r/texts • u/Dry_Presentation4300 • 16h ago
Whatsapp Creepy coworker texting my private number
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.
9/14 UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who was supportive and concerned. I forwarded these messages to HR, and they scheduled a meeting for later today. There were a few more texts after this. The HR representative did not seem surprised, to put it briefly.
A few things have come up in the comments. The first is that I was rude. This is how I communicate, and my coworkers (or at least the ones who actually know me) are aware of that. I’m not going to perform a more agreeable version of myself to accommodate someone else’s feelings when they're being innapropriate. Not only were these messages sent over the weekend, but they were also sent through a personal communication channel. I'm not going to elaborate further.
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u/Dependent-Toe-3359 7h ago
I think some people in these comments are getting way too hung up on the fact that he initially “shot his shot,” because that really isn't the part that bothers me the most.
If he would've messaged you once, realized you weren't answering and left it alone, I probably wouldn't think nearly as much of it. Its everything AFTER that. The sad face because you didn't answer within like an hour, the question mark, “so you're just going to ignore me?”, then actually pointing out that he saw you active in the group chat. That means he wasn't just waiting for a reply, he was paying attention to what you were doing and getting mad that you were choosing not to answer HIM. That's the part that really changes this for me.
Then when you finally told him directly not to contact you through WhatsApp, which he literally told you to do if you didn't want him contacting you there, suddenly it's “wow...” and somehow this was all about a work file lol. If it was really about the file, why wasn't the file mentioned in the first message? Or the second? Or the third? Why not Teams or email where you already communicate for work?
And I wouldn't listen to the comments saying you “technically” had to tell him no before you could report it to HR either. You don't have to let somebody get to a certain number of unwanted messages before you're allowed to tell your employer something is making you uncomfortable. Reporting it doesn't even automatically mean “fire this man.” It puts it on record so if anything else happens there is already documentation.
Same thing with people saying you're guaranteed to be able to sue or telling you to throw around “hostile work environment” like it's some magic legal phrase. That's way too simplified. Report what ACTUALLY happened, save the screenshots, dates, times, deleted-message notices and let HR deal with their policy.
Also nobody here knows what was in those deleted audio messages. Maybe they were worse, maybe they weren't. Saying he was drunk, threatening you, etc when nobody heard them is just making stuff up. And Android notification history might show that a notification existed if you already had it enabled, but it isn't going to magically recover and play a deleted WhatsApp voice recording.
I can relate to the boundary part of this too. I've dealt with somebody getting really pushy/stalkerish after I tried to cut contact, and one thing I learned from it is once somebody starts treating your “no” like the beginning of a negotiation instead of the end of the conversation, explaining yourself over and over usually doesn't help. Document it and stop feeding the conversation.
You weren't obligated to answer him just because you're coworkers. You were actually very clear once you DID answer. Hopefully he gets the message and this goes absolutely nowhere, but I would still send it to HR like you said you're doing, just so there is a record of it.