Called to HR for behaviour at an after-work event. Thoughts, please...

[DrLoveHandles]

Name changed because this is potentially outing.

I was at an after-work reception last week. There was mingling. I mingled into a group of four colleagues. All were holding wine. I was holding orange juice.

One of the colleagues - different department, never met him before - asked "Why aren't you drinking?"
I kind of waved my hand, said "Oh, you know, reasons" and laughed. I believe this made it clear I didn't want to discuss the matter without making things awkward.
The guy then said "Intriguing, like what reasons?"

I saw red. I basically listed all the reasons why someone mightn't be drinking alcohol and told him it was inappropriate to ask. I didn't shout or swear and I wasn't overtly aggressive. But my tone was patronising and I took a very forthright kind of stance (unblinking eye contact, standing at full height, no smiles etc.). I didn't give him time to reply, I excused myself from the group and went home shortly afterwards.

Today I got an email from my line manager asking me for a meeting with her and HR people to discuss what went on. Apparently, its a matter of unprofessional behaviour.

I'm not in a union.

I've never had any dealings with HR before. I'd be really grateful to hear anyone's thoughts on this situation. I mean anything - what might happen? What I should do to prepare etc?

MN have had plenty of people come on here and tell posters they as discriminatory lawyers. They haven’t always been right by a long shot.

How did she even come close to ‘harassing’ him. Thats twice now you have exaggerated to make her sound like the aggressor. She was not physically aggressive. She did not harass him. She was patronising at worst.

You also suggested he was ‘chatting her up’ I believe.

You are a man, I suspect, and you don’t like the idea that women now don’t feel the need to smile sweetly and gloss over the shit behaviour we have experienced from men for decades. Lots of women now feel confident to call it out and to hold our boundaries.

This was a mild version of the kind of entitlement that men have, where they think they have a right to a response, a right to information, a right to a ‘smile’. Where they don’t take hints and then when you say it straight instead, they get offended and feel put out. And then the pattern is often that they get aggressive. That’s why women learned to fawn. To smooth over. To smile.

Good for the OP that she didn’t get coerced into sharing something she wasn’t happy to share.

Here's a question for the lawyers on here- shouldn't the OP be told in advance under what policy she is being seen?
She intends to look at the policies but surely it's not a guessing game. Harassment? Performance? Heath and wellbeing? And the nature of the issue? This will tell her her rights in terms of representation and also what to expect from the recording: IE who is recording it and when records are made available.

Or.

HE could have not pointed it out in the first place and had the awareness that the reasons for not drinking might be personal.

HE could have said ‘fair enough’ when she said ‘reasons’ and moved the conversation on.

HE could have had the humility to say ‘of course, sorry, that was an intrusive question. What do you think of the buffet?’ Rather than going crying to HR over something so little.

What were the reasons you gave not to drink?

Absolutely nobody's' busyness, not HR's and not yours either.

It’s possible HR are checking that you’re ok despite being a pregnant alcoholic with an infection.
yeah, no.

Why are people even asking why she’s not drinking alcohol?

All the best with your meeting OP. Hopefully common sense prevails. The guy sounds like a wanker. Your response was on point, I don't think you've done anything wrong. I've been in a similar situation, hounded and goaded about why I wasn't drinking, despite offering an explanation. I was far ruder than you!

It’s because she dented his small di*k ego

I suspect he is a man who feels nervous about the increasing empowerment of women and is clutching at straws to maintain the status quo in his mind because this is the way he talks to women and he doesn’t like the idea of having to work a bit harder to treat them like fellow human beings first and foremost. Just a hunch though.

100%

I would diplomatically change the subject to something totally bland.
I wish I had that skill. My DH does. He can literally take the most provocative things anyone says and calmly deflect and defuse them without the speaker even realising it. What the other person says ends up in a black hole of nothingness, never to be seen again. 😂

It’s a special talent for social chit chat, and he’s very popular as a result as everyone thinks he's so chill.

Any tips on how to pull this off?

I think the best reply would have just been to say I’m allergic to alcohol, and leave it at that. He shouldn’t have asked, and hopefully he’ll be told not to ask any more overly personal questions to colleagues, he’s not on a date.

@DrLoveHandles the fact that he repeated a personally intrusive question - were you also worried / sensing that he was trying to hit on you - that can make a woman respond very assertively ( and men read assertively as aggressively we all know that’s a common misogynist problem )

I'd be taking the stance that the meeting was obviously to address his unprofessional behaviour and that they wanted your statement of events.

OP shouldn't have to lie.

"How come you're not drinking?"

"Personal choice"
"prefer not to."
"not my vibe"

As drinking orange juice
"working on my 5 a day"
"getting my daily fruit quota"

Any follow up questions form him:
"anyway... how are you liking the new xyzy" ask him question about his department is he enjoying x . whatever

Im teetotal and, if asked, just say that alcohol doesn't agree with me. It's not hard to deflect these sort of questions. I find they are mostly asked by the young and we were all young once.

You might want to post this in the University staff common room board OP - we’ll all understand there.

I don’t drink either and I’m amazed that people are suggesting it’s OK to press people on why they aren’t drinking. It’s really no-one’s business and could also clearly be a very delicate matter. I’m hoping for your sake that someone complains about the other guy.

The very fact that he ran to HR makes him a Weasley little prick

As others have said, you'll be absolutely fine. Avoiding alcohol a) doesn't need to be justified and b) has clear connotations that anyone who has lived in the world knows, or the rude guy wouldn't have pushed for a reason. He may claim you embarrassed him in front of colleagues, but you can counter that very easily that he actually tried to expose something personal from you before colleagues, by not accepting the clear social cue you gave in being vague and professional in your reply. You then countered his rude attempt with a clear and concise reply to illustrate to him that it is not appropriate to ask this and why.

If HR take issue with your style of rebuttal, then you can ask why you would need to protect his feelings when he didn't protect yours. What if you WERE pregnant, what if you were on medication, what if you weren't drinking for the myriad protected in the work place reasons.

Best of luck with it, I think you did a good job schooling the idiot,it's a shame but not surprising he hasn't taken it and is trying to get back at you.

Same

@DrLoveHandles I have to be honest, I would turn this on its head, and say as you sit down, "I am so glad that you set up this meeting HR, because I am interested to know what steps you are taking to deal with someone who asks inappropiate questions to a colleague who is not drinking? For all he knew, I could be a recovering alcoholic, pregnant, dealing with an infection or a designated driver. I shut this down as quickly as I could and no, I will not be sharing my reasons for not drinking, that is solely my business, so how do we take this forward?"

L'attaque, c'est le bon defence!

You cannot take personal offence at anything in order to pull this off. Everything has to be water off a duck’s back, and you need to be able to think on your feet about any topic.

So as an example, in the OP’s case, once the idiot asked a second time, responding with say “yeah a lot of people do not seem to drink much these days, have you seen the statistics about the young generation all being teetotal, I wonder why that is? Do you think it’s the influence of social media and healthy living?” Might have worked.

Someone old enough to be an academic should know better than to ask anyone why they are not drinking. Aside from just not wanting to, you can't drink when you are doing IVF, or when you are pregnant obviously, and a lot of women don't in menopause as it makes the symptoms worse. The other common reasons include a health condition, temporary medication or addiction, which are private. I'm slightly baffled at his total lack of common sense and frankly hope this means he won't do it again.

Absolutely do this, OP. I would also add ‘religious reasons’ to that list as well, put another protected characteristic in the mix!

OP, before this meeting you should ask them a) what exactly is your 'role' in it (ie is it your behaviour that is being looked at as unprofessional, or are you being asked as a witness?) and b) which policies you need to be aware of/might it have contravened.

If it is you being pulled up,I find it interesting that it is for using a patronising tone, sustaining unblinking eye contact, standing at full height, not smiling and generally being 'forthright'.
All things that men do quite routinely and (IME) without even realising, especially the tone thing.
Are we really not past the point where people feel the need to make a fuss about what someone else is drinking? For one thing it could be very sensitive (pregnancy as yet unannounced/recovering alcoholic/on medication). But also, seriously, why do people even think about what's in someone else's glass and how do they have the headspace for it?