A young woman has sought advice from Reddit after receiving out of hours texts from her boss at work.
Pursuing friendships and romances with co-workers isn't anything out of the ordinary - after all, you spend around 40-hours-a-week together.
However, the crucial thing is being able to tell if your colleagues are just interested in getting to know you socially, or if they're pushing the boundaries towards being inappropriate.
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Unfortunately not everyone is willing (or able) to read the room, leaving employees struggling to navigate how to respond to unwanted attention.
This situation can also be made even worse if the attention is coming from a boss or a person of high authority, leaving the targeted person scared of offending their superior.
Seeking advice on how to handle unwanted advances from a boss at work, a 19-year-old woman took to Reddit to find out the best way to respond to her boss' unusual requests to hang out after work.
In the thread, she explained that her boss - who is in his mid-40s - had asked her to go and watch a movie with him.
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The woman had initially attempted to placate her boss by engaging in polite conversation by suggesting that she had been wanting to see the new Garfield movie.
However, her politeness led to him spamming her with requests to meet-up - something she didn't want to do.
Unsure about how to proceed, she asked her fellow Redditors: "I really don’t know how i want to say NO without coming off rude."
Reactions from users were mixed, however the general consensus was that it was totally inappropriate for a boss in his mid 40s to message a teenage employee outside of work.
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"Had this happen before at the same age and younger. Absolutely disgusting and unacceptable. His ass needs to be fired. I’d hate to see him at work after this UGH," one person wrote, while another urged her to save the texts and report him.
"He writes like a 18 year old also …weird and semi cringe- semi," another added.
However other users pointed out that by responding politely she had accidentally 'led him on' without intending to.
"OP stop replying with emojis and enthusiasm," one person advised. "Tell him you feel inappropriate. You being friendly is being taken as interest for sure."
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"Oo what movie.... you f**ked up there," a second person added. However it's worth noting that with the age difference and power imbalance made it understandable that the OP felt she had to be polite.
"You're young. I remember being young and still really influenced by the societal pressure to be nice and not hurt men’s feelings," another person replied to the original comment.
"It’s one of the reasons why creepy men target young women like you. They know you haven’t matured into feeling comfortable shutting this stuff down. You will get better at it because sadly you’ll get a lot of practice.
"No response is often the best response. Get comfortable with letting men feel uncomfortable when they’re being inappropriate. It’s their discomfort to own."
Brenna Cooper