[sudo-discuss] someone at sudo was a creep and it's a problem

[Jake]

Dear Sudoroom,

sorry for streaming mode, i'm not sure how to talk about this.

there's this guy who's been at sudo a few times during hardware hacking 
tuesdays.  I think his name is Sean but i can't remember for sure now.

he likes talking about his workout routine, and getting rich, and says 
he's going to invent bio-drones and says he's working on some secret 
project that's going to show to elon musk and it's going to make him super 
rich.

well tonight he crossed the line from annoying to unacceptably creepy.

tonight a friend of mine came to sudoroom so we could use the robot to cut 
holes in these christmas ornaments.  It was a big project that took hours 
and a lot of focus.  Sean (is that his name?) was on her like glue the 
entire time, trying to be helpful, talking to her.

It made me uncomfortable, but she's a grownup and can speak for herself, 
but at the same time the power dynamic and assertiveness imbalance was 
quite stark and I really wanted to say something.
But i didn't know what to say.

the first time he went away for a minute, which was after what seemed like 
a long time, i said to my friend "you know, if anyone's bothering you here 
you can tell them to go away" because i couldn't think of anything better 
to say.  maybe i should have offered to tell him to go away?  but that 
would have only parried the problem that one time.

Of course he soon came back.  I think we were both trying to ignore him as 
best we could, and we did get some good work done thanks to Zack and Fenn, 
who are great.  But eventually they left and it was just the three of us.

I don't know what other things he said to my friend when i wasn't 
watching, but I did see him eventually ask her on a date.  She told him 
no, and then he made it very clear to everyone that he was fine with that 
and not bothered by it at all, because he's not bothered by anything.

I was super bothered by it.  I wanted to tell him to leave right then, but 
I really didn't want to talk to him, I just wanted him to go away on his 
own.  I guess eventually he did.

I want two things.  I want Sudoroom to ask this person to take a break 
from the space so that he can study up on our anti-harrassment policy and 
maybe write us an essay about why it's unacceptable to mack on people in 
sudoroom.

and I also want us to look into how we can make it clearer to people like 
him, and to his targets, that sudoroom is expressly a safe place from this 
kind of behavior.  I would like for there to be a sign that I can point 
to in moments like that, so that I don't have to try to say it with my own 
words, in front of other people.

it's a complex issue, because if someone is being talkative and helpful 
they're not necessarily doing it as a creep move, so how do you know where 
to draw the line?  We can remind people to check their own intentions, but 
maybe we need more ways for people who feel uncomfortable to get relief 
from unwanted attention without having to then engage the person in Lesson 
101 right then.

maybe we need yellow cards?  to hand to people that say "please go to the 
fridge and read the entire sign reminding you about proper behavior in 
sudoroom.  Do not ask any more questions of the person who gave you this 
card, they have other things they want to do now.  thank you."

Noisebridge seems to have a great vibe, at least the other night when I 
was there, Zach explained to one of our friends why it would be 
inappropriate to "ask someone out" at Noisebridge.  I'm not sure how their 
anti-harrassment policy differs from ours, or what we could learn from it, 
but I would like for us to be more out-in-front of this issue so it 
doesn't come up anymore without being addressed.

thanks for reading this, let's figure this out.

-jake