We had a sexual harassment prevention training yesterday at our company meeting. I appreciate the effort, really. I know that sexual harassment is a serious thing and we should all be aware of what we can do to not make other people uncomfortable in the workplace.
But what happens when the sexual harassment session is uncomfortable and awkward? What happens when people (me) laugh at things like super-serious people saying things like "a lot of people will leave here and laugh about what we talk about today, but sexual harassment is a VERY serious thing and is NOT a laughing matter?" She was right. See! Do these people look like they're having a good time with sexual harassment?
There were two guys and two girls who were giving this presentation
(Note: These insurance guys didn't say or do ANYTHING but internally judge those of us dudes who were making eye contact with the girls who were presenting. I think they were documenting every time they saw our glance drop from eye level. Is there a report on this? I could seriously feel them scalding me with their eyes. I felt like I couldn't look up from my pop quiz. I can't be certain of this however, because I was too busy checking the girls out.)
The presentation invited us to watch a foray of movie clips of movie star bosses asking their movie star employees out on movie star dates. We then had to take a movie quiz to tell our instructors if we had just witnessed sexual harassment. I got every answer right. I'm sooooo un-harassing sexually.
It also included a couple of clips from The Office like this interaction:
Michael: You know what? I love Phyllis. You know what else? I think she is gorgeous. I think she is an incredibly, incredibly attractive person. Come here, gimme a kiss…c'mon!
Phyllis: Michael, you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to report you to HR…
Michael: I’m not worried! You know what? The only thing I am worried about? Getting a boner.
Also, the best part was when they showed the staple video during times like these. The video showed a variety of characters that looked like this and this. A narrator describes the difference between sexual harassment and consensual harassment (does that qualify as "harassment," in such a case?) as they show a guy on the phone with his disgruntled honey becoming outraged that he's calling her. She begins to fly off the handle.
He then says "C'mon baby, you know I like it slow." So it's clear this couple has been here before. She scrunches her face like Chucky and hangs up on him (i think...I can't be sure because I was looking at my shoes. Things like this embarrass me for some reason.)
The witch should have known not to blow up at him! "Hey baby, remember last time I told you I liked it slow?"
Really. You expect me to take this seriously and not laugh? You expect me to not immediately walk out of the room after this session and say "hey baby, you know I like it slow," to every single fellow employee the remainder of the day? That's asking a lot. Too much, in fact, because that is precisely what I did. It never got old.
From now on, every time someone becomes flustered or unreasonably loud, I'm just going to gently remind them that I like it slow. Thanks sexual harassment prevention training! At least I learned one thing: that I need to stop doing things like this at work. All good things must come to an end, I suppose.
I did learn my guest/client relationship skills from the best, as shown below.
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