I am a grad student at a large state university serving in a relatively unimportant but public role within our engineering department that requires me to send emails several times a week to all of the other students in the department.
I try to be nice to the other engineering students in accordance with the desire for a professional working relationship and polite departmental culture.
Yet – I get emails from other engineering grad students who I scarcely know, that are aggressive and generally inappropriate for a professional environment and relationship. See below for an example of such an exchange. I don’t think this qualifies as harassment, but it is definitely annoying. And I am still not sure how to respond!
It all started last May, when my name was sent in a departmental wide email after I won an award. I ran into this guy in the hallway and was briefly introduced – he took the initiative to find my email and send me this message:
Ann,
Congrats on your award! That’s awesome. What are you going to do with your proceedings?
I’m going on a mission to the farmer’s market tomorrow morning and you should meet me there. It’s going to be fun.
And if you’re so inclined, I’m playing a graduation gig in the afternoon at a house party. Also should be fun. Let me know if you’re interested.
[name redacted]
Maybe if I had replied to this initial message the rest of this awkwardness could have been avoided. But I didn’t want to write anything back to this guy, that I didn’t even know, that was sending me emails telling me what I SHOULD do. I really hate people who tell me what to do, so this totally set me off. I did not reply to this message.
He continued about one month later in another email message:
You were at 100 points in dorkiness level for not responding to my email.
We’ll subtract 10 just because you listen to Nicki Minaj:)
This one also annoyed me to no end. And now, this guy who I don’t really know, who already sent me a stupid message telling me what to do, is now JUDGING me?! And assigning points? WTF. I asked a trusted friend for advice, and he said to send back a short simple message indicating that the effort was nice though misdirected. I replied:
Good effort, thanks for trying. Better luck next time!
To which he said:
What?! You don’t make sense!
Have lunch with me this week. I’m going to [place name]. Have you been there? It’s good.
Admittedly I was not clear. In direct language I should have explained that I did not appreciate his judgment or his telling me what to do, or whatever the point of these messages was. But I panicked and sent the above wishy-washy message. Compare this with his imperative command “have lunch with me.” Is that appropriate? Does that justify his next move?
You looked weird today. Here’s a joke for you:Two engineering students meet on campus one day.
The first engineer calls out to the other, “Hey — nice bike! Where did you get it?”“Well,” replies the other, “I was walking to class the other day when this pretty, young coed rides up on this bike. She jumps off, takes off all her clothes, and says ‘You can have ANYTHING you want!’”“Good choice!” says the first, “Her clothes wouldn’t have fit you anyway.”
End of message. Did I ask for this? This is gross, right? I have to admit that this crap really bothers me (obviously). When you get an email like this from a guy you don’t know within your workplace, it does not enhance your ability to exist in that environment nor does it make you feel comfortable interacting within that community. Instead, it made me wonder what kind of signals I was giving off that indicated that these messages were okay. How did I give this guy permission to send me this assholish joke? I hate jokes like this because their humor is based on the assumption that the engineers are male and without social graces – clearly much like the fellow in question. But why would you send a woman engineer this joke? Her clothes WOULD have fit me, ha ha? This is terrible. I did not reply.
A few months later, I won another award and my name was in the department news again. Again he tried to leverage this in his communication:
Ann, congrats on being [award winner]!
I still want to share lunch with you. Especially I want to hear about your experience in Asia as I intend to explore there after graduation. Let me know when you’re free.
This email sounded reasonable, and I felt bad about my previous ambiguity and lack of responding. Maybe I was just being unnecessarily sensitive and mean to this guy I did not know? I replied: Sorry I have been quite busy lately. Do you have any specific questions? I think coffee in a couple weeks would work. Cheers.
Which elicited this response:
I don’t take coffee, but I definitely eat. You want to join me to try that new Indian food place at the bottom of [street]?
And I don’t have any particular questions about Asia, just want to hear about your experience there. Good luck with your seminar.
I did not reply to this one either – I was beginning to have a distinct feeling that I did not want to see this guy anywhere off-campus, as these messages were making me feel gross. Why does he want to have lunch with me so bad?
I have ignored him until the present, though he just sent me one final email a couple weeks ago:
Hey Ann.
I feel sad to not hear back from you. It would be nice to get to know you and hear your travel stories. I have been busy wrapping up my research and preparing for my defense. I hope all is well.
Gawd. And now this makes me feel a combination of guilty and stupid, but frustrated at being manipulated into this situation. What lessons can I learn from this?
1) Clear communication is best.
I should have shut this guy down from the start. But this is not an area of skill for me, either – I have some stupid restraint against being “mean”, so I was passive and as a result he did not get the hint and kept contacting me. Being mean is needed to shut down this type of awkwardness.
2) Some engineers are more comfortable with email than speaking in person, and they will send you things in email that they would probably not say to your face.
Like that stupid joke this guy sent me. Can I imagine him telling me that in person? Definitely not! If he had, I would have been more direct about shutting him down and criticizing the joke immediately. But for these people its just easier to type and click the “send” button – instead of working out words in real time. This is not nearly the only male engineer who has sent me awkward messages that are inconceivable in reality. One tip for email is actually to never email something that you would not say in real life – I wish these engineers would keep that in mind!
3) Who ends up feeling bad? How can I not feel like this is my fault?
Well, it is my fault. I should have been clearer and more professional in my responses to this guy. But at the same time, I still really want to blame this dude for being a creep. Maybe I have the wrong tune and he’s really just a curious person with poor word choice and terrible taste in engineering jokes. But don’t I have the prerogative to be able to say No? “No, I don’t want to spend time with you, no I don’t want to talk to you about my time in China, no I don’t want to eat lunch with you, no, I don’t want to be manipulated by you telling me that you’re sad.” No, I don’t want to waste my time dealing with your messages that come out of nowhere, that I didn’t ask for, but definitely bother and disrupt me. Sidebar – can you imagine this story with the gender roles reversed?
So. My New Year’s resolutions include a desire to become more straightforward and less wishy-washy. I am working up a reply currently. It will say something like “Good luck to you in the future. I’m sorry I was not more straightforward in my responses to your emails. I did not appreciate your messages as they either judged me, told me what to do, or generally made me uncomfortable. As I said before, I can answer specific questions but the tone of your communications has made me disdain the thought of talking to you further. Please strive to maintain a professional relationship with polite boundaries for personal space and privacy.”
But – I’m afraid that sending any reply will be viewed as an invitation for continued correspondence. I JUST WANT TO SHUT IT DOWN!
Dear internet – does it make sense that this is aggravating? I know this experience is not unique to myself, in which these guys believe it is their right to send annoying messages and try to control or mandate interactions. How can we communicate to these people that their behavior is unacceptable?
PS – this guy has had a girlfriend throughout these exchanges. I have never spoken to her.
