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Boundary Collapse
Dear Work Friend,
I work in a role that was specifically created to support a department head who’s not my direct manager. Over the last few months, our once close professional relationship has shifted in an uncomfortable way. He became upset that I spent time socially with other co-workers outside the office but not him, and told me he felt hurt and “rejected” that I maintain boundaries between my work and personal life. I repeatedly explained that those boundaries are important and that I do not want the relationship to become more intimate. Instead of accepting this, he began disclosing problems in his home life.
When I was considering a role working with another leader at the company, he told me that if I did that, “he couldn’t protect me.” I told him that his language and behavior felt creepy, romantically charged, disrespectful and inappropriate. During a subsequent, intense late-night conversation, he said he hated “walking on eggshells” around me and even said he wanted to quit.
I don’t want to overreact or destroy my career. I also don’t want either of us to quit. In an ideal world, I would like to repair the working relationship. But I also feel constantly on edge, emotionally burdened and undignified.
I’m struggling with several questions: Am I right to view this as sexual harassment or at least a serious boundary violation? How do you maintain professionalism with someone after they’ve made the relationship emotionally coercive? If it’s even possible, what would healthy repair look like in a situation like this?
You should talk to a lawyer. What you’re experiencing is sexual harassment by any practical measure: The department head has created a hostile work environment and implied a quid pro quo threat. But I’m not qualified to say whether you could win a lawsuit on that basis. Many employment lawyers offer free initial consultations, and they can make an assessment once given all of the relevant facts.
What I am qualified to tell you is that this guy is a manipulative creep. While “manipulative creep” is not a legal category, and the pronouncement of an advice columnist doesn’t carry any judicial sanction, I hope that my verdict can at least help you get over your fear of overreacting. Your colleague has engaged in a multi-month campaign of emotional coercion and unwanted intimacy that has left you anxious and exhausted — and you’re trying to envision “healthy repair”! If anything, I’m worried you’re underreacting.
The only way to maintain professionalism in the face of this controlling sad-sack routine, one that would make even the most toxic emo teenager blush, is with militant patrolling of boundaries. Ignore or refuse to entertain questions or conversations not directly relevant to your work, and limit your communications to work hours, no matter how much emotional blackmail is threatened. And please, I beg you, do not have any more “intense, late-night” conversations with this man.
