He was never going back to the office again. “Never!” I had rarely seen him so adamant. “But, if management insist, what then?” I asked. “No way am I going back to the way we were,” he said. I wasn’t sure whether to probe further.
An acquaintance more than a friend, he is generally a mild-mannered good-humoured man. I allowed a silence so he could choose whether to say more.
“I am one of the most vile, dangerous and evil creatures on the face of the earth, you know?” he began. “You are?” I responded. “So are you!” he said. I began to feel uneasy.
“Yes, I am white, middle-aged and male. Tick all the boxes. Predator, misogynist, exploiter par excellence of all that’s weak and vulnerable.” I was lost.
Knowing none of this was true of the man before me, I asked him to explain. And he began the sad story. His colleagues include men and women of all ages and in the period pre-pandemic he had a wounding experience involving younger staff.
A young woman joined the company. He knew and liked her family and went out of his way to help her. He chatted to her frequently, encouraged her with projects, offered advice and ideas, and suggested who she might talk to in management. Soon he began to pick up negative vibes from other younger colleagues, while the young woman herself – as he saw it – became nervous during their conversations.
#MeToo movement
At the time there was much discussion in the office about the #MeToo movement, with one younger female colleague suggesting that middle-aged men groomed young women “...perhaps, unconsciously”. She looked directly at him. The penny dropped.
“I don’t know whether it was the ‘perhaps’ or the ‘unconscious’ that was most offensive,” he said, “but I felt as if I’d emerged from a sewer”. He was outraged.
Like many Irish men of his age, while intellectually liberal, he is sexually and emotionally conventional in his personal life. The idea of grooming a younger woman would never cross his mind.
He was so angry he had decided to leave the job, which he loved, when the pandemic began. Remote working meant he escaped the toxicity he believed he was dealing with. “Yes,” I agreed, “remote working is probably your best idea”.
Toxic, from Latin toxicus, for "poisoned".
inaword@irishtimes.com
