I blocked my ‘creepy’ co-worker from texting me after he found my number in a group chat
An office worker has told how she blocked her ‘creepy’ co-worker from texting her after he found her number in a group chat at work.
The woman began ignoring her colleague after he unexpectedly sent her WhatsApp texts – including outside of work hours, such as on a Saturday night.
‘Hello there lady! I got your number from the group chat. I hope you don’t mind, have a great day! :D’ the man said in his text.
However, the woman didn’t respond, prompting him to send her a string of texts.
‘So, you’re just going to ignore me?’ he said in a follow-up text.
‘I see you were active in the group chat so I don’t understand why you would ignore me.
‘If you don’t want to contact me via WhatsApp just say so, there’s no reason to be rude.’
Furious, the woman replied bluntly: ‘I don’t want you to contact me via WhatsApp.’
‘If you need to contact me, do so via Teams. Take care.’
An office worker has told how she blocked her ‘creepy’ co-worker from texting her after he found her number in a group chat at work
Stunned by her response, he said: ‘Wow…’
‘I wanted to go over the file… but I guess that is somehow crossing professional boundaries,’ he continued.
The woman said there was no reason for him to contact her privately via text as they hardly work together.
‘My email is (email address) if you have any questions,’ she responded.
He then replied with a thumbs up emoji before sending over two audio recordings. However, the files had already been deleted by the time she opened them.
‘So confused at this, I don’t even know him. I was just going to ignore the text but he kept insisting so I had to answer,’ she said in a post about the dilemma.
‘Forwarding these to HR first thing in the morning.’
She added: ‘We work from home and our in-office days don’t match so I only see him around once every three months, thankfully.’
The woman unexpectedly received WhatsApp texts from a colleague she only saw in the office once every three months
Her post was met with more than 430 comments, with many urging her to report the man’s texts to HR.
‘Definitely creepy. Texting a personal number without permission and expecting a chummy response is insane. Stay safe around this guy, he’s not well,’ one shared.
‘You handled that absolutely perfectly. His “I wanted to go over work stuff” was such an obvious cop out lol… What a creep. Anybody messaging someone strictly for work purposes is never going to start a message off with “hello there lady!”,’ another said.
‘On behalf of men everywhere, I am so sorry,’ one added.
‘Definitely let HR know because this is insanely inappropriate behaviour,’ one said.
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How should workplaces handle staff who invade colleagues’ privacy or contact them outside work hours?
Some noticed one of his texts was sent at 8.40pm on a Saturday night – meaning he had no reason to contact her outside of work hours.
Others suggested the man may have ‘crashed out’ when he sent the voice notes.
‘Oh man, not the audio recordings! Things were about to get really weird,’ one said.
‘I can only imagine HR is going to have a ton of questions for him about those unsent audio recordings,’ another shared.
Meanwhile, one woman shared a similar encounter she had at work.
‘Please report this to your boss or HR. I had something similar happen with a creepy older male co-worker that found my personal phone number on an emergency employee contact list and began randomly calling me wanting to hang out,’ she said.
‘I told him repeatedly to stop calling me. My fiancé also told him to stop. When he didn’t stop, I went to my general manager and reported the co-worker.
‘The GM took it seriously and the guy was eventually fired as he had done some other weird stuff. This guy had no reason to be contacting me outside of work as we didn’t even work in the same department.’
