Male colleague touching me on the shoulder, supposedly to get my attention

[GonnaGetGoingReturns]

This morning, whilst on a Teams call, I didn't realise that my speakers were on loud until a colleague told me and I was using headphones too.

However, the way he did this, was by coming up to me and placing a hand, quite firmly on my shoulder and then speaking to me. I've always thought this man thinks quite a lot of himself since I first met him a few months ago, he's not unpleasant, but he seems to want to be Mr Popular etc! He was sat in the desk next to me today.

I just found after he'd done it, I felt like it was slightly patronising and I didn't like it, he could've easily spoken to me or even sent me a message I thought.

It's a very male dominated environment I work in but most of my male colleagues are very respectful and wouldn't do what this man did.

What do others think?

Are you serious? :/

Im a woman and will tap people on the shoulder to get attention. Think you arew actually being sexist here. If he was a woman you wouldntr have a problem lets face it.

Stop trying to find problems where there arnt any, fair enough if it slightly annoyed you but you actually made a post about this.. let it go.

Strange responses telling OP to get a grip and what happened was perfectly normal and fine. None of you were there. It’s not okay to touch other people unnecessarily. This man could have got her attention by standing close/ waving/ putting a hand in her eyeline - many things could have worked instead of touching her.

I worked in the same office/same team for 8 years and I would never touch a colleague (except perhaps the ones who became my close friends in that time) unless it was an emergency. There is just no need.

Yes, I'm way more comfortable with women touching me than men touching me. What's wrong with that? We all know which sex is the one more likely to be creepy, handsy, dominating, abusive etc. If a woman touched me like this I'd probably be irritated but let it go. If a man touched me like this, I'd say "don't touch me" and mean it.

Seriously, do you not teach your daughters that their bodies are their own and no one can touch them without their permission? At what age do women have to give up their bodily autonomy?

You can't really do any of those things when someone is onscreen, though.

To think that this is something you would actually give headspace to. It wasn’t something he pre-empted. Just an in the moment thing. He’d probably be mortified if he thought you were stressing about this. You could try making a fuss about it - report it to management or HR, or confront him Or you could just shrug your shoulders as a one off incident, and focus your mind on other more important stuff.

I get you OP. I hate to be touched like this it’s an invasion of space. I was at an event at the weekend and a man kept putting his hand on my to tell me to stay standing in one place - I said to him don’t touch me just tell me and then he touched me again and I said don’t touch me!

secondly I have been harassed in the office with touch and with comments from a gay woman. So it goes both ways.

I think you're weird having both speakers and headphones on. Bloody menace in a shared office not so bad in an office on your own. I get that you don't like it but I wouldn't be bothered about advances, he was probably annoyed and thinks you're a bit of an selfish arse to not be bothered by the nuisance you were causing.

Of course you can.

You can do them from a point where you’re not visible or - if you are briefly visible, nobody is going to die are they? I think the people watching would cope.

That is weird, a wave in your eye-line would have made more sense.

I don't touch people at work and expect not to be touched. A shoulder tap if a wave didn't work might have been ok but not a shoulder hold, it's just weird.

All this thread has done is basically reinforce in my mind, that something seemingly sensitive to you, you should never post on MN, because, the vast majority of the time, you're in the wrong.

That's the whole point of this forum, isn't it, to get opinions?

Perhaps he feels the need to be patronising because you contradict yourself so much?

But this example is constant touching, and you had warned the guy to stop and he didn’t. Totally different situation to that of the OPs. Likewise the gay woman harassing you in the office. Not comparable at all…….

It was very clear from OPs post she didn’t realise she had speakers on, it’s not like she was deliberately being a “bloody menace” to the entire office, god help us for being human aye?

This 100% I’m sure most people would just wave - even if it shocked you rather than approach from behind. Plus the backstory about him - he did it that way intentionally.

He didn’t tap you on the shoulder though as many poster have said, he ‘placed his hand firmly on your shoulder’ and to me, that sounds unnecessary. I would have liked it either.

Unnecessarily unkind response

A wave in her eye-line would put him between her and the screen.

It was very clear from OPs post she didn’t realise she had speakers on, it’s not like she was deliberately being a “bloody menace” to the entire office, god help us for being human aye?

Probably not a 'first offence', oh yeah course it was.

Rather than get her attention a word to her manager about appropriate use of technology might be in order;

I wouldn't have liked that either. It is a 'dominance' thing and it would be quite uncomfortable if someone did that where I work, and there would definitely be looks/comments exchanged.

I wouldn't do anything about it but maybe just talk to a friend about it. Chances are he rubs other people the wrong way too.

I suppose he could of used a stick (a sharp one) and prodded you?

I work in a team where people often wear ear buds to listen to music/podcasts. If I need to get their attention, I usually wave at them or if they still don't clock me, I go and scoot over to their desk. I wouldn't touch someone though as it's not necessary.

Having said that, if this is a one-off, I'd just let it go. His actions aren't particularly wrong but of course if he does it again, then you can ask him to not touch you.

I wouldn't like a firm hold on the shoulder from either a male or female colleague, not even the ones I know well enough to go out with socially and maybe hug on a night out. And I especially wouldn't like it if it wasn't expected because I couldn't see them. But I suspect that if I didn't jump and reactively say, "don't do that again!" I'd probably just say, "thanks for letting me know the headset isn't working," and just silently seethe to myself about it, and be on edge whenever that person was around, in case they did it again. Which probably isn't the best way of dealing with it.

Is it not acceptable for anyone to touch anyone else at work in any way then?

I wasn’t aware of this rule.

What a complete overreaction, I don't know what's becoming of this world! I touched a man's arm yesterday in a cafe, he picked up a plate that someone else had dropped upside down on the floor and then put back in the stack of clean plated, he didn't see, and picked the plate up. He also didn't hear me despite me.saying escucse me about 10 times! Hope I'm not going to be reported!

I expect the OP would not have liked a set of fingers clicking in front of her face to try and get her attention either.

I think the fundamental issue is that she doesn’t want a man to even tell her when she’s being inconsiderate, which she was.