It’s hard to feel respected at work when someone keeps crossing the line.

So, what would you do if your manager kept turning innocent comments into something inappropriate, then told you that you were the problem for speaking up? Would you just deal with it to keep the peace? Or would you start thinking about taking it to HR?

In the following story, a factory employee finds herself in this situation and is leaning toward the latter. Here’s her story.

Manager made an inappropriate comment?

I (43F) work in a factory-based company. I’m the only woman on the floor, and I handle my own department, which is a pre-assembly type thing. I make everything that isn’t a complete product yet.

You can imagine the talk between guys, which I’m fine with. Sometimes when it gets too inappropriate, I say things like: “Ok, guys, tmi”, or “Okay, that’s enough *** talk for me.”

I never talk about *** or steer conversation in that direction, which I do very deliberately. As the only woman on the floor, you need to be careful. I have been singled out in the past for being too forward, and I won’t let that happen again.

He made the first comment several months ago.

Two months ago, I asked my manager to apologize for a comment he made. He had a metal splinter in his finger and couldn’t locate it by looking.

The way to find it for me usually is to rub your finger along your lips, and because your lips are very sensitive, you can find it. I mentioned that, and he obscenely rubbed his finger through his ****** and said, “Finger on your lips.”

I was too shook to say something in the moment. I’m slow sometimes and tend to think about stuff like that a week later, so I confronted him a week later, and he apologized.

Then, he made it weird about food.

Today, something equally happened with the same people in the office. I needed some information about work, and I went to his office. They were talking about food, and they asked my opinion on something, and I said, “That would be good with cheese.”

They glanced, half-grinning, at each other, and I instantly knew they made it gross.

So I called them out on it.

I said that it is typically a guy thing to think about body parts when I gave an innocent answer. My manager said I was too sensitive and shouldn’t be “that kind of woman.”

She’s considering going to HR.

I commented that from now on, I will only answer work-related questions, and that we need to keep this strictly professional, and that I will not respond to childish innuendos like this.

I am thinking about going to HR about this because he is the only guy in the whole company who makes me feel unsafe like this. First, the finger comment, and now I can’t talk about food without him *********** an innocent comment about food.

I have never had to ask any other colleague to be more careful with their mind. On top of it, he is my manager, he should know and be better.

AIO?

Wow! That guy sounds like something else.

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit would do in this situation.

This reader thinks it’ll be rough at first, but gets better.

For this person, it’s all about documenting the behavior.

Here’s someone who thinks she should warn him.

According to this comment, she needs to have a talk with him.

It’s time to do something, because if she doesn’t, this behavior clearly isn’t going to change.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.