To think my male friend/colleague should not have asked me this!

[AwkwardMoment2020]

Backstory: We’ve been colleagues for around ten months and get on very well. It’s an informal, hipster type work place and all of us on the team tend to socialise together. Him and I have genuinely become friends and enjoy each other’s company. He’s always been very respectful and polite and we are both quite reserved people unlike the rest of the team who are more extrovert. We’ve never ever had any reason or cause to discuss sex.

This is our first week back at work in person and today we were having lunch together outside and catching up. My eye was a bit watery from hay fever and he leaned over and kind of put his thumb next to it as if looking closer and wiped a tear away that was running down and then commented it was a bit red looking in a concerned, caring sort of way. Then, really bloody randomly while he still had his hand near my face he said, really seriously

Have you ever let anyone cum on your face?

I was really shocked and told him it was none of his business and not ok to ask me something so personal. He laughed and said “is that a no, then?” and said it’s the kind of thing friends discuss and he didn’t know why I was being so weird.

I don’t really have anyone to ask this in real life as it’s quite embarrassing but AIBU and weird. Or is it just not alright for someone to ask you something as graphic/sexual as that? As I say we don’t have a friendship where we talk about our sex lives or anything remotely sexual.

Thanks...I’m feeling pretty disillusioned with it all. I just don’t have faith in the environment.

I do realise now that it was creepy but at the time, with it being so out of character/out of the blue and me previously seeing him as a really good, safe friend I think I was trying to come up with other explanations other than “he’s a creep”. And I was trying to see if it was me that was to blame. We are a few days on and I see it all more clearly and rationally now.

The manager is as bad as the creep. That is a piss poor attempt of him to 'managing' a sexual harrassment complaint. You should make it clear to the CEO that you are dissapointed with the outcome of the previous meeting as that is something that should be addressed for the company's sake as well as yours, I would want to know if a management level employee was not handling properly such a serious complaint as the potential legal implications would be too great, and not just from the harrassment from Creepy but from the sexism directed towards you from the manager supposedly dealing with the situation. Manager clearly isn't competent enough to manage employees.

Seriously shocked at his response and I'm glad you had a witness. Please keep a copy of those video calls and minutes etc, and accept any support their HR offer you.

I’m not sure about the CEO to be honest. He seems quite cold and I feel like money is his main concern. There was a different CEO who interviewed me and I saw him every month but then he took early retirement and the other guy took over.

However, the one real occasion I had any dealings with him he did surprise me and was actually very helpful. I’d been trying to arrange training for weeks and felt like the manager was avoiding me and he’d promised to chat with me at x time in his private office (we have a shared space and then seniors have another space they can use privately) and when I arrived at our appointment time (something like the third arranged time he’d missed) he’d gone out with a young female colleague for a “spot of lunch” outside of lunch hours. They did genuinely go to lunch btw in public!

I walked in expecting him and found CEO sitting there, became very apologetic for bursting in, explained the issue and said I’d come back later and despite him usually being quite stern and unempathetic he told me to stay and see if he could help, even though it absolutely wasn’t his role, and he spent over half an hour with me sorting out the training I was lacking. And said he wasn’t happy with the manager’s flakiness!

So maybe he might help me. Fingers crossed.

Your manager is a disgrace and his double entendre is disgusting and shows what a pervert he is.

As a colleague said;

“Manager likes to think he’s got that sexy older man Christian Grey vibe going on and that no girl can resist him. But we all know that he’s just a chubby middle aged dude that reminds us of the creepy uncle we all avoid at the family birthday.”

There’s no other way to sum him up. He makes everything into a double entendre.

It sounds like the CEO is already wise to your manager's carry on and could be a very helpful ally for you to have on side. Also as HR are an outside company there will be no personal favouritism which, when they hear the facts will definitely be a big problem for your manager and your creepy colleague.

You have seen the reaction you got on here from complete strangers which for the most part was complete shock and horror at his behaviour.

I think your CEO while seeming a bit cold and all about the money (in comparison with your blurry hipster colleagues) actually has a business head and knows what professional behaviour is.

He needs to be aware that he has a manager problem as well as an employee problem. It's a toxic environment, where women have to defend themselves against sexual harassment from all sides, by the sound of it.

"I doubt the guy has a perverted bone in his body, scuse the double entendre there haha haha!"

What a plonker. Great that you got that on record tho. I think you have a chance with the CEO.

@picklemewalnuts

I think your CEO while seeming a bit cold and all about the money (in comparison with your blurry hipster colleagues) actually has a business head and knows what professional behaviour is.

He needs to be aware that he has a manager problem as well as an employee problem. It's a toxic environment, where women have to defend themselves against sexual harassment from all sides, by the sound of it.

Yes I think this too. He will know that bad/ineffective management ultimately will affect his bottom line.

I’m just a bit worried about something. I genuinely, genuinely didn’t remember that I was video recording the meeting.

My job is essentially that I’m a translator and I sometimes give language lessons online as a sideline but this became more important as things wound down here with tourism in the Spring with Covid affecting travel. I always, with written permission, record my student’s lessons and send them afterwards for practice. My settings are automatic to record.

I didn’t make the manager aware I was recording him. Will I be in trouble for this? I’m panicking a bit.

I guess too much porn does this kind of shit to men and makes it sound acceptable in their warped minds.

Well done op, you've handled it really well.

I would simply not say anything about the video. Use it for accurate minutes and then delete it. Certainly in the UK we explicitly say that meetings involving any disciplinary or compliant matters should not be recorded.

I reckon the CEO's muted reaction belies the fact he has a serious sexual harassment issue in his hands and a manager that is too weak to address it.

Our CEO would be getting his HR solicitors working on a very prompt and effective response. I do hope yours is the same.

I like the cut of HFC's gib.

Sorry my first para should have said where I work in the UK our policy states no recording.

I would simply not say anything about the video. Use it for accurate minutes
This ^^ OP. Except I'd keep the recording in your personal email account "just in case". You may not need it but ...

Thank goodness for your HFC - we all need someone like her in our corner! Did you also earlier mention there two other colleagues who saw CC come close to you, thought he was going to kiss you, and your reaction to him? I couldn't find the quote. Would statements from them also help?

Sorry you are having to deal with such sleazy behaviour both from your colleague and your inadequate (at the very least) manager. Hope the CEO comes good and you get things resolved satisfactorily. 🌹

That's a really revolting thing to ask someone. I imagine if he's asking that, it's a proposition to do that to you. Sounds like he's been watching too much porn and is a creep.

It not very appropriate, but then sometimes people come out the odd line or conversation that others find a bit inappropriate. Not everyone has managed to correctly apply social interactions to an expected level, 100% of the time.

Having been a supervisor of many staff over the years if someone came to me with that complaint it would likely cause me to think they were also poor at handing social interactions, in response to those saying report him.

I usually expected staff to be grown up enough to be able to manage their social interactions with one another to a degree that one isn't running to 'tell the teacher' every time an inappropriate comment was made or overheard.

That being said if there was ever a threat to safety or wellbeing I'd want to know immediately. This clearly wasn't either of those and as such believe the OP has done right to ask outside work to clarify in her own mind whether it was appropriate or not and leave it at that.

@Alwaystalks500 - with that crass, undermining response I’m extremely glad you aren’t my supervisor.

Sorry I hadn't read the full thread.

I'd be surprised if this resulted in a positive outcome & I feel that your helper friend may have let her emotional side get the better of her especially involving a CEO prior to letting the complaint to management run its course. It sounds like your friend may have been expressing her anger over an unresolved incident she had prior?

Either way these hipster work places are definitely places where toxic masculinity & femininity won't be far away and it seems a bit excessive to involve the CEO in what, at most, was a management level complaint.

I still don't see, given this was out of character and the two shared a friendly relationship, why this couldn't be easily resolved by telling the guy he'd overstepped and request he not speak like that in future?

Why all the bitterness and drama over such a minor incident?

Why all the bitterness and drama over such a minor incident?
Wtf? What is wrong with your boundaries?!

alwaystalks500

Great victim blaming there!

So it’s the person who this was done too’s fault for “not managing social interactions” ....

sometimes people come out the odd line or conversation that others find a bit inappropriate

If “has anyone ever cum on your face?” doesn’t quite hit the threshold for you bothering to support your reports, can you tell us what would???

What constitutes a threat to wellbeing for you?

sometimes people come out the odd line or conversation that others find a bit inappropriate

Bold fail!!

It’s very warped to call this a “minor incident”.

Intimately touching another person’s face in a pandemic.

Asking them, whilst touching their face if they have ever allowed a man to ejaculate on her face.

Repeating the exact same question when the other person became upset.

Telling them they are weird and minimising the upset when they insisted they were uncomfortable.

Sending multiple messages via social media that went ignored.

Sending an emotionally blackmailing apology encouraging the person not to tell.

Lying about the chain of events to colleagues, saying that she had asked for him to touch her face.

Inappropriately flirting with the rest of the team to cover his tracks.

It’s not just the workplace that’s toxic. It’s you Alwaystalks500. Tattling to teacher? A supportive work colleague apparently has anger over an unresolved issue and being an “emotional woman”? Not behaving like grown ups?

The management was an apologist for this behaviour, made excuses, made an inappropriate sexual joke himself, also emotionally guilt tripped the victim and told her to hush up. And called an ally aggressive. THAT’s why the CEO was involved.

That’s a piss poor attitude for a supervisor. This isn’t just an inappropriate little social faux pas by a clumsy teenager or something. It’s a 30 year old man making a degrading proposition, twice, whilst touching a woman in a manner that onlookers assumed he was trying to kiss her. Do not belittle such vile and unprofessional conduct and make out a complaint is immature for goodness sake. I’m disgusted by your attitude.

Alwaystalks500 I think you've forgotten to wash the fruit and vegetables,dear

I don't know whether anyone else has suggested this, but when the original question was asked, a quick, "Why do you ask? Is that what you want someone to do to you?" would probably have shut him up. But it's thinking about a smart retort at a moment when you're in shock that's difficult.

A response you can always have ready for any inappropriate comment or question is "Why would you say/ask that?" which gets you off the hook and puts the offender on the spot themselves, giving you time to make your exit!

Management is another matter altogether and I hope you are a union member.