Ask Slashdot: Preempting Sexual Harassment In the Workplace?

zwei2stein writes "My team of about 10 men (IT guys) is expecting a new colleague: a female one. It is guaranteed that there will be remarks, double entendres and innuendos with huge potential of getting worse. We already have women in teams who can somehow handle this (and deliver apropriate verbal slaps). How would you deal with this? We talked about some simple, fun ways — anyone who [acts inappropriately] will have to wear an embarassing tie, etc. — instead of swear jar, having a sexual innuendo jar and even fairly harsh punishments (like people losing their bonuses for the month or their extra vaccation days). I'd like to figure out a solution that would be effective, not call much attention to itself, and not be quickly abandoned." What has your workplace done to create a good culture on this front? And what hasn't worked?

Comments

Re:It's called "Get A Grip!"

[cayenne8]

A real world example: most of us will remember Jeff Dunham's "Silence I kill you". I was mimicking this play in the office a couple of years ago. This was outside of the U.S., but I had American colleagues present. One of them had not seen the show, and was offended. This also happened to be a female, and by the end of the afternoon, my manager and the local HR were involved, and I had to talk to a crying co-worker who was really, really offended. And I had no clue why.

And what should have been the proper response to this?

Tell the crying woman, after an explanation (maybe she didn't 'get it' for some reason)...after a point, to get over it. It is a fucking joke.

It isn't your fault someone misunderstands things or has such a thin skin and likely will cry if too many flies are swatted on the window sill.

In the case you laid out...there was no harassment....they need to get over it, and quit wasting company time crying over nothing...and get some work done.