Ladies only please. Have you been harassed on the job?

About 15 years ago, the paper where I was working installed a system that had a new type of instant messenger that made it much easier to IM people than on the crude version we had before. Of course we all played with it like a new toy, but eventually it became part of our routine. We sent work-related memos, we sent jokes, we asked where someone wanted to go to lunch, etc.

I got a message one day from a female intern: "You make me laugh," she said. That was pretty cool. We struck up a friendship that's still strong.

A few months later I began exchanging IMs with a woman in graphics who'd borrowed my copy of an underground paper and couldn't believe the Q&A in its sex column. She initiated the conversations, and I responded. We were both married, and we talked about things candidly, but amazingly it never got weird or awkward.

Whatever people talked about, people also IMd about. It was the start of things to come for all of us who would soon have Internet access and instant-messenger programs.

I sent an IM to a new cops reporter when I found out she was from a city I was about to travel to for a game. I asked if she knew any good places to eat there. We exchanged messages a couple of times. About a week later, after noticing she was easily the best-dressed person in our newsroom, I sent her a message saying, "That's a great outfit. You have the best sense of style in the newsroom." I had started paying attention to such things when I got married, because my wife was a people watcher who had an eye for fashion, art and individuality. It was contagious.

Anyway, two days later our only female editor called me into her office. She was nice about it, but she said the cops reporter (who was about 25 and had just gotten married) came to her all upset, shaking and nervous, and said I had made her uncomfortable. I had this sinking feeling in my stomach the more she talked and used certain words, because I thought, "Am I being accused of sexual harrassment?" It was still a relatively new term in the workplace, at least in newsrooms, and I started thinking, "What if nobody believes me that it was something totally innocent?" She didn't have the message saved. I have no idea how she described it to them.

Bottom line: I wasn't being accused of anything, but the editor said I should be careful not to say anything that could make the reporter uncomfortable. I never spoke to her again. She would sometimes pass me in the hall and say "Hi," and I never acknowledged her. I know it sounds crazy, and some of you might think I was wrong, but I thought it was my only protection. I had no idea if anything I said would be taken the wrong way.

It was such a bizarre feeling, I cannot describe it. As I've gotten older, I am more sympathetic to how she must have felt. She was a small-town girl in what for her was a big city, and it was her first job at a mid-sized paper. I also learned a lot about the "creepy" factor of words flashing on a screen suddenly and seemingly from nowhere, and the "faceless" vibe it can generate if you don't know the person well. I later found our her husband was abusing her, so I suppose she had different boundaries than other women I had worked with. But, as crazy as it sounds, I felt vulnerable after that, because I realized how easily something said as a sincere compliment could lead to "official" inquiry at work that could go on someone's record, prompt a lot of whispers, damage a reputation, etc.

After that, I realized it's not as simple as "All women like to be complimented," and I've tried my best to think about the other person's perspective -- whether male or female -- before saying something even remotely personal in the workplace.

 

It goes back to the relationship between you and the person you are making a comment to. Woudl I do it to just anyone? No. But someone who I have been friendly with and who knows me well? why not. It's gray, certainly not black and white, but it doesn't have to be difficult.

 

And THAT is why I'll also err on the side of caution.