Have been burned in the past.. I work in a male dominated industry and most of my coworkers are older males. I am in my 20s. In my last job, I was kind of exploited by one of the senior executives of the company.. He was trying to groom me then when I pushed back, I got very bad repercussions so now I am super careful towards my relstionship with males, especially older males at work.
I started this job not too long ago. At first I didn’t get any weird vibes from my boss. Thought he kept a great professional distance while still very supportive and approachable.
Lately I just start noticing some strange behaviors.. We have been doing hybrid schedule for a while, he never really call me on my phone for the first few months. Now he calls me twice a day when I am not in the office.. and some stuff can be easily communicated through email..
once he called me after work hour and explained he’s in the car and can’t respond to my email so figure he just calls me..
And he started email me late often. most of the time was giving compliments of the work I completed but last night he was saying how my work is perfect and made him realized he made a mistake at one of the sample he provided with !! How he trust my skills and …. Now it’s like I am vitrually in contact with him 12 hours a day from 9am -9pm.I know I am bad at stop checking my phone after 8pm but fire drills sometimes come up so I have a habit of checking emails late at night…
I get along with my other male coworkers and frankly I call some of them during work hours too.. But when it comes to a boss- employee relationship, I think I was forever haunted by my previous experience and don’t want to put myself in a similar position again.
How do I manage the boundaries between us? I notice this behavior starts after we had conversation of my promotion plan?