At work, we keep things professional, don't we? However, some didn't get that memo. Because between the most awkward small talk, questionable jokes, and comments that definitely should have stayed in someone's head, sometimes coworkers say things that leave you wondering how they finished the sentence without pausing once to think it through.

Interestingly, that became the subject of a Reddit thread where women were asked to share the craziest thing a male coworker had ever said to them. And well, the responses moved from incredibly strange comments to straight-up wildly inappropriate remarks so unexpected that they were hard to forget.

I was sitting and he came up behind me, crouched down, and whispered "oh the things I would do to you" in my ear.

I was new to a job and spend a couple weeks working pretty closely and spending breaks with a guy. It was fun. The third week he would wave and say hi, but not get much closer than that. By week 4 things were back to normal. I asked him why and he said it was because I was on my period during week 3 and he could smell it and knew to avoid me. I was not in fact on my period, at all, thanks to birth control. But he kept on avoiding me, and all the other women, on some sort of individual "3rd week for periods" tracker the entire time I worked there.

I very briefly had a boss (who never should’ve been hired) who had 11 s****l harassment complaints against him in his first two weeks. Among many things, he: asked to come to my family Christmas and set him up with my “pretty cousins,” told me about how his ex wife was bad at giving b**wjobs, told me I was his type… The cherry on top was asking to move in with me, finding my address through my resumé, then speaking with my apartments leasing office and booking a tour for a unit in my building. He was promptly fired after that, but it messed me up for a bit.

The World Economic Forum highlights that gender stereotypes can influence workplace interactions even when people believe they are being objective. Women may be expected to demonstrate competence and authority while also appearing warm, agreeable, approachable, and traditionally feminine. Being too assertive can be interpreted as intimidating, while being especially accommodating can undermine perceptions of authority.

These expectations can also affect how colleagues view a woman’s appearance, age, clothing, personality, or leadership ability, despite those factors having little to do with her actual work. In an environment where these assumptions are present, an ordinary conversation can quickly become less about what someone contributes professionally and more about whether they fit an expected idea of how a woman should behave.

On the reverse side, my male coworker was chatting with a pretty new female consultant and said “how tall are you?” She said “5’ 2” why?” “I just wanted to see if you’d fit in my trunk hahaha” Jesus.