Stories From My Past: Harassment Training

So, the .NET Training class I'm going through this week has dredged up some memories about other training experiences. This happened at my old job, a few years ago.

We (the very Dilbert-y employees) were told that we all had to attend mandatory "Sexual Harassment Training". That's right... training. Not, "Prevention" or "... and the Workplace", or even "Policies". We were apparently going to learn exactly how to harass someone. There were more than a few "I already know how to do that!" jokes going around, as you can imagine.

For reasons that aren’t very funny and would take too long to explain, the "classes" were consolidated. So, we had ... I'm guessing around 100 people per class? Much larger than it should have been, in any case. The facility didn't have any rooms that big, so the largest area we had was cleared out. No chairs, no tables, just floor. We were told to cram in and sit.

I was right up against at least 4 people. Everybody was. We were told to scoot in closer, because we still didn't have enough room.

Finally, we all fit. Well, for a very liberal definition of the word "fit". My knees were plunged deeply into the back of the poor woman in front of me. I was hip-to-hip with the folks on either side of me. Behind me, my backside was intimate with the knees of some other poor soul.

Then, a very condescending trainer-lady proceeded to tell us all that inappropriate touching was bad. What?, you mean, like this touching we're all doing right now?

Ah, memories.