Jessica HickmanThought Leader | TEDx Speaker | 2 x Author | Leadership

A personal experience of dealing with inappropriate comments in the workplace

Name: A personal experience of dealing with inappropriate comments in the workplace
Uploaded: 2023-02-14T08:21:19+00:00
Duration: 1 min 39 s
Channel: Jessica Hickman
Description: In this video, Jessica Hickman recounts a specific incident where a manager made a sexually suggestive comment about her tan in an open‑plan office…

14 Feb 2023 · 2 min

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1:39

In this video, Jessica Hickman recounts a specific incident where a manager made a sexually suggestive comment about her tan in an open‑plan office, causing her discomfort and prompting mixed reactions from colleagues. She uses the anecdote to explore the thin line between workplace banter and harassment, emphasizing that comments which make someone feel uncomfortable—whether based on race, gender, appearance, or other personal attributes—should be classified as harassment rather than harmless joking. Hickman highlights how colleagues often avoid eye contact or walk away, illustrating the social dynamics that can enable such behavior, and urges viewers to reflect on distinguishing bullying from banter in professional settings.

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One day I walked into the office, an open-plan office on a construction site, and one of my managers looked at me and looked around at our colleagues and peers, majority men, and asked me had I caught a tan or been tanning that weekend. Considering we lived in the Darwin heat, yes, I had tan. So confused and uncomfortable, I said, "Yes." and he proceeded to snigger and laugh and ask me if I had tanned my white bits as well. So, as you can imagine, this confronting comment of a sexual nature in front of other people or even one person is extremely uncomfortable and inappropriate for the workplace. So, I felt uncomfortable, quickly scanned my colleague's face and their response, a lot of people kind of sometimes laughed, but tended to look away from eye contact for me, and 2 people actually walked away. So I want you to think about bullying versus banter, and harassment versus banter in the workplace. If a comment makes you feel uncomfortable, and I say to people, we often feel it in our gut, we can be sat in a meeting and someone makes a comment that maybe is generalising a race, or call someone a nickname that is pretty uncomfortable, a racial nickname, a sexist nickname, or just a nickname that is belittling them on their height, their gender, their appearance. Those behaviors are classed as harassment and not acceptable in the workplace.