It will be interesting to see if anything else happens or if there are other ramifications.
I don’t find it “interesting”. I find it alarming.
I had this pinned in a drawer for awhile - sorry but I don’t know the origins but it’s stood me well through the years when dealing with annoying coworkers. That and the expression what goes around comes around has kept me sane. I don’t know maybe young people can make the world Kumbahya, but I’m not holding my breath as there are simply an endless array or personality types to imagine there will be “one” official personality type that is acceptable to all.
That sounds good for maintaining personal equilibrium but I feel a sense of responsibility to others. Perhaps ignoring someone would work in certain instances but that doesn’t improve the overall situation and just pushes the issue down the line for someone else to deal with. I have advantages in life (white, financially secure, mental health, etc) and I require of myself to pay it forward and speak up.
I can’t keep my head down and act like something offensive didn’t happen.
For people who take their careers seriously you can’t afford to let instances like this continue and simply pretend they don’t bother you. That’s the easy way out but it won’t help in the long run. Portraying yourself as someone who won’t stand up for yourself when belittled or interrupted puts you on the fast track to nowhere in the corporate world. I assume the academic world is not much different. If you don’t take yourself seriously no one else will either. Standing by passively while others disrespect you shows a lack of confidence which is lethal in competitive environments.
But how you respond is equally as important as the decision to confront the situation. Making a public scene or losing your temper is going to be as damaging as the insult or interruption. I think @intparent’s D handled it well. She diplomatically confronted him giving him the opportunity to resolve the situation. When it persisted she consulted the professor. Seems a quite reasonable approach and it puts others on notice what your expectations are – you want the same respect that you afford to others in your work environment. And if you don’t receive it you want the issue addressed.
I didn’t really have a full description until today (we’d just been texting). He was shouting by end, apparently. She was more shaken than she initially told me. And she puts up with a lot of comments and innuendo – normally it annoys her, but this time I think it scared her. I’m glad she talked to the prof.
It sounds like there is more going on with the student than just physics or sexism. What is she hoping will happen as far as the professor goes?
Shouting by the end? That’s horrible. It’s certainly more than science that this guy is troubled by. The TAs shouldn’t have to deal with someone like that. It’s good that your D talked to the higher ups - they should deal with this.
At a minimum, she wants the prof to be aware in case the student repeats or escalates this behavior. I understand that – I once reported a client behavior to my supervisor for that exact reason.
The prof said he thought they (he and dept head) will discuss banning the student from the class help room if he repeats the behavior (or other inappropriate behavior with her or other TAs).
First, he dismissed the claims as “gossip”. Now, likely facing a backlash, he “regrets past behaviors”. I guess we’re getting somewhere.
Goodness, I sure hope this works out for your D @intparent . Now it sounds rather alarming. Glad she spoke to her prof, there is just no excuse for that kind of behavior.
Shaun White said this is “gossip” (OK, he later retracted, but that’s what he said):
He settled the lawsuit. Pro tip: unless a woman says, “Please send me dick pics” she does not want to see dick pics.
Did you guys see this other article, about the campaign worker who filed an EEOC complaint against her supervisor? Click through to the article to see the texts she supplied. I’m in awe of how professional her replies were, trying to get him to stop pestering her for a date. But it didn’t work; he kept on harassing.
In September, he asks her out. She declines; “I think we should maintain a professional relationship.” In October, he is still hounding her. She explains that when he first asked her to go for a beer, she thought this was just a professional networking thing, and reiterates that she is not interested in a personal relationship with work colleagues. He keeps pestering, October, November, December, this dude cannot take an unambiguous No for an answer.
I knew I shouldn’t go in the comments, but I did. After the first hilarious comment: “I think it sounds sweet. He is just being persistent, like I was with my wife… Well she’s not really my wife… One of these days, when I untie her, we might get married,” it got awful. Guys were saying that because she posted a picture of herself in a bikini on her Facebook page, that meant she wanted to be harassed. No. Really. That’s what they said. If you post a picture of yourself in a bikini, your boss gets to harass you, that’s the rule, apparently.
@Cardinal Fang, when I hit the “view comments” tab, they don’t come up. Weird.
Agree with you that this guy seems extremely dim. He just can’t believe that she doesn’t want anything to do with him.
He’s not dim. If he were dim, he would be generally dim-- he wouldn’t understand when men said no to him, because he would just be stupid or not understand English well or something like that. This guy is in a managerial position at a political campaign; he could not possibly be that dim.
Rather, the guy is entitled. He thinks she should go out with him, so he thinks he is entitled to keep pestering her until she goes out with him.
^^^^I wondered if he was a bit narcissistic. It seemed he just couldn’t fathom the possibility that she wasn’t interested in him, no matter if they worked together or not. He kept trying to get her to say she would want a relationship with him if she had never worked with him.
Update from my D about the problem student. Her prof consulted with the dept head. They’ve told her:
- If he comes back and does something disrespectful or inappropriate again, she can ask him to leave. And also tell him that she has discussed it with the prof and dept head, and that she has their support.
- If he won’t leave, she should call campus security.
- She doesn’t know his name, but they also said she should ask for it if there is another problem.
Going forward , it might not be a bad idea to ask any student’s name as a matter of course . Sorry this happened to your daughter.
How did she know he went to a different TA if she didn’t even know his name?
Anyway those seem like pretty obvious responses from on high, and somewhat short of the mark if you see what I’m saying.
Because he said he was going off to his lab section (which he was trying to solve the problem for). And since all the other TAs for the lab are male, and you MUST use friction in the calculation to solve the problem, she knows he was told in his lab exactly what she was telling him.
I don’t really understand your animosity toward her in your posts. Do you doubt the story? Are you convinced that this fine young man behaved appropriately? My kid was nervous enough about his aggressive and rude behavior to start to worry that there was only one exit to the room. I believe you are a male poster, so you probably don’t know that feeling as a woman when a larger man is behaving belligerently. But I expect most of the women out here do know that feeling.
@intparent , I believe @sylvan8798 is a female poster.