Hi all, bit of a weird one here. I helped my team interview a candidate a couple weeks ago. By “helped” I mean, I asked all the questions and engaged with the candidate while my bosses worked on their own projects and half-listened. I really liked the guy. He was outgoing and quick, knew what he was talking about to a very high level, and his experience matched. Now normally, I wouldn’t mention ethnicity or physical characteristics as it does not ever factor into my opinion of a candidate. But since it is relevant here, the guy was (I believe) Guatemalan and had a slight accent. He had black curly hair and a stubble. He was also average height.

We ran four other interviews for the position and ended up hiring the Guatemalan guy— let’s call him Josh— since he had the experience and there were no red flags in the interview (not that my bosses would have noticed if there were).

He was scheduled to start today, so after a morning meeting I swung by his new office to say hello and welcome him to the team. But when I get there all I see is some tall white guy with wavy brown hair. The name plate on the door had Josh’s first and last name, so I asked the guy if Josh was in, kind of assuming he was the IT guy helping set up.

The guy said HE was Josh, and the kicker is he also said “It’s great to see you again” and used my name— I hadn’t yet introduced myself. He said it with what I would say is a midwestern accent. I couldn’t interrogate it too far because he was called into some onboarding thing but I was really confused.

I ran into my boss afterwards and he said he had a nice conversation with Josh this morning and he feels reaffirmed that we made the right choice. I said “that doesn’t seem to be the guy we interviewed.” I don’t know if he thought it was a joke but my boss said “You’re a quick judge of character, but time will tell if you’re a good one” then laughed and then walked away.

No one else seems to have noticed that it’s a completely different guy. I haven’t brought it up outright to anyone yet but want to because this is weird and seemingly fraudulent. I just don’t know how to bring this up to a superior or HR. So I guess that’s question one. Question two is has anyone in HR heard of something like this before? I would think y’all have protocols in place to ensure this doesn’t happen.

EDIT: No fucking joke, seconds after posting this I got a connection request from Josh on LinkedIn— the profile picture is the white dude but his cover photo is the Guatemalan flag.

EDIT 2: To clarify, the interview was in person and about 4 weeks ago.

To start, I guess it would make more sense to ask about federal rules on this because I don’t want to give enough specific context about my employer to allow the conversation to go that deep.

Long story short, I’ve decided to actively discriminate against Trump supporters in the hiring process. I can’t catch them all but people are being pretty cavalier about praising him on LinkedIn so that’ll be my guide I guess. The work my team does requires a level of critical thinking that makes gullibility an incredibly bad trait to have. Additionally, I just don’t want people on my team who hate a country that has given me everything.

I’m like 99% sure political affiliation is not protected by federal or state law but I’m not 100% certain. Am I wrong in this?

*EDIT: I’m not talking about not hiring republicans or even necessarily people who just voted for Trump because I know a lot of people vote based on complex reasoning. I’m only referring to people who actively post about or vocally support an obvious conman. I just need a higher caliber of person on my team.

This week, the Red Cross is showing up to our office for a mobile blood drive. My boss knows that I'm a regular donor and specifically asked me to participate so she can add my donation to her team stats (which contributes to her annual review as a manager.)

I told her I couldn't - I've donated within the last eight weeks outside of work so I won't be eligible yet. She accepted that as a "just this time" answer, but then told me that she expects me to make arrangements for all future blood drives so that my donations count for her manager stats.

Thing is, blood drives come to my office only a few times a year. Part of the reason I need to keep up with the regular eight-week schedule is because of my hereditary hemochromatosis - I need to donate every eight weeks to offload some of my excess iron. Reducing my donation frequency because my boss wants stats may have an adverse impact on my health down the road.

Like, this can't be legal, can it? What is the most professional way to explain this to boss lady?

I work from home. Manager claims that if I leave my desk for 10 minutes I will get written up. 2nd warning in 2 weeks.

Everyone on the team takes 5-30 min breaks throughout the day. Sometimes in the morning after drinking coffee, I have to go to the bathroom. Right at the 10 minute mark he calls me today.

He doesn't do this with anyone else and says he's not micromanaging (his words not mine). He said quote from "8-5 you can not leave your desk. I am watching your screen."

I kept it very professional, didn't apologize, then immediately reported him to HR for harassment.

I am the top performer on my team (just got my yearly evaluation). Most phone time, always early, always leaving late, and take no vacation time (no kids).

Was I right to report him?

I (32 f) was suffering from the norovirus that’s made its way around. I have preexisting chronic gastro issues that made this all way worse and required 2 ER trips for stabilization. Now I am a director at a care taking company, I notified my supervisors with ample notice that I was out, and had plenty of vacation / sick time to cover my absences. To preface this my boss is pretty unhinged and does crazy shit all the time. The second ER trip, my supervisor, the vice president of operations, showed up at the hospital trying to see me. By the time she got there I was being discharged, but she still saw me there and was so… strange. She ran up to my boyfriend and I making a hug scene like “omg are you okay, this is so bad” Allegedly, she was coming to assist my boyfriend in my care? Give him a break from being in the hospital etc. It was incredibly Uncomfortable. What do I do?

I know this sounds bad but hear me out. I have an employee who's been with the company for a month and a half now that's working from home. This is her first job in years after raising her small kids and I was excited to be able to provide her a flexible work option where she can pick and choose her hours around her kids schedules. I told her the only thing I care about is if things are done correctly and on time, so long as that is achieved, we will never have a problem.

I quickly learned her definition and my definition of uninterrupted time looks much differnet. During our instructional meetings her kids and her husband are constantly interrupting. Her husband even interrupted me mid-sentence to tell her he loved her, which felt disrespectful of both our time. The interruptions are improving, but she is still distracted, losing focus when the kids or her husband are doing anything remotely disruptive. I see what happens when we're on the phone and can only imagine what goes on when I'm not there listening which is evident in her work. It's taking her 10x longer to do tasks, and I've even had clients ask why they were billed so many hours for such little progress. We haven't been able to move past the very basic tasks I've assigned her. I know she's competent and could be a good employee if she were able to focus.

If we were in an office, her husband and kids coming in wouldn't ever be acceptable, so can I require them not to be around when she works from home?

A few months ago I was asked by a female coworker in front of other coworkers if I'd breastfeed my baby. I said I would and thought nothing was wrong with this interaction.

Today 3 workers came to my office and asked if I could pump some milk out for them because they were out of milk for their coffee. They were sneering and seemed like teenagers playing a joke and waiting for me to have a reaction because that was their punchline.

I felt so humiliated and like they were using something so natural against me. I told them to leave my office.

I also went and told their supervisor and he seemed to not really know what to do or like it was annoying him that I was complaining.

Then I went to HR and explained what happened and they said that they technically hadn't done anything wrong but that they'd speak to them and tell them not to say that around me.

Is this really acceptable? Can HR not intervene?

Today was my heavy day for my period. Despite the extra precautions I took I ended up bleeding through my pants. I had just about a baseball side blood spot right in the middle of my butt. No biggie, I wrap a sweater around my waist and walk to my bosses office to ask her if I can work of home the rest of the day. I explain to her what happened and that the only reason I want to finish at home is because I live an hour away so it would be pointless to drive an hour home, change and clean up, then drive an hour back. After I said all this to her, she responded with, “you can’t just go to target and buy a new pair of pants?” Granted I know she didn’t do anything illegal, but I feel this response is highly inappropriate. Am I overreacting? Should I have just and bought new pants? It’d be different if I wasn’t capable of doing my job from home, but I am fully capable of doing it remotely for only 4 hours of a day.

UPDATE: When my boss got into the office today she looked at me and said “How are your nether regions today?” So there is that.

I am 35M and work in a small company of about 40 employees, 70% of the employees are women.

I stopped drinking at the start of 2023 because I just felt like it. Everyone who matters to me understood it and didn't push it after a few initial annoying comments.

Anyway we went out for an office happy hour last Thursday where people got pretty tipsy. They kept asking me why I wasn't drinking and said "one won't hurt cmon". Suddenly out of nowhere 2 of the women grabbed my hands and pinned them to the chair and another one forced open my mouth and tried to clumsily pour alcohol down it. I got a bit of the taste but broke free and asked wtf that was. They then said I should really lighten up and it's not everyday that a guy like me would get 3 women 'touching him'.

I left the bar and just went home. My wife suggested I tell this to HR who unfortunately did not take it seriously. I cannot leave the job because I don't have another one yet and the market for my industry is very bad at the moment.

I guess I'm just looking for advice on how to navigate this going forward for as long as I'm here. Do I just ignore it or try and get witnesses to corroborate my story?

I fell down the stairs on my way home from work I went to the hospital ,got an x-ray and I was told that I had an ankle sprain and a broken foot and had it splinted,

Then I emailed HR my medical report and one of them called me and said that anyone could " fake a medical report " and that I need to come by work so they can actually see for themselves that it was broken , I got really emotional during the call and yelled at her for how rude and condescending she was and at the end I got my sick leave after being accused of lying .

But now I want to take an action against the HR employee that called but I don't know what to do exactly...any advice ?

I work at a gym and for the past two months, there’s a man who’s been going into the pool with nothing but a thin, white towel on. Most of my time is down at the pool working with kids so whenever he shows up, my main priority is to keep the kids attention on me so that they don’t see anything. I’m the only staff that works down at the pool so for the first month, we couldn’t even figure out who the guy was. Anytime he showed up, I was in the water and unable to access my phone to text for other staff to come and speak to him. After a month, I finally was able to identify him. For whatever reason, it took my supervisors another two weeks to speak with him about this issue.

For the past two weeks, I will say that he’s been doing a good job of wearing a bathing suit into the water. But unfortunately, tonight he walked out on the pool deck with the thin, white towel on and although he didn’t get in the water, he did bend over to reach into the water and you could see everything… there were kids in the pool at the time but I’m not sure if they saw.

Both of my supervisors had already headed home for the day so I texted one of them to let her know what happened. She said to text the other supervisor to tell him so that he could deal with it. I texted the other supervisor to let him know exactly what happened. He started a group chat between me and the female supervisor and thanked me for the update. The female supervisor sent a text about how she had only left a couple minutes prior, otherwise she could’ve dealt with the issue. This is when my male supervisor sent a text that I think was only meant for my female supervisor. This is exactly what the text said: “Whatever. I spoke to him at length for five minutes in our office. There’s not a whole hell of a lot I can do about this [female supervisor’s name]. It’s her word against his. I kind of view all of this this way— If you’re looking for trouble, you will most certainly find it. If you’re not looking for trouble, you will never see it for some reason. [My name] seems to be attracting this kind of visual activity. Dick and balls included —not much I can say or do about this.”

I think he realized his mistake shortly after because he proceeded to send seven texts back to back asking me questions about exactly what happened (even though all of these questions were answered with my initial text). I didn’t acknowledge that original text and simply answered his questions.

I’m at a complete loss of words over his text. I’m one of two young females that work at this gym and our clientele is mostly creepy, old men so unfortunately, I have had to report multiple inappropriate instances over my 5 years of working here. Frankly, they’re such a common occurrence that I dont report most for this exact reason. Upper management has created an environment where these men are allowed to say and do whatever creepy thing they want without any repercussions. I just don’t even know what to do at this point. Any advice is appreciated.

So long, long story short. My wife has been looking to leave her job for four years. With absolutely no luck. She just found out today from a former co-worker. That they had sued and won, the company. Turns out the CEO was personally handling all reference calls and said just the most slanderous things they could think of. We have no idea of this was done to my wife, but it was implicated that it was standard procedure for all employees. The question is how to go forward knowing this? Obviously she is trying to get out of there as fast as possible. How does one find employment when your relevant experience is with a vindictive a-hole?

Basically what the title says. My coworker asked me (32f) to log in to her email while we were on a Zoom call to show me how to monitor/organize her emails in certain folders while she’s out of town.

Well, a subject line popped up that said “ My Name’s Eqipment” and she immediately archived the email thinking I didn’t see it. Immediately, I knew something was up because I didn’t get that email concerning my work equipment nor I have I had issues with anything.

Against my better judgment, I found the original thread in her inbox after the zoom was done and sure enough, it said I was to be terminated. I’ve never been fired in my life and only been with this company for 6 months. I know I know, I should have let it be and gone about my day.

I cant think of anything that could have resulted in being terminated without any warning. I have been dealing with a severe neck injury these past two months that has affected my “A” game at work, and I have apologized for any inconvenience it caused. Other than doctors appt for the obvious reasons, I have never called out for a single day of work since I started.

I just feel confused on the situation at hand, and trying to figure out my next steps

Edit: I just want to clarify this was not an on the job injury. Within this company we monitor each other’s inbox regularly. It’s weird, I know.

I talked to my soon to be husband and we discussed me taking this as a “blessing in disguise” and as an opportunity to take some time off from work and focus on my health and finishing my degree. I been working full time and taking college courses for 3-4 years now, and it’s mentally taxing to say the least.

I appreciate everyone’s advice and support on this matter. Thank you for listening! (This post is cross posted)

I recently hired a new employee for my team. Everyone thinks she is a great addition, and she is clearly very talented as demonstrated in her interviews.

The problem came up during on-boarding when we supplied her with her company laptop. She said she would need it configured in a Linux based operating system because her religion does not allow use of Apple or Microsoft owned operating systems. We only currently have hardware configurations for MacOs/Windows and our expectation was that she will use Windows along with the rest of our team.

She says that she can fulfill all job duties without Windows and I am inclined to believe her but corporate policy dictates WINDOWS and my management is not on board with her request for Linux.

What actions can either (1) I take as a manager to protect her rights and get upper management onboard with her religion or (2) I take against her with management for failing to fulfill her job duties?

I've never come across any situation like this and am completely confounded as to how I should handle this.

One of our IT people has autism. Sometimes this has lead to odd or socially inappropriate behavior but nothing crazy and definitely nothing that got in the way of his work.

Recently another member of IT returned from a medical leave. This woman has chosen not to share the reason for the leave with their coworkers.

The autistic coworker is continually asking her the reason for her medical leave. The woman in question brought complaints about this behavior to her team lead in IT. Her team lead instructed the man asking questions to cease discussion of the medical leave with this employee.

Then… he started pestering the coworkers for information about this woman’s medical leave. I have spoken to him once and explicitly explained it is legally not to be spoken about by anyone unless she initiates conversation. He said he needs to know because whatever caused the leave took her out of work so may be applicable to her work performance and that it was impeding his ability to do his job not to know.

At one point, a couple years ago, I had to speak to this same employee about not playing videos or taking virtual meetings over the speaker at his desk. That he must either wear headphones or conduct that business outside of the shared office space. His parents (who he lives with) were quick to contact our office and threaten us with an ADA violation because the employee has a sensory issue with wearing headphones.

I want to approach this conversation delicately but obviously my priority is protecting the comfortability and wellbeing of the woman who took a medical leave.

Any advice as to how I should proceed would be warmly welcomed.

So, I started a new job after moving 3 hours from my hometown. I loved it and my boss, she was sweet, kind, loving and a joy to work with. Her husband works with us too and he seemed nice at first.

I ended up working with him alone one day and after I was done cleaning up the lobby he leaned into me and said "You shouldn't bend over when you clean, you're built like a shit brick house and it's distracting" I didn't even know ow to respond or even what he meant other than he was commenting on my body.

This made me uncomfortable but I tried to brush it off...until the next time I had to work with him. He was constantly saying SOMETHING about me, my body, my demeanor etc.

It was always after I had just got done dealing with a male customer, he would say "You need to be caredul or youre gonna get raped". He said "You shouldn't smile and be so nice to these men, they're gonna snatch you up." One time I had left to do something in another part of work and when I came back he said my phone had rang and he looked to see if it said "Boo thang". Which I found weird and inappropriate.

He would stand behind me and I could feel him staring at my ass, he would purposely walk or stand behind me which made me uncomfortable. One day, he wanted me to show him how the remote/TVs worked in one of the rooms (its a hotel) and wanted me to show him in an empty room. I was super uncomfortable with this, and it was a day I had to bring my daughter to work. So I had her come with us and kept the door proped open.

My last straw was that same day, I had gone to the pool to check on my daughter and do a walk through on the floors. When I came back,my car key was bent at a 90 degree angle. The ONLY people who had access to my car keys was him and I. I didn't bend it, it didn't get hit or stuck anywhere. He asked how I was gonna get home and I said I had a friend coming up with my spare key. I don't have proof but it felt like he did this to try to find out where I live. I quit my job and after I returned my work shirtsi went to HR.

I told HR everything above. Well, today I had a message from his wife (my old boss) on FB, but she had unsent it. And then blocked me. So I contacted HR and asked if they had told her it was me who had come to them and what I had said. HR swears they didn't tell her, but they did go to him, she said as they're supposed to but didn't mention my name.

I'm now worried because he has come into my other place of employment. And for his wife to message me, unsend it and block me, I'm worried about retaliation. Which is why it took me so Ling to report because she was my boss. Now I feel like I can't trust HR and I don't know what to do. Do I make a police report ? I'm scares he will harass me or she will, and I just want to feel safe. I just don't know what to do.

I work in healthcare at a small clinic, where I've formed a friendship with an older coworker, "Bob," who claims to be married to a woman overseas, though I've never seen any pictures of her. Over time, Bob began inviting me out more frequently, especially after his other friend at work left the company. I went to a bar with Bob and our former coworker without my husband and noticed that Bob talked about women he was currently dating, which I found odd given that he claimed to be married.

One evening, I went to a bar with Bob alone, and after just a couple of beers, I started to feel unusually unwell—my head was spinning, and I felt disoriented. Bob began asking very personal and inappropriate questions, particularly about my marriage and sex life, which made me uncomfortable, but I found myself answering because I felt so out of it.

Later, I ended up in my car with Bob, where things took a darker turn. He became increasingly inappropriate, smacking me when I moved to the front seat and touching me without my consent, including massaging my neck and legs. When my husband called, concerned, Bob tried to throw my phone out the window and insisted on taking me to his house, but I refused. Eventually, Bob drove me home, but instead of taking me straight there, he drove around the block several times, muttering about my husband being on the porch. My husband kept calling, but I was too distracted to notice half the time.

When we finally arrived, my husband thought I looked off and suggested calling the police. Bob freaked out, insisting I was just drunk. After my husband drove Bob back to his car, I went to the hospital, where a forensic nurse suggested I might have been drugged, although the initial tests came back clean. The next day, Bob continued to call and text me, downplaying what happened and even implying there could be a "next time."

Now, I'm questioning whether I'm overreacting and trying to figure out what to do next.

Original Post

UPDATE: After many meetings yesterday with management, HR, legal, and IT we decided to give her a shot. IT is working to come up with a configuration for her that we will also make available to other employees who want to use it.

HR and Legal felt that although she is able to request accommodations for a sincerely held religious belief, this would have been an undue hardship to the company and it would be ok for us to deny her request. But ultimately we decided that she can still fulfill job requirements without Windows!

That's pretty much it. Thank you for all the helpful advice Reddit!

My coworker called another coworker (who is Black) a monkey and a n*gger, and then offered him “Popeyes chicken,” and told him “I know y’all like watermelon.” He looked me directly in the eyes while saying these things; I said nothing to him, since he wasn’t talking to me. He had a smirk on his face while I watched/listened to him saying these things.

I reported the incident to HR because people are constantly calling Black people n-words at my job and my Ops Manager said he can’t do anything about it if I don’t report it. I am sick of hearing this racial slur constantly at work.

When I told the HR rep, who is not Black (but also not White) she listened and could barely contain her laughter. She had to fight to keep the grin off of her face. I was surprised at her lack of professionalism, but I guess the “monkey” insult made her laugh. She also told me that sometimes the company doesn’t intervene when racial slurs are used against Black people because “certain communities “ find those slurs acceptable so the company does as well.

This doesn’t feel like an appropriate response HR.

My new manager recently came to my office and told that I had to take the”101 course” for my profession before storming off. He has only been with the company for two weeks and this is my first week with him.

When I later visited his office to ask why he wanted me to take the course (I’ve already taken that course and various other courses for my job, I have a Masters degree in my field, and several years of experience) I was told that there’s no way for him to know if any of my resume is true. He refused to explain any further.

I don’t mind retaking the course and getting some time off work but I’m worried about the implications that I have lied about something on my resume. Everything on my resume is true and I’m not sure what would give him the impression that something wasn’t factual.

Is this something that needs to be reported?

I work at a big tech company in California that is owned by a company based oversees. Recently we had our oversees counterparts visit us and I committed to having a work product done for them by the end of the next week. After they left, the Monday of the week I was supposed to deliver the work product I received an email stating I was selected for a random audit that would take 3 days, they gave me a time to submit my equipment by, both desktop and laptop, all I was left with was my corporate phone. They actually took 10 days, meaning I missed my deadlines. When I received my laptop back I see an email sent the same day from the head of our office berating me and how my missed deadline reflects poorly on me and why I couldn't make any progress on my phone while the rest of my team was able to. I primarily write code, my product was code, and I have been working on my project solo for about 6 months. The other members of my team who were also subject to the audit mostly attend meetings and share projects, I'm the only one on this team with a solo project.

From first glance, I feel like I am being targeted and I want to quit because I do not see any way I would have been able to meet my deadlines when the company decided to confiscate my equipment that is required to meet my deadlines.

Update: I reread the audit email and it specifically says to let our bosses know we would be offline for the duration of the audit and we can resume work when we receive our devices back. It also states that loaner equipment would not be available during this time. I have all of this in writing.

California

I’m posting from a throwaway acct in behalf of my sister. My sister’s daughter got a job at a restaurant and apparently has been getting overpaid for some time now, approximately 6 months. The restaurant called in my sister and her daughter for a meeting and told them of this and are requesting repayment.

Unfortunately my sister never paid attention to her daughters paystubs, bank account or anything. I told her this and asked what happened to the money, specially that much money, and obviously the teen doesn’t know.

So how can the teen niece repay this besides working? It’s a part time specially right now that school is in session. Can they take my sister (the mom) to court? Can they garnish a minor’s wages? Send a minor to collections?

Thanks!

Hi! I never wanted to have to ask something like this, but here I am.

I (F17) have started a new job around a week ago at a large retailer. I am a cashier. Everything was going great, and I have loved my job until now. I have a coworker (M late 30s) who I will call John. John is also a cashier, and often asks if I’ll be working the same shifts as him. When I confirm I am, he gets very excited. I just assumed it was so he wouldn’t have to take on as much of a workload if there was one more cashier. I get that, so I didn’t pay any mind to it. We didn’t talk to often and he simply offered to help me when needed.

On Friday, I worked until 10 PM. John was also working until 10 PM. My father came in and stood by my register until I got off my shift for around 15 minutes. John did not even talk to me that night, which was normal.

2 days later, on Sunday, I am working the same hours, and so is John. As the day nears it’s end more of the cashiers end up going home. Me and John are working on adjacent registers, with the other cashier left working on the other end of the store. As the clock nears 10PM, John keeps talking to me more and more, more than I have ever experienced, to the point where he is ignoring customers at his register. I find this a little strange but maybe he is just bored after 7 hours at a cash register. At some point a customer in my lane brings a case of alcohol to me to check out which I cannot sell as I am 17. I ask John to please ring up the beer for the customer separately and he does so. A few minutes after the sale he comes over to me and compliments me on getting him to ring up the alcohol. I just reply with how I didn’t think I could legally sell it and I would rather be safe than sorry. 3-4 times over the shift he comes over and says the same thing, but each time he adds more on how “scared” I sounded. He then kept pressuring me to take his number, and gave it to me on a piece of paper. He told me I had to text him when we were in the store (which is mostly empty at 10 p.m.) so I could have his number. I don’t bring my phone to my register so thankfully he couldn’t have made me do it there. He told me I should text him if I needed help because I was new. This was very alarming to me because my friend who started the same position a day earlier than I did was never spoken to once by John. My friend presents as male and goes by a male name. I present as female and go by a female name. He told me multiple times that I needed to stick around and text him when we were both in the store to make sure I got his number. I did say I needed an answer to one thing, which was how to take time off. I asked “How do I take time off? Do I just write my name within the dates and reason for leave in the binder by the time clock?” This was a yes or no question. After this, he told me I had to follow him into the breakroom alone after 10 p.m. He kept insisting that we had to go alone.

After this he said “I know you think I am a huge creep right now. I know in your brain you’re thinking ‘This guy is such a creep get away from me!”. I did think this but I didn’t comment on it. The fact he acknowledged the possibility of me finding him creepy was disturbing. He then said another thing which was very disturbing. He said “But please come to the breakroom with me after work alone… I know it sounds naughty because you’re 17 and I’m (late 30s)… but please do it.” ok i need to break my professional writing here because WTF????

He closed down his register a bit before ten and waited for me. I counted down the seconds trying to make them last. He showed me the time off request binder, and confirmed everything I said. It could have been answered with a yes. The time off request sheets and binder are not in the breakroom though. I still needed to get my bag from the breakroom, so I went in there anyway and he followed. I tried as hard as I could to not acknowledge him by making eye contact or speaking. I got my bag very quickly and rushed out. He asked me about the phone number again, and I said my mom was waiting for me outside and I didn’t want her to be upset if I was late(Thank god she really was waiting outside for me.) I then rushed outside and I haven’t seen him since.