Boundaries

[Anonymousbosch39]

I work in customer service in a small village.

There is a 70 year old male customer who comes into my place of work regularly since his wife died earlier this year. He doesn't come in to use any of the services, he comes in to stand at the counter and talk.

On any shift he can come in up to 4 or 5 times.
He's a nice man, full of grief after the loss of his wife. The conversation tends to be about him and he sort of demands attention as he stands right in front of my desk and so it's hard to get other work done.

I went on my lunchbreak in the village a couple of weeks ago and I was sat alone. He approached and asked if he could join me. I felt blindsided and that I couldn't say no, so I said 'yes'. It was fine, it was pleasant but didn't feel much like a break as he still came into the workplace afterwards and stood and talked to me and my colleague for half an hour.

The following week it happened again- he approached and asked to join me for lunch and I said 'yes'.

This week he came into work and said he would buy me lunch and I said 'very kind but no thanks' he took offence and mentioned that I had refused a lovely lunch with him.

I don't want to have him approach me when I am on a break from work, I don't want to be bothered. I've now consigned myself to our dark, dingy staff room just so I can be left alone.

He said to my colleague today that we have treated him with kindness and my colleague said "it's part of our job" then he said "but I feel like you are all doing more than a job, you've been such friends".

I don't want to upset this man but I do feel like he is pushing boundaries because we have been kind. It's starting to get tiresome as I can't get work finished, other customers are commenting on his always being there and I can't walk out of my work space without feeling there is a demand for my time.

I'm interested in other people's experiences of this sort of scenario in customer service and what worked for them.

I would have a word with your manager, this is harassment and they should be able to deal with it.

I agree. This is your manager's problem to deal with.

That sounds very sad and extremely difficult for you.

I don't think it's fair to call it harassment when it's clearly someone mentally suffering with grief and loneliness. Lots of people in shops are only there for that reason. He sounds desperately lonely and wanting to be around possibly the only people who have been kind to him since his wife died, rather than someone deliberately trying to push boundaries.

Your manager probably needs to have a quiet, compassionate word - mentioning details of suitable befriending or other services in a non-judgemental way as part of that conversation might help.

Any of us could end up as alone and lonely as he clearly is. It should be dealt with compassionately.

I agree with your approach @owladventure there are ways of dealing with this man that don't involve branding a grieving widower as committing harassment. There but for the grace of god go we all, as they say.

A supervisor or manager can quite easily point out to this gentleman that it's against company policy for staff to socialise with clients and they would appreciate him not putting staff in an awkward position. Recommend the charity Cruse which can help him if he's struggling with loss of his wife.

The bit where I lose sympathy with him is where he gets offended that you didn't want to accept his invitation to lunch.

Speak to your manager and explain the impact it's having, both on business and on you - he crossed a line asking you to lunch like that.

You don't have to put up with it just because he's lonely and grieving.

Being a grieving widow doesn’t excuse his offence at the OP declining his lunch offer. If it was just an innocent offer without obligation he wouldn’t mind at all that she said no.

Can your manager have a word? He needs to be told that you all have work to do during work hours, and like to decompress during your breaks so aren’t really available for long chats.