Men of Reddit, what thing do female coworkers do that is not quite sexual harassment, but you wish they would stop doing it so you can be comfortable at work?

Ha, I had just finished writing something in the female version of this thread, so here it is.

Ok, so I am a guy that works in an office with about 50 women and 4 men.

I am 6'3" (190 cm) and have been working out on and off for about 10 years, plus had about 5 years of swimming in my recent past. So while I'm not the Rock, I am on the bigger side.

The amount of inappropriate interactions I go through on an yearly basis is... a lot. The 50 or so women vary in ages from twenties to fifties. I think a big part of what I will describe is due to the fact that I am the only young guy in the practice. We have two male doctors in their 60's and 1 manager in his 40's.

The younger girls are usually better as they are not as shrewd. I get a lot of hand placing on my body when I speak with them - on my hand, shoulder, back, sometimes even on my chest. Casual flirting I don't mind as much, since I can easily steer the conversation in another direction or just start mentioning my wife in the context of the conversation such as "Oh, my wife has that same skirt" etc. What's annoying is that we have a bit of a turnaround at our office with the younger workers - so I have to go through this at least once every 1-2 months.

The older ladies... Oh god, the older ladies. They have no shame. They come up from behind me when I am doing something and just lean into my shoulder/back with their boobs "To see what I am up to." Some of them also make a lot of very frank remarks like "If only I was X years old, Izrud..." or "It's nice being with young girls, but older women know a few more tricks". Carrying boxes up and down the hall often gets a smart remark or a whistle. Stuff along these lines.

Now - how I feel about all this. Sometimes I am flattered, sometimes I am very annoyed and upset. Regardless it is always awkward. It doesn't help that a lot of these co-workers are wonderful people, hard working and friendly all the rest of the time. I have immense respect for a lot of them. I have tried to set some boundaries with the people I have been able to bring this up with tactfully. With some... I would rather just avoid the subject and avoid the person.

Now this doesn't happen all the time (if it did, I probably wouldn't work here). It does happen with annoying frequency though, where there is something minor at least once a week. It gets worse in the summer when I am more active and lose some weight + wear a different wardrobe.

Overall I still like working there. It is not enough of an issue where I am permanently affected or stressed about it. I have brought this up to my boss once and she suggested "I should be flattered". When she saw I was serious, she in turn became serious and promised a re-training and a private talk with the managers of the other departments. Not much change since. The HR department consists of one woman I do not trust (I have seen how far HR will go to defend the company in any way possible). I don't feel like I want to escalate it any further, because I can clearly see it will be a big deal and am not sure how it will affect all of my office relationships. I am afraid it might turn a lot of people against me.

So I am quietly looking for a new job. It is not a priority for me, but it is definitely something I don't want to deal with so often. In the meantime I will endure, because this is not something strictly isolated to the office.

Anyway, this turned way longer than I intended.

/r/AskReddit Thread