for dinner, and people text you outside of work.

The first boundary to draw here is around your own heart. Only you can know what your motives and intentions are. You can define your goals in your work relationships, evaluate messages and conversations, ask for help, and know if your conscience is clear. You have the power to adjust and change.

Then, I feel you need to consult a source outside of yourself for defining expectations at your workplace. If your boss can’t be troubled with this, talk to friends in similar situations or look up sources online. A list of rules at similar workplaces might clarify things for you.

My kids with jobs out in the big world said that their policy is to not mix work life and personal life at all. However, this can get fuzzy if you’ve gotten to know people so well that conversation is easy and you know about their babies, political views, family crises, and so on. Also, if you go to the same church, or an employee is married to your cousin, a list of rules makes less sense.

Here’s where we hit that strange swamp of intentions and perceptions. You are obviously responsible for your intentions, but are you responsible for how they take your words?

On the one hand, we have the people who like to tease and joke annoyingly and hurtfully. When you finally confront them, they say, “Hey, I was just joshin’ ya. I didn’t mean anything by it!” We don’t care about their intentions. We just want them to take responsibility for how they come across.

But then there’s the guy who sent you the [inappropriate] text that you’re so awesome. If you confront him, I would bet money he’ll insist you flirted that morning by offering him a cup of coffee, and how was he supposed to know you didn’t mean a whole lot of other things by doing that?

You both know your intentions were honorable, and it isn't wrong to offer a cup of coffee. That's what really matters here.

I’m guessing you’re Mennonite, although I don’t know for sure, and I want to insert here that in Mennonite male-female relationships, women have borne far too large a burden for how both men and women interpret their words and actions. A friendly girl who likes to talk to the guys is often accused of flirting. That was the case when I was young, limiting my skills in having normal talks with guys. My youngest daughter informs me that that standard still applies.

At best, this makes for awkward conversations fraught with self-consciousness. At worst, it makes women responsible for men’s sins. Some of us find conversations with non-Mennonite men easier, more comfortable, and less stressful.

So, you need to be aware of the culture you’re in and how you’re coming across, and adjust accordingly, but you can’t change someone’s heart. Someone with an evil heart will interpret anything you do or say through their own lens.

Finally, give yourself grace. Maybe you were needlessly nervous or you shared too freely. You can learn from your mistakes and do it differently next time. You mentioned Jesus and his relationship to women. If your heart is guided by Jesus and accumulated wisdom, you’ll be able to read a situation and respond appropriately. Eventually, you won’t need to rely on a list of rules or on feedback from others. You’ll be the blessing you want to be, both in the workplace and outside of it.

That’s what I think. I wish you all the best.

Aunt Dorcas

PS—I shopped your question around to my kids to get a variety of perspectives. Here are some of those conversations.

JENNY

Our daughter Jenny is about to graduate from college with a degree in mathematics. Originally, her major was engineering, so she’s been in male-dominated classes for years. She’s also done lots of formal and informal tutoring. When she and Amy were both at Linn-Benton Community College, Amy said she’d sometimes walk across campus and see a picnic table full of nerdy engineering majors, with Jenny teaching them how to do their physics homework.

“So,” I asked her, “How did you navigate good boundaries in this setting?”

She said, “One benefit I had is that none of the guys felt like options. Me being ‘religious’ and them being non-religious created a barrier. I’d never talk about personal stuff or crushes like I would with girls.”

“I didn’t agonize about if the stuff they told me was too personal. What they tell me isn’t my problem unless it’s something I’d rather not know, then I’d let them know I was uncomfortable.”

“I often ended up in an informal tutoring role. We’d work on homework together. Often I’d figure things out and explain them to everyone else. Apparently I was notorious for not just giving out the answer. My friend Brian was talking to another friend about me and said, ‘Yeah, you can ask Jenny for help, but she’ll still make you work for it.’”

“There were a couple of times I felt uncomfortable with how close they seemed to feel to me. I never felt like it was my fault. I just tried to avoid them for a while, not in a rude way, but just intentionally not being where I knew they’d be.”

I asked, “Do you feel like Mennonite culture makes heavy weather of girls talking to guys?”

Jenny said, “When I talk to a Mennonite guy, there’s this thing in the back of my mind—ooooh are you being flirtatious?? I even make the same judgment about other Mennonite girls when they like to talk to guys.”

“Overall, it’s fine to be friends with guys and talk about things, but don’t get emotionally invested, and the deepest matters of the heart you should discuss with close female friends.”

BEN

Ben is a grad student studying combustion at Oregon State University. I asked him about relating to women at work/school.

“There’s not that many women in my field. I guess there’s one woman in my lab. I don’t get that personal with the people I work with. Some of them do stuff together outside of work, but I have more outside friends so I don’t as much.”

I asked, “Did female students make you uncomfortable?”

Ben said, “No. We’d mostly talk about school related stuff, maybe have a discussion on how we all solved #5.”

PHOEBE and MATT:

Matt is our oldest son. He used to work for the Navy and now works for NASA. Phoebe is our daughter-in-law and has worked in a variety of settings, including jobs in Washington, DC. They focused more on situations that make you uncomfortable. Phoebe emailed the following:

A lot of the boundaries one might set in the workplace have to do with personal comfort levels, not absolute right and wrong. Personally, I’ve leaned toward sharing minimal personal information at work. I can say, “ I’m not comfortable sharing that.” Or “I don’t share that kind of information at work.” I can also change the subject. That goes for men and women.

It’s difficult to set hard and fast rules. To me, it seems like quantity and frequency of information shared might matter more than content.

There are also professional, rather than moral factors to consider. Depending on her role in her workplace, chatting about personal things (like weekend plans, kids, pets, etc) with coworkers/clients could be seen as appropriate or even as relationship-building. In others it might seem distracting and irrelevant.

I think phrases like:

“Wow! That sounds so difficult.” “It seems like you’re handling that well.” “Thank you for helping me with X.” can be used safely with pretty much anyone. But if someone is complaining or venting, some phrases I’ve found helpful are:

“Well, I should get back to working on X.”

“Have you mentioned that to (the person they’re complaining about)?”

“Well, I’m on my way to the (printer, restroom, etc.). See you later.”

Monotone “Hmm” and “Oh” are also good conversation-enders.

If you’re comfortable being more direct and it’s an ongoing situation, you might try: “I’m uncomfortable with the amount of time we’re spending talking about X.”

Or “Let’s not talk about this.”

If she feels uncomfortable with something someone else is saying/doing she should feel free to trust herself and bring her concerns to the attention of the person, or someone who supervises them (or her). If the other person has good intentions, they will want to act in a way that makes her comfortable.

Matt points out here that people being creepy will usually do so in a plausibly deniable way.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It was just a compliment.”

“You’re taking it the wrong way.”

“I’m just being friendly.”

If you feel uncomfortable, it’s ok not to believe the person and to report, avoid, or distance from them even if they claim good intentions.

It is also ok to make rules like, “I don’t share my personal phone number at work.” Or “I don’t privately message coworkers/clients about non-work information.” And it is ok for these rules to apply to some people and not others.

I had a conversation about this with Matt and took down the following thoughts of his (since he’s driving).

Matt recommends that the writer think about how she would act toward a man in her workplace that she likes. Does she treat him in a way/talk to him in a way/let him talk to her in ways that feel ok because he’s attractive, but wouldn’t otherwise? That could give other guys in the office ideas about what is ok/not ok with her.

Matt also thinks it’s important for women to understand that men have an almost innate desire for attention from an attractive woman. If you suspect he is unconsciously seeking attention, do not respond in kind. If you receive a long heartfelt message about how much he misses you when you’re not at work, your maximum response should be, “Thanks.” Assume he’s a SOOM.

In Matt’s observation, men who have healthy relationships with their wives are less likely to interact inappropriately with other women. If he is complaining about or “joking” about his wife publicly, or in private messages, that is a major red flag.

Your boss, if he is a man, may not be very sympathetic to a report that another man is behaving inappropriately toward you. Your experience is so far from anything he’s experienced that it might be very difficult for him to understand and sympathize. Even if he is well-intentioned, he may not intervene in the way you’d hope for because he has no concept of how the situation feels to you or is affecting you.

If you bring it up and that is the case, you might consider whether you can bring the situation up with (depending on the workplace structure) his wife, or another woman who can help get through to him.

Aunt Dorcas has four children with degrees from Oregon State University.
The fifth, Jenny, graduates in a few weeks.
Here she poses with Emily in 2017.