(Wet) Dream Job
by Audrey Ference
Dear Audrey,
I have a colleague who at least once a week comes into work and tells everyone about her sex dreams. Usually someone we work with was involved, and she will tell them every little detail of their dream performance. It’s very uncomfortable. I guess I understand the desire to tell someone they were in your dream? But these are extremely explicit. I don’t want to get HR involved because she’s a sweet girl and this could run her afoul of our sexual harassment policy. I definitely don’t want to be the one to sit her down and tell her. But it needs to stop. Any thoughts?
Oof, that’s troubling. I know people arrive in work settings with different ideas of what “professional” means. Some people would be appalled by the thought of wearing jeans to work; others think nothing of hot pants. And yet “frequent, graphic descriptions of sex dreams starring your coworkers” seems like a pretty obvious line to cross. If nothing else, that is what Gchat is for.
I agree that someone needs to tell this gal to knock it off. Depending on the seriousness of your bosses/HR people, she could indeed get in some actual permanent-record-level trouble if the wrong person complains. But I can absolutely see why you are hesitant to take on the job of explaining how to behave properly to her. Being told your behavior is unprofessional is a pretty icky feeling. Bad enough coming from HR, but to hear it from a coworker and have the realization that people have been talking about you? Ugh. I got chastised by HR once for the length of my skirts, and I still get angry/embarrassed thinking about the conversation. (And trust that I am a pretty modest dresser. If I go above the knee I ALWAYS have tights on. Her argument was that opaque tights are not pants, which, WHATEVER, GRANDMA.)
I also feel like office things can get very sticky very quickly. If you involve yourself, you can find yourself more involved than you want to be. If you confronted this woman and she freaked out and took it to her boss, then suddenly rather than being a nice person trying not to embarrass someone, you’re an employee who inappropriately took an HR matter into her own hands.
It’s cold, but I think a lot of people would advocate a policy of non-involvement. All this stuff varies workplace-to-workplace, of course. I have just personally seen kind, well-meaning people trying to help get tangled in awful corporate conflict-resolution webs that left them worse off for being nice.
So, what to do? If you have someone you work with who is kind of an elder statesperson without being a boss, you could ask him or her to speak with her. Or if she is particularly close to someone in the office, drop hints to that person. Definitely start saying things like, “Man, nobody wants to hear about that” whenever she starts one of her dream tellings. Perhaps she will eventually get the hint? Or, this might be too creepy, but you could register a one-use-only Gmail address and send her an email letting her know she’s being inappropriate.
Office communication and boundary-setting is really tricky. There’s a reason companies pay an entire department to deal with it. So good on you for trying to fix this, but watch out for yourself first.
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