telling an employee his pants are too revealing, unannounced video calls, and more

by Alison Green on November 8, 2024

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…

1. How to tell an employee his pants are too revealing

I need some guidance! We have a new high school teacher who wears pants that show the imprint of his penis. Several students have gone to the principal to share this information. We recently had to remove a picture from our school’s Instagram page because after someone pointed it out, it was obviously very visible.

We’re planning to have a conversation with him to tell him that he hasn’t violated the dress code policy but we do need to bring it to his attention and suggest that he wear a different fit (loose), pants made with a heavier fabric and less stretch or maybe darker colored pants.

It’s refreshing to get a letter where this issue is about a man’s body rather than a woman’s! I don’t know that you’d need to address this in most workplaces, but in a high school? Yeah.

I’ve never contemplated what I’d say in this situation before! My best stab at it is: “I’m sure you don’t realize this is the case, but a lot of your pants are too revealing for our environment and a couple of students have mentioned it. I think you can solve it with looser clothing, or at the very least heavier fabrics or darker colors.”

I’ve gone back and forth on whether you should include that some students mentioned it. On one hand, how mortifying! On the other hand, if you don’t mention that, you risk him thinking you’re making a big deal out of nothing.

2. Do I have to answer unannounced video calls?

I am an in-house database developer. My company handles a lot of communication via Microsoft Teams. I’ve noticed it’s extremely common for most people, including executives, to shoot a message of “got time for a call?” before initiating a call, which is awesome!

My tasks in a day run pretty much the gamut — primarily development projects, but also documentation, support, querying data, data migrations, collaborating with users, etc. I pride myself on being very responsive. That being said, there are a handful of coworkers who will randomly initiate video calls, and I find it really frustrating when I’m trying to troubleshoot a tricky issue, on a roll with a development project, or working on a time-sensitive report for management. I’ve found that sometimes is takes a couple minutes to effectively transition between tasks, like to save what I was working on or find a good breaking point if I am working on a migration. Also, most questions I receive are easier to answer if I have a little context ahead of time and do a little research if necessary.

If I’m not at an ideal spot to take an impromptu Teams call, I don’t take it, but I do follow up quickly. I will take it if it’s management, but seriously management always reaches out before calling. I would say 9/10 users will reach out first, so it feels like very much “company culture” to do so.

Part of me feels like my aversion to unannounced video calls is an irrational pet peeve. The other part of me, though, feels like my time is most effectively managed when I’m not dropping everything at the drop of a hat with zero information. Is there an appropriate, more direct way to deal with the issue? Or should I just keep doing what I’m doing — that is, ignore it and follow up within 10 minutes after I’ve hit an appropriate break point? Or am I being a little petty?

These are never critical issues, and are often random data requests. I have also noticed a very high correlation between unannounced-video-call-initiaters and misusers-of-high-importance-email-and-read-receipt-settings.

What you’re doing is perfect. It wouldn’t be if you were in a job that required a different kind of availability, but for many/most office jobs it makes sense and is what most efficient people do.

You need to manage your time in a way that makes sense for the work, which in many jobs means focusing rather than stopping whatever you’re doing every time your phone rings (or someone stops by or an IM pops up or so forth). In fact, if I managed someone who stopped deep-focus work every time a new message popped up on their screen, I’d talk to them about ways to focus better (assuming I saw it reflected in their work or stress level, which is likely). This isn’t that different.

Also, this is true of all calls, not just videos calls. The unannounced video makes it worse because you might not be in a place or condition to spontaneously appear on video, but my advice would be the same if they were non-video calls too.

3. Senior managers who try to commiserate over current events

My great-grandboss wandered around our academic (major research institution) workplace looking to commiserate and, presumably, console staff (whom they barely know) after the election. Pretty much the same thing happened after the October 7, 2023 attack. What the hell is this?

They didn’t send out a carefully worded message that said, “We know that nerves are raw and emotions may be high due to current events. Please remember to be patient with your coworkers and seek out help if you need it (link to EAP).”

No.

They seemed to be looking for co-mourners or something. I’m of the opinion that they aren’t my parent, friend, or therapist and they should not be doing this. What are your thoughts?

My thoughts are the same as yours. It’s inappropriate and likely unwelcome to many people. Managers are uniquely positioned to help people during stressful outside events — by sending out the sort of message you described, adjusting workloads, or encouraging people to take time off if needed — and they should stick to those things, rather than (a) attempting to fulfill their own emotional needs through employees or (b) assuming some sort of pastoral role that isn’t appropriate and which no one wants them to take (not to mention the assumption that everyone they encounter shares their political views).

4. Former employee’s new company is still using his old email address — should I tell them?

We had a long-standing employee resign to work for a competitor. He left his replacement a mess to fix and we spent weeks fixing his mistakes. Upon his leaving, I notified our vendors that he’d left and changed all passwords to ensure he didn’t try to keep using our systems. The new company he went to placed orders with us and he was their old rep.

I gave his replacement access to his old email, as per company policy. We wait to delete the old email for about a month or two.

His replacement informed me that his new company is still sending messages to him at his old employee email, so we are getting included in all of their emails about projects and clients. I am unsure if this is because they have yet to issue him a new email or if it’s because they are so used to autofilling his old email. Should I tell the new company he’s working with that they are sending emails to wrong place or let them reap the consequences of not issuing their new employee a new email address?

You’d think someone over there would figure it out when their new hire isn’t receiving/responding to any of their messages!

I don’t think you have any absolute obligation to inform them, but it would be a professional courtesy to do it — and doubly so since it sounds like this new company is a client of yours (although also a competitor?). You’re understandably annoyed that your old employee left a mess you had to clean up, but it would be fairly petty to let that be the reason you stay quiet. I’m feeling a bit scorched earth myself lately so I understand the impulse, but you’re nearly always better off taking the high road.

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{ 553 comments }

{ 553 comments… read them below }

  1. Lorna*

    Letter #1

    “…making a big deal out of nothing.”

    Am I childish? Absolutely! Am I howling with laughter? Absolutely!

    Sorry, I’ll see myself out. ;)

    1. Cmdrshprd*

      It needs to be addressed asap or else the problem will keep growing…..As in more and more kids will be subjected to it.

      2. LifebeforeCorona*

        And a few kids will mention to their parents who will storm the school especially if it’s allowed to continue.

        2. len*

          Of course, but… I don’t actually see what the penis joke is in that wording. Just the word “big”? The word “nothing”?
          Glad others are tickled.

          1. Allonge*

            A combination of the fact that penises have a possibility to grow (in erection), so get ‘big’ out of ‘nothing’ and just plain referring to a penis, or a penis as nothing or big, all of which tends to be part of jokes. Not necessarily ha-ha funny jokes, but frequent jokes.

          2. Juicebox Hero*

            Big deal: creating a commotion.

            Out of nothing: implying he’s got a tiny whangdoodle.

            As I am mentally 12, I’m giggling right along.

    4. Allonge*

      ‘Sensible chuckle’.

      Seriously though, LW1, say something to the guy. He is new, you got complaints, now is the time to do it.

      1. linger*

        Essentially what I’m hearing is:
        you don’t need to talk to this guy about trousers,
        you need to talk to him about adding a sock.

    5. Elizabeth West*

      #1 — My school had a teacher who wore those dumb polyester coach slacks and you could see everything. It became a regular bet as to which side he would be wearing it on each day, because this was the ’80s and high school students are relentless. No idea if anyone ever said anything to administration or they said anything to him. He just kept freeballing it until we graduated.

      2. Veryanon*

        This was the chuckle I needed today as I’m pretty sure those pants were required attire for all coaches in the 80s.

      3. Some Words*

        Over 40 years have passed and I still remember my junior high algebra teacher. He wore polyester slacks which weren’t tight, but he was so, um, remarkable that I don’t think any type of pants would have hidden his junk. Even my older brother (8 years) remembered that about him.

        Also, he was a good teacher with a great sense of humor and was well liked.

    6. Buni*

      I distinctly remember a lecturer at teaching college saying something along the lines of,

      ‘Gentlemen, your choice in trousers should tell people about your style and fashion. They should not tell people about your religion.’

      2. Anon Again... Naturally*

        As a comic fan, the number of spandex fan costumes I have seen that have revealed this level of detail is far, far higher than I would like. *shudder* There is a wonderful creation called a ‘dance belt’ that is used by ballet dancers to prevent this. I might mention this as an option if he doesn’t want to replace his entire wardrobe. If nothing else it might help impress on him that this is a Serious Problem that needs addressing.

        1. Dr. Scott!!!*

          I performed in Rocky Horror for many years (along with still doing cosplays, but nothing I cosplay in is to this effect). In my groups, we’d tell new performers who have a penis to buy a dance belt, or at least cut the cup from a bra and stuff it down the underwear. 1 – no one wants to see your junk, whether through it or if it falls out in all the movement (and that has happened) and 2 – it’s Rocky. Pack it; the bigger the bulge the better.

      3. goddessoftransitory*

        Reminds me of MST’s Night of the Blood Beast, with a very, very unfortunate close up shot of a character walking–the camera was right at crotch level and to quote Servo “Oh my God, I can see every contour! Make it go away!”

        1. Timothy (TRiG)*

          You’re reminding me of Phil Wang hula hooping on Taskmaster: the pendulum draws the eye.

          1. Waiting on the bus*

            In a show full of great quotes, “the pendulum draws the eye” remains one of the greatest.

      4. Sleeve McQueen*

        I remember reading one of those old-fashioned books about being a teenager written by a Catholic priest (!!) when I was younger and the advice I mocked relentlessly was that your clothes should be “tight enough so that people know you’re a woman, but loose enough to know you’re a lady” – maybe we could adopt it for men, lol.

    1. Bilateralrope*

      I’d start with telling him that students have mentioned it. His reaction to that will tell the LW a lot about him.

      1. NotBatman*

        Yes! I immediately thought of one of my college profs (who, in his defense, had four small children and two puppies at home) who would regularly teach with his shirt tucked into his underwear, and the hem of his underwear visible above his pants. It would’ve taken a stronger spine than my own to actually say something to anyone about the situation.

        1. Elizabeth West*

          Way back in the day, one of my English professors was teaching a class and his fly was down. When he realized, he turned his back, zipped up, and then turned around and went right back to lecturing like it was no big deal.

              2. Retired editor*

                Doing it wrong: My brother’s high school chemistry teacher was unzipped one day, and one of the guys in the back of the room pantomimed that he needed to zip up.

                The teacher, a legendary doofus, sidled along behind the center of the lab table at the front of the room and dealt with his zipper. Unfortunately, he forgot that the lab table consisted of two large piers of storage cupboards and drawers at each end, with the center open. The entire class could see the tidying up, including some students who had not previously noticed the problem.

      2. Mostly Managing*

        That’s what I was thinking.
        Either he’s totally unaware and will be horrified, or he’s totally creepy and knows exactly what’s visible/not.

        2. Meep*

          I am leaning towards the latter, tbh. Apparently, most men do not like their junk being pressed into their body by their pants. Something, something, sensitive organ.

          1. daffodil*

            nah, covid reset our formality sense, if this guy is young he really might not realize. No reason to assume the worst.

          2. Mad Harry Crewe*

            It was very much the fashion in the 70s. I used to get lunch at a burrito joint that had a portrait of some very 70s hippie musician next to their sit-and-wait corner, and his trousers were shrink-wrapped. It’s not common now, but different people are physically comfortable in different situations – think of all the people who prefer underwire bras, and all the people who can’t stand them.

            1. ThatOtherClare*

              Putting my hand up as one of the weirdos who likes underwires!

              It took me an excruciatingly long time to find a brand that fits – but I did in the end. Now I comfortably wear them all day until I go to bed. I also like weighted blankets and constricting turtlenecks.

              All that aside, it’s our responsibility as a society to consider all adults, regardless of anatomy, as Schroedinger’s creeper until proven otherwise. The police checking and other vetting given to teachers nowadays is pretty good, so he’s almost certainly a good guy and will be mortified, poor fellow. But if he doesn’t stop, it’s society’s responsibility to consider that a red flag, because the stakes are too high for complacency.

              That’s what’s fair to him and to the children.

          3. Kevin Sours*

            It depends a lot on the clothing (and probably the guy). My bike shorts aren’t particularly uncomfortable (and that’s more the padding and not the tightness) but the one time I wore them as an outer layer I realized they entirely too little to the imagination.

        3. supernon*

          Just lost our dean due to (planned but not acted upon this time) inappropriate use of penis on campus. No one knew he had a thing for teenage boys, but in hindsight his choice of clothing seemed aimed at garnering attention from younger folk.

      1. Bog of eternal mensch*

        You remind me of the student (what student?)
        The student with the power (what power?)
        The power of bio*! (Who do?) You do!
        (Do what?)
        Remind me of the student…

        *I couldn’t think of a HS subject that rhymed sorry

        5. CommanderBanana*

          screaming

          Also, if the pants are THAT TIGHT, I am worried about the potential for lost circulation. Also, what sort of pants are these? Lycra? Gray sweatpants?

      2. Modesty poncho*

        Dead serious here – I figured out I was ace the first time someone pointed out Bowie’s bulge to me in that movie. Obsessed 17 year old me with a total crush on the character…never saw it.

        1. Saraquill*

          I’m also ace, and a ballet enthusiast. I still don’t see what the big deal about his package is.

        2. Dust Bunny*

          Not ace but I’m more into shoulders and arms. One of my friends commented wistfully on what a nice backside my newly-ex boyfriend had and how she’d miss seeing it around (appropriately clothed, of course) every once in awhile. I had never noticed.

      3. LifebeforeCorona*

        I watched that movie again recently and yea, David Bowie was visible a lot. I still love it though.

          1. Selina Luna*

            The important thing to remember in wondering how they got away with Jareth’s codpiece is that Labyrinth is not actually a children’s movie. I realize that a lot of parents see all muppety movies and all animation as children’s movies, but artists often use whatever media tell their story the best, and in this case, it was muppets, Jennifer Connelly, and David Bowie.

            1. MigraineMonth*

              Yeah, whenever someone is shocked by sexual content in a children’s show, the first thing to check is if it’s actually a children’s show. Puppets, animation, comic book characters and beloved children’s actors can all be part of Adult shows.

              I was in line to buy Deadpool when I realized that the mother of three not-yet-preteen boys in front of me was planning to take them. She had missed the R rating.

            2. tokei*

              Eh. It’s a coming-of-age, power-of-friendship story. It’s intended for older kids, but it’s absolutely a children’s movie.

        2. Elizabeth West*

          You can see it in its entirety in The Man Who Fell to Earth.

          You can also see Rip Torn. Ah, the ’70s. >_<

      5. Wayward Sun*

        I once saw that costume at a museum. The codpiece is like one of those paintings that seems to be looking at you no matter where you are in the room.

    3. KateM*

      And not only in “giggling about it between themselves” way but “have reported this to [school] authorities” way.

      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        That really says how bad it is. Most high school students would just make a running joke out of it, not report it.

        1. Rex Libris*

          Good point. I can’t imagine anyone in my high school doing anything but laughing their *ss off, but then I am the Beavis and Butthead generation.

    4. Nonsense*

      Absolutely. And don’t say that it’s only been a couple, because that downplays it – say that several students have reported it to the administration (which is true, per the letter to Alison). That will put how serious this situation is upfront, and how he reacts will be very important.

      And, like – he has to know, right? I was in high school in the late 2000s/early 2010s, aka the era of super ultra mega deluxe skinny low rise jeans for women and men, and all my male teachers managed to find jeans and khakis that kept the package appropriately hidden even when the style was a slim or skinny fit. There’s no way this guy doesn’t own mirrors and can’t see how damn tight his pants are, and he’s got to be able to look down and see too.

      1. Frieda*

        It’s possible that he’s looking at himself in the mirror while standing still and facing forward and then from an angle or when he moves, the view is very different. I’ve worn an unflattering outfit or two that looked fine at home but then did not look fine out of the house.

        Maybe he’s lost weight and is wearing his belt a notch tighter to keep his pants up and hasn’t clocked that it changes the fit of the garment as well. No way to know (unless I guess he declines to get different pants and that’s pretty clear).

        1. Edwina*

          or he’s gained weight and still wearing the same pants he always wore. I know someone who’s doing this. or at least that’s what I assume is the situation because not only are all of the pants tight, they’re too short.

        2. NotAnotherManager!*

          Or he doesn’t have a full length mirror to see it. Our house is older, and our bathrooms only have the mirrors over the vanity (and not the kind that go all the way to the sink, which would only show that particular region on my over-6′-tall spouse. We had to buy/install a full-length mirror on the back of a closet door to have one in the house.

          1. Reality.Bites*

            A man wearing pants so tight they reveal his junk doesn’t need a mirror to be aware, because he’ll feel it. Most body parts would feel if your clothing is too tight – anything calves and elbows can feel, genitals can feel!

            1. a clockwork lemon*

              Idk, I’m a woman with a preference for tighter-fitting clothing and I’ve definitely walked around blissfully unaware of an obvious camel-toe situation because my leggings shifted while I was walking or whatever. I consider it a kindness when someone tells me to fix myself if my bits have breached containment, because my preference for wearing tight clothes doesn’t actually correspond to some sort of desire for everyone to see the parts of me that I’m trying to keep covered with clothes.

              It also very much could just be the fit of the pants. My husband has a couple of pairs of pants that give a visible bulge and it’s just, like, the way they’re cut. Once it was pointed out to him, he stopped wearing them.

              1. Dust Bunny*

                Or the fabric. Some synthetics, in particular, can become horrendously staticky as you move around. They might be OK in the morning and then start clinging as he walks. I had a pair of polyester pants as part of a work uniform that should have fit just fine but after I’d been moving around for a little while they looked like they were painted on. They were awful.

                1. Rain, Disappointing Australian (formerly Lucien Nova)*

                  Seconding that it could be the fabric. I have a specific pair of pants that, er, let’s just say I do not wear them without either a long shirt/jacket or going somewhere that my crotch captain being Captain Obvious would not be inappropriate.

                  (I’ve only ever run into the second situation twice and both were theatre situations. Usually it’s just “long shirt/jacket, let’s do this.”)

      2. a bright young reporter with a point of view*

        Maybe. There’s a sort of infamous tale about one of the early marvel films wherein the CGI folks had to smooth out a certain actor’s crotchal regions because of his…galloping horse. (And poorly made pants.) I can’t confirm for absolute certain this is true but I have seen the horse gallop in other situations, and in subsequent films they changed his costume so that that area would be covered up much better.

        What I’m saying is, if Accomplished Director didn’t requisition a dance belt, if Accomplished Actor didn’t think to rein it in, and it was only determined to be a problem in post-production, it doesn’t take a lot for me to believe that someone is perceiving his own dressing skills differently than his students.

        (I hope this comment is not inappropriate, I think it’s relevant!)

        2. RagingADHD*

          I think if a teacher were coming to work in superhero tights instead of pants, it would be a whole different set of problems. And also more clearly a dress code violation.

        3. Sweet Summer Child*

          I think it illustrates the situation perfectly. The individual didn’t notice. His essentially manager didn’t notice. It became an issue when it was outside their immediate chain of command. They found a fix and fixed it.

        4. juliebulie*

          It is documented that Burt Ward had this problem with his Robin costume. But I can see how this could potentially be a problem for any superhero dressed that way.

          (If I remember correctly, the non-obvious solution was to stuff that whole area of his pants to obscure the silhouette of his penis.)

          2. a bright young reporter with a point of view*

            Oh man. We will do ANYTHING at all, but we’re NOT ditching the short shorts! The MCU one wasn’t even a short shorts situation; there was literally NO reason for him to be Jarething except that his pants were made of tissue paper or something and accidentally (?) designed to show EVERYTHING. In all the later movies, he got a modesty flap for his robes and/or heavy leather pants. I did not pay attention to what they did in the TV show.

            I actually think it might be a better world where we’re just like, whatever, man, about that stuff, but I guess we have to work with the one we’ve got.

          3. Bitte Meddler*

            So THAT’S why Robin’s costume looked like he was wearing diapers!!

            All these years, I thought it was to highlight that Robin is 2nd fiddle to Batman.

          4. Phony Genius*

            Then there was the French pole vaulter who failed a jump due to this same problem at this year’s Olympics.

      3. Everything Bagel*

        I’d have the photo that had to be taken down ready to support the argument, too, if he pushes back on changing his wardrobe. He has to be told how this has really affected things.

        1. Eldritch Office Worker*

          Right, that’s confusing to me – why wasn’t he talked to then? That would have been such an obvious opportunity.

      4. Zach*

        He doesn’t necessarily know. I have unknowingly bought pants that are like this depending on how I stand and I would never have known except for my wife making a (somewhat jokey) comment.

      5. LaurCha*

        It is entirely possible for someone to not have a full-length mirror and just use the bathroom mirror to check his fit. Unless he’s ridiculously tall, the crotch is usually not visible in bathroom mirrors.

        1. Rex Libris*

          Or he just doesn’t pay much attention. My wardrobe considerations in the 20 seconds I spend getting dressed are mostly clean/not clean.

          2. Ace in the Hole*

            Yeah… I literally get dressed in the dark most days. Fortunately I lack the equipment to encounter this particular problem!

      6. learnedthehardway*

        I think it’s entirely possible that he’s not aware. I have had to retire my young adult son’s pants that he grew out of (he’s put on weight since starting university). He was completely oblivious to the fact that they were a) too tight and as a result, b) too revealing. Hints completely did not register that he needed to find alternate pants. I had to have a direct ( and somewhat awkward for both of us) conversation with him about the fact that new pants were required.

      7. Hey Now*

        This is where the passive voice can really help you. If mentioning the students coming to you is difficult, flip it to the issue: “it’s been noticed by students that…” Or, you know, variations on that. Framing it as less of an organized complaint might help him if he’s indeed unaware. I’ve found it really useful in situations that have potential for huge embarrassment.

    5. JSPA*

      If it were only that they were aware he has a penis, then it should be shut down, in the same way you’d shut down students for making a big deal about a teacher having a bust.

      If it’s that they (reasonably, for their age and stage) don’t know that some penises are “growers” and some are “showers,” and thus assume that “detectable” implies “aroused,” that’s like assuming (slightly detectable) erect nipples on a freezing cold day, are a sign of arousal.

      But if (as seems most likely, if his third leg is photobombing your attempts to post group photos, WTF?) we’re talking “stark outline” as opposed to “general package”? Then we’re in the same territory as, “your students should not be aware that your left aureola is more oblong than your right.”

      That said, we had a general joke about language teachers at our high school, because they almost all had (by US standards of the day) comically tight pants (then the height of Euro-chic). As they were scrupulously proper in all other ways, we shrugged it off, just as one ignores the speedo vs trunks thing, in the pool. Thus, even if students notice, I’d draw the distinction between him having his body, and him having his body “at” (or in response to) them.

      And given teacher salaries, if we would not expect a female teacher to instantly be able to buy multiple expensive blue bras and shirts, I don’t think we should expect a male teacher to instantly buy (equally-or-more expensive) jeans / pants.

      So I’d leave it as, “Strongly suggest he immediately begin to migrate his wardrobe in that direction.”

    6. Clisby*

      Good thing he doesn’t teach kindergartners. They’d have helpfully pointed it out to him by now.

      1. geeseinflight*

        The number of times a kindergartener has helpfully told me, “Miss, you’re sweating,” or “Miss, what are those dots on your face?” Not to mention the one who kept insisting I had a baby in my tummy.

        1. Clisby*

          My mother taught 4th-graders for years, and was often shaking her head at what children will blurt out in school. At that age, they weren’t generally making personal remarks about a teacher, but they were *definitely* telling things about family dynamics that their parents would probably not want to have spread around school.

        1. Clisby*

          Yeah, whether he’s doing it intentionally or lot, maybe having a bunch of 5-year-olds comment on it would have nipped this in the bud already.

      3. CommanderBanana*

        Or just done a full-on punch or head-butt to the groin. I almost got concussed by a toddler headbutting my forehead once.

    7. Artemesia*

      When men expose themselves and it is not a one off thing, it is intentional. He is doing this because he enjoys showing off to teens. I remember the doctor family friend who would sit on the edge of his swimming pool and his dick would just ‘accidentally’ escape the net in his trunks so that he was exposed if someone swam up to where he was sitting. He did this often; it wasn’t an accident.

      There is no way this guy is unaware of this. It is not one unfortunate pair of pants; it is how he shows up daily to stand in front of kids.

      Yeah have the talk but also be extra aware of other signs that he is not safe around teenagers.

      2. Helewise*

        It’s something to keep an eye on, but no, you really do not need to assume that a person wearing tight pants is a predator! This is a really unnecessary escalation. None of us has the information we’d need to assess this person’s intentions other than our own assumptions about how the world works.

        1. A Simple Narwhal*

          I agree that you should have the conversation first. There is a chance he had no idea and will be horrified and immediately change his wardrobe.

          If he reacts dismissively, defensively, or refuses to change, etc, then we can move into “he’s getting off on it” territory.

          1. Wendy Darling*

            For all we know his pants used to fit fine but he gained a few pounds that went straight to his butt and now his pants are too tight and he doesn’t realize!

            What does tell us is what he does with this information. Most people would, I think, be fairly mortified that their students were looking at their dick and make changes. If he refuses to change anything that’s when you get worried.

      3. Momma Bear*

        I had this thought, too. How he responds to being informed will tell the staff a LOT about him.

      4. Happy Pirate*

        When I was a much younger bloke, I would sometimes suffer from, ahem, ‘peeping Tom’ syndrome. I never noticed immediately and was mortified when I found out.
        It is completely unreasonable to conflate obliviousness with deliberate creepdom.

      5. HannahS*

        I really disagree that it’s absolutely intentional. I’ve seen men in my family wear sweatpants or skinny jeans and not realize that their genitals are visible. It’s not necessary visible when they are looking in the mirror (standing still, facing forward.) It’s visible when they walk or when the light is different, or when viewed from the vantage point of a person sitting down, etc.

        I see women ALL THE TIME who do not realize that when they walk or bend, their knit dress stretches over their bum and reveals to colour and shape of their thong. I have

        1. Dust Bunny*

          Or leggings that are thinner than they thought and show the color/pattern of their underwear. Leggings are not pants!

          1. Wendy Darling*

            Or leggings that used to be fine but now that they’re a bit worn are suddenly see-through.

            I realized the other week that a couple of my shirts have gotten threadbare in places where they’re exposed to friction… like in a couple areas where they rub against my bra. NOT GREAT! (Fortunately for my dignity I wear a sweater over those shirts at work so it wasn’t visible… but ugh.)

        2. Wayward Sun*

          Also, some pants, ahem, “tent” when you sit down. It’s a matter of fit and fabric more than genital size or position.

      7. YetAnotherAnalyst*

        Firstly, if he is still clothed, he is not exposing himself.
        Secondly, while there are absolutely men for whom this is A Thing, there are many, many more men who are oblivious or are wearing pants that they think are comfortable or think look good. Just like how women wear yoga pants for a variety of reasons and most aren’t wearing them to show off their genitalia.
        I have pants that show the outline of my vulva. They’re not too thin, they’re not too tight, but they do have a weird rise and a crotch seam that doesn’t fit my personal anatomy very well. I generally don’t wear them out of the house, because I’m aware of the issue and they make me self-conscious. I don’t throw them out, though, because they’re hands-down the most comfortable and practical clothing I have for gardening and cleaning the barn.
        I am a woman, and it’s been drilled into my head that people will judge me harshly for my personal appearance, so I’ve necessarily become hyper-aware of things like crotch seams. I’m also old enough and in enough pain to decide where I’m no longer willing to care – I’m never wearing a padded bra again in my life and the world can just learn to live with my nipples, even if I feel self-conscious about it. On the other hand. the men in my life have generally been privileged to be judged on their actions rather than their appearance, and usually just choose the first items of clothing that fit the most basic requirements, and don’t even try them on (“My waist is X, my inseam is Y, the pants are X Y and only $20, let’s go!).
        So in the absence of any additional details, let’s assume obliviousness rather than malice.

      8. Rex Libris*

        To be fair, it may not be every pair of pants he owns. Maybe it’s just one or two pairs that he wears once a week or so. It doesn’t have to be daily to still be commented on, and a problem.

        I’d think if he were doing it intentionally, he’d be aware that principals and administrators are just as likely to notice as the students are, and that would probably be something he’d want to avoid.

      9. Bun Bun Babbin*

        Yeah no. There are a GAJILLION reasons that are more likely than “this man knows and is doing it intentionally”. Fabric, lighting in his house when getting dressed, cut, style, even being well-endowed!

        My husband “suffers” (lol) from the latter. It doesn’t matter what type of pants or fabric he wears, he’s packing some heat and you can just see it sometimes. In older, more worn-in pants, an outline is pretty visible just because he’s worn them so much (kinda like a butt groove in a chair/couch). In skinnier pants, he has to ensure he’s “positioned” properly so it’s not so noticeable. But you know, he moves around, stands up, sits down, etc. so things are gonna shift.

        It’s like having larger breasts or perma-perky nipples. I’m not breasting my breasts and/or nipples AT you, they’re just there and doing their thing. Obviously, I know they are bigger and more prominent, and I ensure I am work appropriate (hello I work in a high school too), but you know, they are gonna BE THERE.

        Best they can do is say, “Hey some students have come forward about your pants-region being very prominent, not sure if you were aware how noticeable it was. Can you please try [insert solution here]?”

        Also, what type of pants is this guy wearing? Are they skinny fit? Or are they straight cut jeans? Or track pants? Honestly, if they are skinnies or track pants, then request straight-cut pants. If he is already wearing a loose-fit pant like straight cut, then this man has some big junk and can’t do much about it aside from positioning it carefully or investing in some boxer briefs that help “contain” it a bit better.

        1. YetAnotherAnalyst*

          Changing brands can also help – cheap clothing brands sometimes size up their patterns by just making each pattern piece bigger, but that can actually make the crotch seam smaller because it’s a concave curve. Similarly, sometimes you just need a higher rise so that the crotch hangs a little lower!

      10. NotAManager*

        I think this is a pretty extreme reaction to this situation. I’m not trying to “gender gotcha,” but I don’t think anyone would make the leap like this if the teacher in question was a lady. Can we extend this guy the same courtesy?

        Modern clothes don’t accommodate variations in body type well, that’s well-explored in womens’ clothing, but less talked about with men. Thinner fabrics, perfect symmetry in the trouser legs means that…yeah, sometimes clothes that technically are in your size don’t fit well or accommodate all parts of the body well. It’s possible his salary doesn’t permit him to buy more expensive trousers that would be made of a higher-quality fabric or go to a tailor.

        Not saying no one should speak to him, just saying it could be TOTALLY unintentional, or he might be aware that his pants are tight, but not realize how aware other people are.

    8. TerrorCotta*

      100%. There seem to be a few “but it’s his boddddyy” folks trying to do some kind of Gender Gotcha™ in the comments…but I don’t know any competent teacher/normal human being that wouldn’t be initially HORRIFIED, but ultimately GRATEFUL to be informed all of your students have repeatedly seen the outline of your glans. They would *want* to know so they can correct it.

      I have large breasts! Cleavage and even occasional evidence that nipples exist are just a fact of life. Exact color and texture for them and/or my labia are NOT something I’m expecting anyone else to see, welcome, or excuse. I’ll be embarrassed if informed the new temu yoga pants betrayed me, but for godsakes TELL ME.

      1. YetAnotherAnalyst*

        I don’t think anyone’s saying LW shouldn’t tell him or he shouldn’t correct it? Though the comments are long and complicated now and I’m sure I’ve missed things.
        I think the pushback (or at least, *my* pushback) is generally against comments saying he’s done something wrong or is getting some gratification from this, when this seems like a fairly relatable wardrobe malfunction.

        1. TerrorCotta*

          The only reason I’m kinda leaning on a very firm and immediate pushback, versus a polite “oh hey, not sure you noticed you had a little red on ya” is because it’s apparently been going on so long (hur hur) that TEENS are telling the administration they’re uncomfortable with it. And that they noticed so much they had to edit school pictures, but STILL haven’t brought it up. That’s kind of egregious! On both his part and the administration’s.

          There are also some people in the comments here doing bad faith “well the kids shouldn’t be looking” and “you wouldn’t say that to a WOMAN” so yes, I am feeling a bit salty about it, but also…if he’s not doing it deliberately he should be embarrassed but relieved to be informed. People dancing around it to spare his feelings just (quite literally) shoved it in his students’ faces instead.

    10. LaminarFlow*

      Idk if I would approach this at all. Pretend the teacher is a woman, and her top is tight, and showing her (covered) breasts. There would be some serious outrage if she had to alter her wardrobe in this situation.

      However, I would take myself out of it, and encourage students & parents to email or call the district admin (oh hey, I have the contact info right here for you!) and have the district address the issue with the teacher.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Breasts are not genitalia.

        If a woman is wearing pants or leggings tight enough to show the distinct shape of her vulva, then yes, it is appropriate to discuss it with her. Covering *and* obscuring genitalia so they you cannot clearly see them is seen as important in almost all settings where full nudity is not allowed.

      2. Ace in the Hole*

        The equivalent is not a top that shows the contours of the breast… it’s pants that show the contours of the vulva. Which would be extremely inappropriate at any job but especially for a teacher, and I would absolutely expect the school to address it.

      3. spiriferida*

        Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if the advice for a female teacher was the same as it is here! As Alison and teacher commenters have noted before, teachers experience a pretty high level of scrutiny both from the outside and their students. The ideal might be to just tell people to stop paying attention, but often the realistic solution is going to be a wardrobe alteration.

        Suggesting that folks take things to the district instead sounds like an escalation to me, too. Why wouldn’t the LW want to handle it in a more informal way first?

        1. Kyrielle*

          Yeah, taking it to the district is asking for the guy to have a Record with the District about this which is not to his advantage. If he’s ignorant of it – and I’d guess he probably is – that’s not fair to him. And if he’s not, it still makes the letter-writer look incompetent to the district as well. Far better for LW to address it with the teacher, and then escalate to the district if the teacher’s response if anything other than a mortified thanks for the heads-up and a wardrobe change.

  3. Famous Amos*

    LW #4, if the email account can’t be permanently disabled, just set up an auto responder “Joe Cool-Smith is no longer at this company and this address is not monitored.”

    1. amoeba*

      Yeah, I’m honestly just confused why the account is still active at all, in all places I’ve ever worked, it gets deactivated the day you resign (even at uni, even though some of them gave as some grace period).

      Auto-reply seems like the minimal thing to do – who knows who else might message him? Like, not necessarily through his own fault, if some business contact from years ago or whatever reaches out to him.

      1. Just Asking Questions*

        For a client-facing position, my company will leave the address active with changed passwords and forward it to whoever is taking on that role so customer emails don’t get lost for a reasonable period after a departure. There’s a lot of group project-type email chains or address groups that people may not realize to update right away.

        1. Seeking Second Childhood*

          But you know what? The no-email-exists autoreply is probably annoying enough to encourage people to update their contact lists and mailing lists.

          At least it works for me and my SharePoint sites. ;)

          1. Antilles*

            That really depends on the specific situation. There are a lot of times where the client has mostly worked with one person at the firm, so using a “no email exists auto reply” ends up putting the onus back on the client to try to figure out who to talk to.
            Auto-forwarding lets the company keep the ball in their court. The company gets to be proactive in choosing who’ll respond and be the new primary contact, then letting them introduce themselves.

            1. Archi-detect*

              I could also see it changing the client from having a new person automatically on their account ready to assist with the order they sent versus them just learning they need a new sales rep, and if you need a new sales rep you may as well ask the competitors what they have going on.

            2. MassMatt*

              True, but it sounds as though this former employee is continuing to do business at a rival company and still using the former company’s email address, which is very weird.

              The fact that this former employee left his work a mess and then also didn’t seem to handle changing his address, even with his new employer (!) makes me think his leaving was a big plus.

              1. DisgruntledPelican*

                No, it sounds like this former employee is working for a new company that isn’t paying attention to the auto-complete when they email him.

                When I started my current job, my not so tech savvy boss spent weeks emailing my personal email address instead of my new work email address since the original emails she sent me during the hiring process were to my personal address. When she would go to send me an email, she would type the first few letters of my name and then outlook would autofill the rest with the first email address it had on file for me. She had to physically delete my personal email address before outlook would auto-fill my work email address.

              2. DisgruntledPelican*

                No, it sounds like this former employee is working for a new employer that doesn’t pay attention to the auto-complete when they email him.

          2. Observer*

            The no-email-exists autoreply is probably annoying enough to encourage people to update their contact lists and mailing lists.

            A lot of people turn those off. In our office either there is an auto-response with information that people should have, or it goes in to a black hole.

            This is deliberate. If we need people to have information, we makes sure to give it to them. If it’s an inactive address that no one needs to monitor or care about, then for a security prospect it’s better that there is no bounce-back of any sort.

      2. Chauncy Gardener*

        Customer facing roles usually keep the email active for a super long time, in my experience.

      3. Safely Retired*

        I figure the people at his new company have him in their email address list already, and it just pops up that way when they put in his name.

        1. Mockingjay*

          Exactly. I’ve used Outlook for years, and it is nigh impossible to delete email addresses. No matter how many times I try to remove an invalid or discontinued email address, it pops up in the autocomplete 5 minutes later. I gave up.

      4. Librarian of Things*

        I typically keep my programming librarians’ e-mail addresses live for months after they leave. We immediately shut down the ability to log in to it and the manager gets read/manage access for that time. But, so many things are seasonal or otherwise cyclical, I don’t want, say, the planetarium folks to reach out about our annual astronomy week events and have their messages go to a black hole. The manager can either handle the incoming messages or forward them to the new hire to address. Only when we’re sure we’ve got all of our partners caught up with the new staffing do we kill the box altogether.

        I think we left the last EA address live for two years because vendors seem to like to dig up ancient e-mail addresses to send bills to then complain they weren’t paid; heck we finally got one vendor to send us the complete list of their contacts and it included a former director who left in 2010, her replacement who left in 2017, and a librarian who left in 2012.

    2. Sloanicota*

      +1 my first thought. Let technology solve this problem for you. Technology is happy to reply to *every single email* they send to the wrong address with a notification. That is annoying to them and will straighten it right out and you don’t have to do anything. If you need to keep his email active for other reasons, you can still keep it active with the bounceback, but if you’re still trying to *use* his old email, that’s probably a bad idea and you should stop doing that.

      1. Reality.Bites*

        Indeed, it’s incredibly weird NOT to do that right from the start, with every departing employee with a company email. To me this question is almost of the nature of “Our employee resigned. Should we deactivate their security pass and stop paying them?”

    3. NotAnotherManager!*

      This is what we do – there is a stock message that goes up for a certain number of days (depending on employee role) prior to it being turned off. It basically says the person no longer works here and that they can contact X person for assistance, if needed. We then have a designated staff member monitor the box for at least 30 days and, if there is anything actionable, respond to it from a current user’s email address. I believe IT also sets the departed user’s mailbox so that it can’t send mail.

    4. Momma Bear*

      This is what we do, and it usually includes how to reach the generic front office in case it’s a client with bad info.

  4. Bilateralrope*

    LW4: I’d send one reply to tell them that former employee no longer has access to that email address because he no longer works there. Then ignore their emails unless there is something illegal about them sending you that information

    Maybe get IT to make sure that he hasn’t been accessing it somehow

    1. Call the lawyers first*

      LW4 also needs to inform their company’s legal department before moving forward. Since the employee left for a competitor, the emails may include proprietary info or other protected intellectual property of either your company or the competitor company.

    2. leeapeea*

      Similar, set up an auto-reply to the old email saying it will be out of service as of X date and Y is the new contact for these requests. If it is an auto-fill mistake, and being included on internal email chains makes me think it is, the auto-reply will alert anyone sending/replying all that the wrong email is included.

    3. learnedthehardway*

      I’d do that, AND I would inform the former employee that his new employer is sending him emails to his old employer address. Surely the former employee will follow up and make sure his new company gets his contact information fixed!

  6. Observer*

    #2 – Unannounced video calls.

    I totally agree with Alison. Just to note, though, that if you would be able to take the call if it weren’t video, you can take a call and tell teams to NOT use the camera. Also, if for some reason, you cannot do that (some setting from admin etc.) you can always keep your camera covered. That’s not a bad idea anyway. These days I try to buy only webcams that have covers and most of our staff keeps their cameras covered unless they have a reason to uncover them.

    1. amoeba*

      Yup, came here to say this. At least in my Teams version, I can always choose to answer with or without camera and if somebody calls spontaneously, I have zero problems leaving it off! (Can you even see if the other person has theirs on or not? I though you just see it’s a call, but might be wrong!)
      If you usually use Teams exclusively for video, I get why you feel like you need to have it on as well, but really, many, many people use it just for voice calls. (It’s basically the only way for us to make calls, so we use it for everything!)

      1. Teapot Wrangler*

        Agreed – I usually use it this way (just pressing the telephone symbol to answer) as I see this kind of contact as more like picking up the phone than a physical meeting. If in 2005 it would have been a meeting, video makes sense. If it would have been a phone call / conference call, then voice is the way to go!

        1. fhqwhgads*

          Different offices are different, and for that matter different jobs are different, but I identify with the letter writer in that I have not received a work phone call that wasn’t a preplanned meeting in close to 10 years. If it’s a normal thing to get calls (and it sounds like in the LW’s job it’s not really) then the workflow already has to account for the potential disruption. But if they’re so few and far between, it’s extra disruptive.

    3. Sloanicota*

      I do totally agree, but I also know that if you were in a typical office environment, you wouldn’t be able to just ignore people who “pop by” to ask stupid questions. This always drove me crazy but I’ve heard people defend it as important for new staff learning, faster for others, etc. At least one of my bosses has used this as an example of why we should all RTO – because it’s so much easier to (interrupt others to have) impromptu conversations. So you have to factor in some sense of company culture around remote work if you decide to decline unexpected calls.

      1. Lily Rowan*

        You can ask them to give you a minute to finish your immediate piece of work, though (in my setting it would be to finish the sentence I am in the middle of writing).

    4. Data Nerd*

      My office also uses Teams, and I have set my inbound calls to auto-forward to voicemail. I started doing this when I was working on a project with a company that used Zoom because for some reason those calls would kill my sound on Zoom. But I get so many sales calls that I never switched it back. Everyone knows they have to reach out to me first if they want to chat, and it works well.

    5. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      Yes, agree with Alison that video, phone, etc are all the same paradigm – I’m deep into something right now, I can get back to you shortly.

      I think perhaps the reason it feels different to a lot of people is that an unprompted video call is the closest analog to the old pre-remote behavior of getting up and walking over to somebody’s desk/cube/office.

      When that happened to me IRL, I was comfortable saying “Sorry, can you give me 5 minutes to wrap this up, I need to get my thoughts down on paper”, or pantomiming 5 minutes if I was on a phone call, or whatever, to pretty much anybody. And my coworkers are rational people, and my bosses don’t expect bowing and scraping, and nobody takes it personally. So the same thing goes with electronic communication.

      If you’ve got a very different workplace culture, I can see how that unprompted video call makes you think it has to take precedence.

    6. Blue Pen*

      I haven’t used video calls through Teams in a while, but if I remember correctly, I think there’s a feature you can use that tells anyone reaching out to you whether you’re available to take a message/call at that time.

      1. Observer*

        Yes, that feature exists and I definitely think that it’s within the cultural norms of your company, you should use it.

        And if it’s not part of the norms, but doesn’t run counter to it, it might be useful to start using it and see if it shifts things a bit.

    7. oranges*

      I think the “just pick up the phone” is a vestige from the previous generation of office culture.

      I had a boss who insisted I call people as a solution for everything. (“They can ignore an email, but you can’t ignore a ringing phone!”) It was maddening. I kept telling him that emails and IMs were actually MORE effective, efficient, and courteous in getting what I needed, most of the time.

      1. CV*

        Your post reminded me of a well-known yet under the radar version of “office culture”— Star Trek Next Generation.

        In almost all situations, rather than calling someone on the comm system, they Go To That Person Physically. Obviously this is because everyone just phoning each other would be dull television.

        However, if you (generic) feel that too many real-world phone calls are intrusive and weird (and should be emails) maybe a comparison with how bizarre everyone on the Enterprise going down seven floors to talk to Engineering is.

        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          Haha, as a Trekkie myself, I totally love this comment and couldn’t agree more. And the reason you cited – otherwise it’d be dull television – is true on so many shows, not just Trek shows. But even more noticeable on Trek since they had video calls long before we had them IRL, so non-futuristic shows would just be phone calls, and those are incredibly dull television.

        2. Reality.Bites*

          Years ago I used to watch one of the daytime soaps. I had to laugh at the frequency with which characters would (presumably) drive across town, on the off-chance someone would be home, in order to have a 3 minute conversation.

          In Star Trek Discovery long-distance personal comms were often full-sized holographic projections. Which meant that everyone had to STAND UP for phone calls! No one ever initiated a call while sitting in a comfy chair.

        3. oranges*

          HA! I watched that show a lot with my parents. And yes, now that I think about it, that did happen often, and it doesn’t make sense that people just popped by all the time.

          *do-do-do-doot*
          “Come.”

          1. metadata minion*

            And they always just let the person in, with no idea who it is, despite being on a quasi-military vessel!

      2. Blue Pen*

        Yes, 100% — the other thing I like about them is that it creates a paper trail. Not so much as an accountability thing (although that can be part of it, too), but if it’s a few days later and I need to reference something we discussed then, it’s always helpful to go back to.

    8. Jaina Solo*

      Agreed! Also, I usually have myself on busy status on Teams. I find that if it looks like I’m available, the people who like to randomly call will. Staying on busy prompts them to message me first, or just create an actual meeting based on my calendar.

      One way you can consistently stay on busy is to have placeholder items on your calendar. That gets tricky if you need to have some meeting availability on your calendar so I try to limit mine to a few buffer zones during the day but mostly leave my calendar open. And my boss knows I do this so she can bypass my schedule if she really needs me at a normally blocked off time.

    9. SpaceySteph*

      Yes, keep it covered! I keep my camera covered unless I am specifically planning to be on video. My current computer has a sliding cover built in, but before that it was a post it note cut to size. Sometimes it gets enabled accidentally when taking a call and I am not always camera ready, so that gives me time to either turn off the camera or take a quick look behind me.

    10. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      I find it extremely different. Yes I can have camera off but I don’t sit around with my earbuds in. I work hybrid so I am as likely to be in my office which is too close quarters to have anyone on speaker.

      Maybe I am just old, but even doing things like saving files and making sure my onscreen work is not disturbed is easier if I am not using it for the call. Plus if they get chatty I can keep working on a regular phonecall.

      I find the people who are most likely to do an unscheduled video call are most disturbed if you won’t go camera on

  7. niknik*

    Lw #1: Might be also worth mentioning / showing him the photo that had to be removed. If things are really as obvious as stated, that might help make the case.

    1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

      I imagine he’ll change it up immediately once it’s pointed out. I’m going way out on a limb here and wonder if he’s buying clothes off of Temu- they’re cheap (probably great for a teacher’s salary) but I’ve noticed in their ads that their pants are almost see through. I’m a woman and if a man wore Temu pants near me, I’d probably be able to see everything!

      1. learnedthehardway*

        This is a good point – I have to “approve” my kids and husband’s clothing purchases now, because so much apparel these days – even in “good” stores – is just pure crap. It might look okay under store florescent lighting from the straight front, but the synthetic materials drape and cling excessively. This summer, I returned and got refunded for shorts for my young adult son, that my husband had thought were fine (they were NOT).

    2. Caro*

      Yes. Obviously do it privately, but say that he probably genuinely does not realise it, but the cut of his trousers / colour (or whatever it is) is highlighting his groin area and since it’s a school, kids are starting to make comments. Then, show him a picture where it is clearly shown. It’s objective and not unkind. Just remind him that people have wardrobe malfunctions regularly, don’t realise their perfectly lovely normal skirt or trousers is COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT from the back in bright sunlight or whatever.

      2. bamcheeks*

        I’m wary of equating how you dress with “behaviour”. By all means address it, but wearing clothes that are inappropriate for work isn’t the same as sexually harassing someone.

        1. bamcheeks*

          I am not sure if you didn’t read my comment or if I wasn’t clear? I didn’t say they were the same thing. I said there are times when it is absolutely ok to tell students that their discomfort isn’t a reason for someone else to change their dress and gave an example of one.

        1. bamcheeks*

          Agreed. I’d push back on this language heavily if it were a woman, and I’m no more comfortable with it when it’s about a man.

          I don’t think you can ever do 1:1 “what if this were [other gender]” comparisons straight-forwardly because the dynamics of how our bodies are perceived and how we are socialised to be aware of them are so different. But because of that, I think it is completely possible for a man to be blissfully unaware of something like this because he’s not been brought up being told to consider how his body looks 24/7.

          By all means address it, but do from the starting point that he’s unaware and needs a heads-up, NOT from the point of view that it’s deliberately provocative or exhibitionist.

          1. Sloanicota*

            I agree. Assume this is a whoops and ask him to correct it. Nobody has to be a bad person, neither the student or the teacher. No reason to shame anyone. And I think I would say the same if they realized they had to take down a photo because a female teacher’s whole bra was showing or whatever. I’ve certainly had embarrassing wardrobe whoopses because I didn’t realize the fit was off on something until too late.

          2. Artemesia*

            This is the appropriate way to frame the initial conversation about this, but his manager should be very alert to other inappropriate behavior. Men who do this are likely to be very aware of what they are doing and doing it intentionally.

            1. TeaCoziesRUs*

              You’ve said this on multiple threads now, and it hurts my heart for you that this is your immediate reaction. Yes, absolutely, this guy might be an exhibitionist, a creep, or is enjoying it with full knowledge. However, if he’s a young teacher, I’m going to give him grace **until he gives me rain to assume otherwise.**

              I would hope that if you heard colleagues talking about a woman’s cameltoe or areolae being visible, you’d kindly clue her in.

              This is one of those situations where I wouldn’t automatically jump to malice when ignorance is just as likely, if not more so.

          1. Liz*

            My daughter not knowing how big her teacher’s package is = a hill I’m happy to die on and it’s weird you can’t understand that .

            2. YetAnotherAnalyst*

              How do you propose to die on this hill, exactly? The teacher is fully clothed and within dress code. Wearing ill-fitting clothing is not generally a fireable offense.
              Someone should certainly talk to the teacher because he’s probably not aware of the issue. But there’s nothing wrong with his behavior, just with the cut of his trousers.

              1. Jennifer Strange*

                Wearing ill-fitting clothing is not generally a fireable offense.

                Good thing no one has suggested firing him then.

                2. Jennifer Strange*

                  @YetAnotherAnalyst It entails them speaking to him about it and asking him to wear looser pants? Not sure what else you think it would entail.

                3. YetAnotherAnalyst*

                  I don’t know, hence the question. Liz’s comment, in the context of this thread, certainly seems to imply that a teacher having a male body and poorly fitted pants would be some form of bad (presumably sexual) behavior towards her daughter. My presumption is that “die on this hill” means Liz would either go to the cops or physically assault with the teacher, which would be valid responses for a flasher – but that’s frankly insane in this case. If it’s simply that she thinks someone should talk to the teacher, it’s a little weird she thinks there’s a hill to die on at all, since that seems to be the nearly unanimous opinion of the thread.

                4. Jennifer Strange*

                  Okay, I think I see where the disconnect is. Liz was specifically responding to someone who said “Some people have an axe to grind”, but it’s not clear to me if that comment is saying they agree with the first part of this thread (that the students are to blame for noticing) or that they disagree with it. I don’t want to speak for Liz, but I believe the implication they were responding to was the idea that wanting to talk to the teacher about it meant they have an axe to grind (hence the hill to die on).

                5. DisgruntledPelican*

                  @Jennifer I think the “axe to grind” comment was clearly referencing the few comments on this page saying of course this man must know what he’s doing and is therefore a predator.

              2. Jasmine*

                Clothes that reveal intimate body parts are not within the dress code! There are rules and principles. The spirit of of the code should be followed.

                1. YetAnotherAnalyst*

                  The letter writer explicitly states that the teacher has not violated the dress code, though?

                2. Lisa B*

                  That’s what I’m struggling with a bit, when Alison said maybe in a regular worksite she wouldn’t bring it up, but this is a school, so sure. Um…. no? Clothes that allow those around you to see your genitalia are not permitted in any environment. Full stop. I would immediately shut down any employee who argued about “but I’m wearing slacks and a button up shirt I’m clearly in the dress code.” Appropriate business attire should never entail being able to see the distinct skin-tight outline of your crotch, whether that is explicitly stated in writing or not. You need to ensure that is the case, whether that be by size, by pant style, by fabric, your choice.

                3. DE*

                  Teachers are not at will. We have a contract which the OP goes out of their way to say this guy hasn’t violated. The principal can point out that the pants are too tight but in no district I’ve taught in could they *make* him wear looser clothes if it wasn’t outlined in the actual contract.

                  I’ve also never taught somewhere that actually had a dress code, so I don’t know how they’re written. Typically we are just trusted to dress professionally and it’s never brought up.

            4. Welp*

              Of course I understand; I’m all for … concealed carrying.
              The conclusion he must be doing it on purpose for nefarious reasons, nothing else possible, is where I can’t follow.

            5. Helewise*

              Nobody’s saying he shouldn’t correct it. It isn’t a healthy or helpful response to label assuming good intent as weird.

              2. Observer*

                But my son has to know the size of his teacher’s chest

                This is not about sons vs daughters. And if your kid gets to see the exact cup size, the exact shape of the nipples or other details at that level of a female teacher, yeah, I’d expect you to die on that hill, too.

                There is a difference between the general shape of a human being, including their curves, and the specific shape and details of, especially genitalia.

            7. Rep (taylor’s version)*

              Ummm but certainly she can tell how big her teachers’ breasts are? How is this different?

              1. kt*

                This is a great analogy! Women teachers are very conscious of how tight shirts are, whether they show nipple or not, whether the neckline is too low, and more. When I taught I had a series of tests for all clothing for teaching: 1) When I bend over to look at a student’s paper, will they be able to see down my shirt? 2) When I write on the board or reach/jump up to grab the next chalkboard or the projector screen pull cord, will they see skin or anything unnecessary around my butt? Do the armholes allow this movement without too much awkwardness? 3) Certainly I couldn’t wear tight pants or have anything tight in the crotch area, and definitely couldn’t wear leggings without a dress on top. 4) No button-up shirts or wrap dresses as without an undershirt there was too much danger of wardrobe malfunction of several varieties, and with an undershirt it was still fraught. 5) Definitely padded bras, not for the lift but for the headlight protection. Generally not too fitted, either, but see above on gapping. This made for a lot of sweaters because turtlenecks tend to be a snugger fit.

                Hell, I even made sure my butt didn’t wiggle too much when erasing the board, because I’d heard students comment on this about another woman in my profession.

                And this is all university-level, not high school.

                So yeah, it’s not different.

              2. Analyst*

                breasts are not genitals, so completely different. The actual equivalent would be camel toe/seeing the outline of a woman’s vulva. Which would be just as inappropriate and in need of fixing.

              3. MassMatt*

                Better analogy might be whether nipples are visible/clearly outlined or not.

                There’s a big difference between having some sort of vague bulge at the crotch and having the penis outlined so clearly you can tell whether or not it’s circumcised.

                1. MigraineMonth*

                  No, because nipples are *not* genitalia, and whether or not it is okay to see them in public is not at all a settled issue. Even if you accept that a flat-chested woman’s nipples are inherently sexual/private in a way that a full-chested man’s aren’t, what about trans and non-binary folks?

                  (This isn’t only hypothetical. Just the other week I was in a show with a Drag King, and no one was sure whether or not he was required to cover his nipples during his performance. Common sense said no, but legally…?)

        3. YetAnotherAnalyst*

          This. From the female-body side of things I’ve certainly had “whoops, this shirt is a lot more revealing under these lights” moments, and a few “these jeans have more spandex than I realized” moments. Somebody needs to take the teacher aside and have a word about his pants, but the teacher hasn’t done anything wrong.
          Also, high school students are plenty old enough to learn where their teachers’ eyes are (though probably young enough to not care).

          1. White Squirrel*

            I get about being old enough to know where their teacher’s eyes are but I also have burned onto my retina memories of a male teacher who walked the aisles and stood by desks and if you turned an the wrong second you’d be face to crotch.

            1. TW*

              Yeppp we had a teacher in middle school who would put one leg up on a chair or desk when talking to students. He’d be in a weird lunge position and when you’re sitting down at your desk, that is crotch-in-face.

              Everyone was weirded out by it, though thankfully it was the 90’s and his pants were uhh sufficiently loose.

        4. Caro*

          of course it isn’t. This is similar to a person wearing a normal skirt and not realising it is completely and totally see-through in certain lights. Princess Diana herself fell into that trap. These things happen. It’s a school, so it’s extra-noticeable and can be easily remedied.

          1. Steve*

            this whole conversation reminds me of that Friends episode where Monica’s blouse was see through under stage lights when she sang karaoke. She thought she was getting applause because she was a better singer than she was but in fact it was… a clothes whoops. :)

    2. Indolent Libertine*

      Think back to being in a classroom… seated at a desk… with the teacher standing at the front of the room. If there’s something untoward going on in his crotchal area it’s kind of literally in their faces.

        1. Makare*

          Oh god, flashbacks to the math teacher in my high school who was also a PE teacher/coach and wore basketball shorts all day, every day. SO uncomfortable when he walked between the rows of desks while we were working on assignments. I’m quite sure he gave it not a second thought, but at 14/15/16, that shit is MORTIFYING to notice.

          1. White Squirrel*

            I also have burned onto my retina memories of a male teacher who walked the aisles and stood by desks and if you turned a the wrong second you’d be face to crotch.

        2. LC*

          I once had my principal tell me my shirt was see-through and I was horrified (it was new and I couldn’t see through it in the mirror at home).

    3. Coffeebreak*

      This is so inappropriate.
      They’ve made complaints.

      Honestly, most men I’ve met can tell when their pants are too tight and the ones who wear pants like that are doing it on purpose, which is incredibly gross in this context.

      1. Typity*

        It’s possible he’s genuinely oblivious — some people just don’t look in the mirror, or, for budget or other reasons, keep wearing clothes that are worn out or don’t fit anymore. He may need no more than a simple “please wear less revealing trousers at work” to understand what the problem is and change his skin-tight ways.

        Absent other problems, I’d certainly rather see it that way than assume idea this guy is getting some kind of charge out of showing his good to high school kids.

        1. Jay*

          I definitely would think “they used to fit” before thinking “this is a calculated move to show his penis imprint to teenagers” and I really don’t see why it’d be necessary to assume he’s malicious before so much as trying to communicate the issue. Also, depending on his height, such things may not be visible to him in his bathroom mirror or whatever, so I don’t think it’s that weird that he doesn’t know how the fit actually looks.

    4. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I see what you’re getting at but remember that this site HAS drawn a distinction between “has breasts and nipples” and “can see the outline&color of aureoles”. ie women’s AND men’s shirts shouldn’t be so thin as to show anatomy.

      A woman teaching with cameltoe would get the same advice. ie not so thin as to show anatomy.

      1. Coffeebreak*

        That’s exactly why no school allows yoga pants. Nipples are different than a penis. We all have nipples. We don’t all wear tight pants to accentuate our members.

        2. Rep (taylor’s version)*

          Ummmm I’ve seen several teachers in the district I work wear leggings/yoga pants. So don’t speak for all schools.

      2. YetAnotherAnalyst*

        “Can see outline and color of aureole” means the fabric is sheer enough that you can tell color through it. This situation is not that.

        This situation is much closer to “can see topography of nipples”, in that the teacher is fully and correctly clothed, but his anatomy just doesn’t work with his clothing choice. Cameltoe is a good analogy, because it actually has less to do with the thickness of the fabric than with the cut of the crotch seam (my heavy-duty overalls give me terrible cameltoe; my yoga pants none at all). And the fit of pants changes as you wear them, so pants that fit correctly when I put them on may not be the end of the day (loose-fitting dress pants are terrible for this).

      3. Sweet Summer Child*

        *** this site HAS drawn a distinction between “has breasts and nipples” and “can see the outline&color of aureoles”.

        Thank you for recapping this. I remembered the first part and couldn’t counter the teacher’s issue of the letter with this issue. THAT is the difference. Appreciate it.

    5. tabloidtainted*

      People, but kids in particular, should never be able to see the outline of an adult’s genitalia through their clothes—whether they’re men or women.

    6. metadata minion*

      * Because they’re teenagers and think both crotches and teachers’ clothing choices are hilarious
      * Because it really is very obvious and the kind of thing where once you notice (because hey, it’s right there) you now can’t unsee it
      * Because if you’re a student sitting at a desk and looking at a teacher walking by, your eyes may be at more or less crotch level on him, especially if he’s fairly tall

      1. HB*

        One other thought along these lines…

        This is the language from the letter:

        “Several students have gone to the principal to share this information”

        A lot of people have said in the comments that the students have complained or that they’re uncomfortable… but that doesn’t track with the phrasing. It’s *very* possible that the students have simply… noticed… and they’re embarrassed for him because kids are kids and some of them are probably making fun of him.

        1. Wayward Sun*

          If kids are going to the principal it’s probably pretty serious. I can’t think of ANY situation in high school where I would have voluntarily talked to the principal.

  9. Sam*

    Tight pants knows what’s up. Put the cards on the table that it has to be addressed and keep an eye on him.

    1. KateM*

      Either his pants are that thin and tight that his penis is visible through them in rest state… or he is walking around students with visible erection. Both cases absolutely need to be shut down, and I think even in any kind of workplace.

      1. amoeba*

        Nah. I’ve definitely met plenty of men where it was very visible through, like, normal (fitted, but definitely not skin-tight) jeans. Some guys have a significant penis in its non-erected state and you can clearly tell whether it goes to the right or to the left… we had a professor at uni where that was kind of a running gag among us.

        (Yes, being immature students, we were definitely joking about that guy’s package. But he was really not wearing anything inappropriate. He just apparently had a large penis that had to go somewhere in his pretty normal jeans. What was he to do, wear only cargo pants?)

        So yes, I disagree with Alison a little bit here – if the guy is wearing, like, super skinny jeans or extra thin fabric then yes, absolutely, talk to him. But if he’s wearing clothing that would be normal and appropriate for somebody less well equipped, I honestly don’t see that you can tell him he needs to dress differently than everybody else – that does indeed go into “women with large breasts can’t wear tight shirts” territory.

        1. Thegreatprevaricator*

          But would you have complained about him? We wouldn’t have. That several students have is what raised flags for me. I think give him the information and monitor is the proportionate course of action. But speaking as a former teenaged girl – you bet I knew when something was not right. I totally laughed about the teaching assistant with tight jeans and big belt buckle. I did not laugh about the teacher who kept finding innocent opportunities to be close to me. And what do you know he was the one who was sacked for inappropriate behaviour (not with me). The lengths some commentators are going to explain this away. It’s inappropriate, that students have flagged it is notable. No-one’s saying sack the guy but they are saying address this directly and to watch carefully that this isn’t part of a pattern of behaviour.

          1. Myrin*

            OP should definitely keep an eye out for any signs that he’s dressing like this on purpose, but I do want to point out that the students “complaining” and “being uncomfortable” only comes up in the comments – what the letter says is “Several students have gone to the principal to share this information.” which could mean they were uncomfortable but doesn’t have to. I can easily see pupils making fun of his package deal and someone going to the principal because of that or pupils thinking that surely the teacher would want to know about this but being too shy to say something to him directly.

          2. DE*

            The letter doesn’t use the word “complain” though. They have mentioned it to the principal. I can’t help but assume that language by the letter writer is deliberate. Had they been complaints that’s what would have been said.

            I interpreted that bit of the letter as suggesting the kids are embarrassed for the guy, not that they’re personally uncomfortable.

      2. Where's the beef?*

        I really don’t get this. Why would seeing the outline of him penis be any more shocking than seeing a woman with erect nipples or a visible camel toe (things most men are subjected to regularly in public)?

        3. Liz*

          Why do 14 year old girls have to see the outline of his penis because he can’t size up? A female teacher with visible nipples would also be completely inappropriate.

        5. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          All you dudes who are ride or die for the idea that its ok for an adult man to be outlining the details of his penis in a roomful of children, especially after some of the children have expressed that they are noticing it and that it makes them uncomfortable, are pretty gross.

          2. Nah*

            Who on earth is saying this? They’re pushing back against the “THERE IS NO POSSIBLE EXPLANATION THAN HE IS A SEXUAL PREDATOR” allegations, which are extremely alarming and concerning!

        6. katydid*

          I am a female teacher at an all-girls school and I guarantee you if my students could see my nipples or camel toe it would not be okay with them or my administration.

        7. metadata minion*

          Because nipples aren’t genitals and showing genitals is generally more taboo than visible breasts? If a woman were wearing pants that were sufficiently tight and/or translucent to show her labia that would be equally inappropriate.

        8. bamcheeks*

          I am broadly in agreement that we need to be careful about establishing others people’s discomfort or distraction as a headstock for what our bodies are allowed to look like, but if you want to make that case, you can’t use language like “subjected to”. Women aren’t bodies AT you.

          1. Where's the beef?*

            I fully take that on board. I think I was just irritated by some of the more judgmental comments in this thread.

        9. Nonsense*

          A teacher with cameltoe is inappropriate and would also merit a conversation. And you’re using a strawman argument by comparing “out in public” to “workplace with dress srandards.” They are not equal scenarios.

      3. Zeus*

        I’m no penis expert (now there’s a sentence) but I did have a trainer at one job who wore normal jeans (i.e. not a tight style) and we could see his quite clearly when he was standing up and walking around. I don’t know if anyone mentioned it to him, but it was just a known fact in that office that “Gary has a big penis” same as “Jane has blonde hair”.

        In hindsight, it was a weird work environment.

    2. Red headed Stepchild*

      I know of a teacher that had this issue. He was absolutely aware and doing it on purpose. I’m not saying this guy is, but he works with kids. He’ll either be mortified and fix the issue or you’ll know you’re dealing with intent.

    3. Thegreatprevaricator*

      Yeah I hate that my brain is going here but the students are complaining about it? That suggests that something about this is making them uncomfortable and I would absolutely be keeping a close eye on this guy.

      1. Just Another Techie*

        100%

        Complaining to a principal is embarrassing. Teens aren’t going to go to that trouble if the teacher is just clueless.

    4. Teapot Wrangler*

      Maybe (and as it is kids, definitely keep an eye) but some people do just have this issue. Think of Frank Sinatra!

      1. Coffeebreak*

        The kids are uncomfortable and multiple have complained. That’s means something about this is making them uncomfortable enough to bring this up with adults, which is actually rare for kids. I think a lot of you are forgetting that some male teachers do have felonious intent. I’m not saying he does but something about this is not right. I highly doubt it’s cluelessness. Most men I know are aware of how tight their pants are and what is on display.

        1. Nonsense*

          Yeah this really cannot be overstated. I know Gen Z and Gen A kids are more comfortable speaking up in general – and I am so glad for it – but for more than one student to actually report it to the school instead of going through their parents first? That means the situation is so out-of-bounds normal it’s overriden the natural inclination to go to known sympathetic authority (parents) and instead go to the unknown authority (school).

          Kids and teens are not dumb. They know when something is off.

    5. Sloanicota*

      I think it’s better to start from the assumption that this is not intentional and this teacher doesn’t realize. It doesn’t prevent you from escalating later if necessary.

    7. Brain the Brian*

      100%. The fact that he’s a new (likely young) teacher raises another red flag for me. It’s illegal for him to have any sexual contact with his students, of course, but a 22-year-old newly minted teacher is still close in age to the teenagers it sounds like he’s teaching. If it gets out into the community that students raised this and admin did nothing, admin will face serious blowback. You need to talk to this guy. He knows what’s up, and it’s gross.

      1. Nah*

        This is some deeply disturbing fanfiction to be writing so convinced about the letter writer’s coworker and students, I must say!

        1. Brain the Brian*

          There have been enough incidents of inappropriate contact between students and teachers over the years that I’d worry about this creep’s intentions. It’s gross, I agree, but not that far-fetched. Admin needs to lay down the law.

  10. Observer*

    #4 – Old email.

    What we do, and what would probably be especially sensible in your case, would be to

    1. Change all passwords
    2. Explicitly block the user from logging into email (as a separate step)
    3. Set up an auto-responder saying something like “John Smith is no longer working for OurCorp. For assistance please call June Jones @ x567 or j.jones@ourcorp.com”
    4. auto-forward all email to the replacement. Depending on the specifics that stays in place for anywhere from 30 days to forwever.
    5. Provide direct access for the replacement to be able to read everything in the existing box, although nothing should ever be done within that mailbox.
    6- 7-90 days (depends on the specifics) De-license the email account and make sure that system access is deactivated.

    This is in addition to deactivating any other accounts on any specific systems.

    If you do that, then the new employer will be on notice that their emails are going to the wrong place. As a courtesy, since they are customers, you might want to shoot them one separate email saying “It seems like you’re using John’s OurCorp email instead your system. Just so you know, that account has been deactivated and John should not have any access.”

    Regardless, double check everything to make sure that he cannot have *any* access to his old email.

    And don’t delete his account, or accounts in general. You can deactivate accounts without deleting them. And with Office 365, if you turn it into a shared mailbox, you can retain the contents for quite a while, which can be useful for finding stuff later.

    1. fhqwhgads*

      From what’s described in the letter it sounds like they did everything except the autoreply, which is a bummer since it probably would’ve solved the issue in a day or two.

  11. Name's Seuss*

    #2: Your letter doesn’t make it clear if you use a busy/out of office /indicator status when you need to focus?

    1. coachfitz13*

      This. Also, your IT department can set the top-level administrative functions in Teams to prevent video calls when your status is set to Busy.

      1. Allonge*

        Prevent the call from being placed or just ‘ringing’ at the receiver end?

        I don’t think I would do the first one – no matter how annoying out-of-the-blue calls are, sometimes there are emergencies.

        Having all notifications muted is fine, but there should still be a ‘X tried to call you’ signal.

      2. Seeking Second Childhood*

        On a somewhat related note, it was a grand day when our corp IT updated the Teams default to NOT include a message preview.

      3. bishbah*

        There is a “Do Not Disturb” status for this purpose. It can be set to turn on automatically when you are presenting (sharing your screen), but it can also be selected manually when you need to focus.

        1. JustaTech*

          I am so, so grateful for the “Do Not disturb”!
          I used to have a coworker who could be rather childish and had a jokey/ bro-like relationship with some of the more senior managers. Coworker thought it was *hilarious* to IM them semi-questionable comments while they were presenting. Which is annoying for a small internal meeting, and a potential real problem for an important meeting, and Coworker wasn’t privy to which meeting was which.

    2. Mark*

      I agree, set your status to busy or focusing and in the setting choose do not disturb for these settings and calls will not appear. Diligent use of the teams status should stop interruptions. Ii only call someone when their status is green which means free and available. I would only ping someone – can I give you a call – if I rarely interact with them. And I do give brief context when I do so.

      As to video rather than audio, I don’t see the issue, if someone stops by your desk they would see you so why not over teams. Unless your company has a culture of camera off then appearing on a work call on video is pretty normal. Maybe I am too used to being on camera for calls but for several years our company has had a camera on policy and it works 90% of the time.

      1. Jackalope*

        This is a tech issue, but I personally have had issues with Teams and their status system. It often doesn’t work, switches on its own for no apparent reason, etc. So I don’t know if diligent use of the Do Not Disturb function would work or not. I would also personally in this situation want the option for people to IM me as needed, but not initiate a video call without my prior okay. My experience with the Do Not Disturb setting is that it doesn’t let anything through, including IMs.

        (All of these are potentially workable issues, I’m just not sure if Teams is capable of doing what you suggested accurately.)

      2. Zelda*

        “As to video rather than audio, I don’t see the issue, if someone stops by your desk they would see you so why not over teams.”

        One of the perks of WFH is working in my PJs and skipping the makeup. (I know, some people use “get dressed in fully professional clothing” as a psychological marker for “get to work,” but that’s not universal and doesn’t need to be.) If I *know* I have a meeting, I’ll get gussied up to be camera-ready, but most days we’re just messaging each other and I don’t need to waste time on my appearance.

      3. Observer*

        As to video rather than audio, I don’t see the issue,

        Which is fine. But not everyone operates the same way. I personally don’t find video calls to be more of an interruption than audio only calls, but that’s not universal. And for some people it’s not the interruption per se but being on video is not great for a number of reasons. The fact that they would be visible if they were in the office together with the other person does not necessarily change that, especially if the LW is not actually in the office.

        for several years our company has had a camera on policy and it works 90% of the time.

        And what about the other 10%. Also, don’t be so sure that it worked *well* for everyone else. There are a lot of times where it’s a lot easier for me to work not on camera, even when I’m at work and fully dressed.

    3. Tangerine steak*

      Agreed. Of you use teams you can tell people you are unavailable, you can also have a status message.

      I love that colleagues call me directly rather than sending messages I might not see. If I’m unavailable I’ve indicated that through my availability. If it’s something big schedule a meeting.

      If I can’t take the call I won’t – but I suspect some people don’t take calls out of some weird principle that it’s rude to contact a coworker without first contacting the coworker to request permission to contact the coworker.

      1. English Rose*

        Yes, the last part of your comment articulates what I’ve been thinking about this letter. Where I work, we differentiate between video calls, which are mainly for meetings and pre-arranged, and phone calls, which are made and answered for more casual requests.
        I wouldn’t expect someone to contact me to ask if they could phone me. If I couldn’t answer I wouldn’t, and they’d leave me a v/m.
        If Teams calls are used in LW2’s org in the same way others would make phone calls I don’t really understand the issue.

        1. Socks*

          Not OP, but I think part of the issue is practical and part of it is cultural.

          Just speaking for my org, the culture is that unannounced Teams calls are for “something is on fire and we need you to drop everything now.” I’d be pretty miffed if someone called me out of the blue and had a non-urgent question!

          And then on a practical level, most of my work is focus work. If we did have a culture of calling without checking if it’s a good time first for non-emergencies, I’d decline 99% of the calls anyway, and the same would be true of most of my colleagues. So the unannounced call would essentially be a more-disruptive version of sending a message asking if I have a couple minutes to chat.

          1. NotBatman*

            I was thinking the same thing! The only time I’d ever attempt to start a video chat with someone unwarned would be if there was a major emergency AND it couldn’t be handled by IM. Even then I’d probably text/call them to say “hey, we need to Zoom right now because the llamas are on fire.”

            What if the other person is eating? What if they’re breastfeeding? What if they’re just working on something else? Forcing them to drop everything to be *in a meeting* with seconds’ notice seems deeply rude.

          2. RagingADHD*

            Interesting. Where I work, 99 percent of calls are on Teams because our workforce is dispersed and there’s no requirement to forward calls to cell, so the phone number in the directory might ring in an empty office. And most people ping first, but not always.

            We also have a really flexible culture around camera-on. It’s totally at the users discretion. So even though you might get an unexpected call, it’s fine to pick up voice only.

            Work cultures have so many variables!

      2. Another Kristin*

        OP, do you have a request process for data queries? If you set up a form for data query requests, you can put a link in your teams status message and this will head off a lot of these unwanted Teams calls. I did this for a similar task I’m responsible for at work and not only does it cut down on unscheduled calls etc, it makes it easier to triage and track work.

    4. Duckling*

      That’s what I was wondering too. As Teams interacts with my Outlook calendar, I just block off focus time as an appointment so it shows as busy. And I don’t expect anyone to be available if they’re showing as busy, though I might message and ask them to give me a call when they can.
      I don’t usually bother to change the status message, unless I’m doing something like working on hard copy and might not see messages for a while.

    5. 653-CXK*

      Yes…in Teams, there’s a little circle in your profile picutre in the lower right corner. Click your profile picture, and then the Statuses will come up. You can select Available (green with a checkmark), Busy (solid red), In a Meeting (also solid red) and Do Not Disturb (solid red with white bar). You can also add messages to your status.

    6. ecnaseener*

      The thing with that is, there’s no status setting that conveys “messages are fine, and I might be able to talk in a few minutes if you message me to ask, but please no unannounced call (unless you’re management).” I guess you could type that into the status bar every time, but…

    7. gyratory_circus*

      FWIW – in my experience having a Busy status doesn’t stop people from contacting me. They all think they’re the exception and that what they need will only take a second and isn’t a real interruption. The only thing that works is Do Not Disturb, which in my org is only to be used in very specific circumstances (ie when presenting, or if you’re working on a project that has to be turned in to people very high up within 24 hours), or else Appear Offline, which I use when I log in earlier than everyone in order to get specific reporting done.

      1. Caramel & Cheddar*

        I was surprised how long it took someone to say this! So many people just straight up ignore the statuses, and I suspect they’re the same folks who are going to call you unannounced rather than seeing if you’re available.

  12. Random busybody*

    Lw 1 If it truly is not a violation of your school’s dress code for a teacher to wear clothing so tight/thin that their privates are visible it really should be.

    You shouldn’t just be planning to “suggest” he wear clothing which does not clearly outline his penis. Suggesting has the implication that he can continue having a clearly outlined penis if he chooses. He needs to be kindly but directly told his clothing choices are not currently classroom appropriate imo.

    2. amoeba*

      There are definitely people who have a, er, clearly visible package in very normal clothes like fitted (not skintight!) jeans.

      I mean, if it’s really super thin or stretchy clothing that’s the problem, sure. But it doesn’t have to be. I’ve met a few examples. (Although I guess in that case the students would probably have had the common sense not to go to the principal about it, but it’s generally at least an option!)

      1. Random busybody*

        Even if your clothing would not be tight or thin enough to highlight someone else’s privates, if it is tight or thin enough to highlight your privates it is too tight/thin for teaching attire.

        Dressing appropriately requires being aware of how your body is filling clothing, not just viewing the item of clothing in a vacuum. If a teachers privates are visible enough in fitted pants for multiple students to feel uncormfortable enough to report it and a picture needing to be removed from the internet, fitted pants are not classroom appropriate for that person. It is still a problem even if a different person may not have that same problem.

        1. NotBatman*

          I also think that this is one of those social norms that needs to be taught. My husband is polite, upright, careful to make others comfortable — and I had to sit him down for a conversation about “No, it is absolutely not acceptable to go into work with an inch of your underwear showing, and I know every guy we know does it at home but this is not home.” I’ve never seen this teacher’s pants, but they might be acceptable in casual settings and he might not know the difference.

          1. Laura*

            Yeah, I had a fight with my spouse when he was TAing because he was wearing pants with a hole big enough you could clearly see his boxers. He tried to argue that it was fine because he was covered but I prevailed with the “nobody should see your underpants at work”
            (He wasn’t doing it intentionally; he was just a cheapskate on a grad student budget and still wearing his old pants from high school)

      2. Nina*

        I can see whether or not this person has the kind of genitals that cause a bulge in pants – completely normal and largely unavoidable.
        The ‘imprint’ of this person’s penis is “very visible” – this person urgently needs looser or thicker pants.

      3. Samwise*

        There’s a difference between a bulge and a clear outline of shaft, glans, scrotum. Especially when that outline is walking past siting students — it’s at eye level.

      4. Observer*

        There are definitely people who have a, er, clearly visible package in very normal clothes like fitted (not skintight!) jeans.

        It doesn’t really matter. It still cannot be that visible. I get it – it does make it harder to dress appropriately. But that is true for anyone whose body is not in sync with inexpensive clothing norms. And that’s assuming that this is really the issue.

        There are some items of our anatomy that should not be showing up at work. X10 in school.

    3. Rey123*

      I don’t think everything needs to be written out in a dresscode. Well, I don’t really agree with dresscodes but that’s a separate issue. If principal tells a teacher that they’ve had to delete photos from instagram and students have approached the administratios because the outline of his penis is too visible in his too tight pants. And the teachers reaction is to point out it is not agains in a dresscode and then leaves in a huff. Then the dresscode isn’t the problem.

    4. Glazed Donut*

      Every school I’ve worked in has had a “no tight or revealing clothing” provision in the teacher dress code, and it’s NOT just for women! This is an easy fix.

  13. Bob*

    One of my colleagues has status message that asks people to message before calling so that they can make sure they don’t lose track on whatever they’re working on.

    1. David*

      This. In jobs that require substantial focus, asking via a message if you can call is much less intrusive than calling directly, since it can be handled when the recipient gets to a reasonable place in the work. Losing a train of thought can sometimes cost an hour’s productivity even if it’s just a quick call.

  14. Ellis Bell*

    Fashion usually likes to confuse young women but I wonder if it’s found a male victim here. The very slim and stretchy trouser style has always looked like a potential issue to me; put it someone with any muscle tone and it’s looks like the Hulk was caught short. I think they’re also going back out of fashion, which would make the cut even more noticeable to high school kids. I think both men and women need to approach very stretchy, very tight clothes with some caution. I’m thinking of the supply teaching assistant who showed up to my school in cycling shorts, so OP can be reassured that it could be worse!

    1. WS*

      Oh god yes, I remember my high school music teacher. He was an avid cyclist and repeatedly showed up for classes in extremely tight cycling gear which, in at least one set, also had a very unfortunately bright yellow crotch. Quite startling and at eye level when you’re sitting! Also, he often smelled strongly of sweat which wasn’t too bad in the morning but was putrid by late afternoon. It was a long-running joke with the students but one day we got a new vice-principal and suddenly the music teacher found time to wash change before classes.

    2. Angstrom*

      Stretch fabrics are becoming more common in men’s pants, especially athleisure such as hiking pants or cargo pants. In lighter colors the contents can be very noticeable. Not a good look in front of an audience.

      1. SadieMae*

        My brother-in-law once bought some white bike shorts, and when he put them on (sans underwear, which apparently is standard for cyclists), my sister said, “Honey, those are see-through.” He denied this. (Probably they were more translucent if you were looking at them head-on than if you were looking down at them, as he of course was when wearing them.) And he cycled all over town in those things.

        Anyway: about a year later, he asked my sister for more cycling apparel as a birthday gift, and she was looking through the website and found the very same bike shorts. The white ones had a note in the description that read “Now more opaque, by customer request!” She felt vindicated – she was definitely not the only one to have noticed the translucency! And the old bike shorts were summarily retired.

        1. Generic Name*

          I’m giving your BIL some serious side eye here. He believed a website description over the word of his own wife.

          1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

            Seriously. If I tell my husband his pants are see through and he doesn’t believe me, like he thinks either somehow I would have a reason to lie to him about this or I’m stupid and don’t know what I’m saying, we already have bigger issues.

          2. Observer*

            I’m giving your BIL some serious side eye here.

            Yeah. Me too. Not just because he believed the web site over his wife, although that’s an issue on it’s own. But also, because it’s the kind of thing you take on board anyway.

            Like if my husband told me that my shirt is see through, and I didn’t see it, I would still either not wear the shirt or wear something under it. Because it’s easy enough to do and the downside if I’m wrong is too high. And I recognize that he’s a reasonable person who doesn’t tell me that anything is see through just because or because he’s paranoid or something.

            And I expect the same from him.

        2. Kevin Sours*

          “sans underwear, which apparently is standard for cyclists”

          Normal underwear will dig in around the seams which means that around mile seventy you are not going to have skin in places that you prefer to have skin. Bike shorts are designed to prevent that sort of thing.

  15. Allonge*

    LW3 – does it help to think about this as the manager mostly seeking help / commiseration for themselves, not as trying to console others?

    Not that I think it’s a good choice, but I cannot imagine someone consciously deciding to ‘help’ others via this method if they themselves don’t need a good talk. And yes, managers should choose other methods for both issues, and be very very sensitive in who, specifically, they approach in any case.

    But, like, my manager is still a human, she was devastated by the news, and I do feel some empathy with the need to talk about it (especially as it has some direct impact on our work).

    1. NotBatman*

      Good point. It’s still inappropriate, but maybe she thinks of this as “We just got sad/scary news, so I’m going to talk to my coworkers for help” and is just clueless about the power dynamic. If there’s no one else at her level who works in the same location, maybe she doesn’t have other coworkers she could talk to about this kind of thing. Still better to save it for friends/family, but cluelessness is very possible.

    2. HB*

      I already knew of someone in the office who was going to be as affected by the election as I was and so we sought each other out. I had kindof wanted to check in with some of the other members of the staff but felt funny about it so I didn’t (I’m not a manager but I’m in a supervisory role) . For me it’s *definitely* more about identifying the like minded individuals in the office so that they know they’re not the only ones, but normally I wait until I hear a signal from someone else before jumping to conclusions.

    3. Bumblebee*

      At my university, my boss told us explicitly not to email anyone and ask how they were doing, or how the students are doing. We have teams that work with underrepresented populations their work has been increasingly under fire. Their students are definitely worried that things might not be OK for them much longer. We don’t want to create an email trail that makes us look liberal or could draw any attention to our work. So, checking in in-person is literally the only thing we have left.

      1. Leaving academia*

        I don’t remember any concerns about a paper trail in 2016, although it’s possible that was a concern in direct student support departments. I also can think of so many funding and policy related concerns that directly impact work at a major research university. Certainly plenty of people remember the scramble many universities went through when suddenly some of their were blocked from entering the country and the continued scramble over changing interpretations of Title IX. A major research university is also going to have a lot of grant funding from NSF, NIH, and DoD—it’s not clear how that funding will be affected, but any major budgetary impacts will affect the entire university.

    4. Blue Pen*

      Yeah, I agree with this take, and I think the LW and even Alison are being a little harsh here. I would agree 100% that it’s inappropriate for a manager to force me to talk about something I don’t want to talk about, but I think that’s a lot different than a manager or senior leader making the rounds and at least subtly indicating they’re available should anyone on the floor want to chat. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all, and I think it sets the right tone in this case.

      My manager has teared up a few times this week. Even though I haven’t, I fully understand why they have—and I’m sure my waves of grief are coming. I can’t get behind that separation of church and state the LW seems to want to employ here, at least not in this case; we’re all human and those of us who didn’t vote that way are feeling scared, overwhelmed, worried, and like the earth’s floor fell from underneath us. I’m going to give anyone I can—managers, included—a helping hand to get through it.

      1. Observer*

        I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all, and I think it sets the right tone in this case

        You’re making a lot of assumptions about how “everyone” in the office is responding, on the one hand. And it’s not just about who voted for whom. And even for people who are scared and sad with no complicated feelings about it, the assumption that navigating this with coworkers, much less managers, is always positive is just incredibly naive.

        There are better ways for managers to telegraph their support for people who are having a hard time right now. And Alison mentioned some of them.

        1. PP*

          Observer, agreed!

          With any life happening that may be upsetting, individuals have differing responses and needs. Allison’s suggestions are great; what the manager did is not.

    5. Wayward Sun*

      I don’t think a manager seeking comfort from employees is going in the right direction. Managers are going to be in the social and economic classes LEAST affected by this. Some may even benefit. You can’t angst at people who will be getting it worse than you.

    6. Theda Marinelli*

      Not all of us are grieving, and I think it’s inappropriate for the manager to assume that we are. I also, based on unfortunate experience, suspect that it may also be a way to ferret out trump supporters either intentionally or as a side-effect.

    7. Observer*

      does it help to think about this as the manager mostly seeking help / commiseration for themselves, not as trying to console others?

      At least 9 time out of 10, NO. It really doesn’t. Your staff are not the people you should be leaning on for help.

  16. Tangerine steak*

    LW 3 while you don’t care for your senior management coming around – you likely have colleagues that do. It’s even likely that they’ve received feedback about this that makes them prioritise this. It’s unlikely they’re looking to fill their emotional needs (at least I’ve always worked for really large companies, they can do that chatting to their close colleagues like we all do)

    Just accept that people are different. Management will usually take notice of people who comment that SM are callous/don’t interact/don’t treat them like people/don’t acknowledge significant events/just send out soulless emails with employee assistance numbers etc.

    Complaints that SM wasted my time by asking how I was or expressing sympathy for a disaster/situation will make you look a little crazy at best. Chances are they’ll spend their time mostly with those who value the interacting. If necessary excuse yourself and go to the bathroom for two minutes and they’ll likely have moved on by the time they’re back.

    I work disasters – and I know that some people really care if senior people (politicians/those in command) come around. If they didn’t they’d be crucified in the media with people who would go on camera to express their dissatisfaction. Many others find it annoying and a waste of time.

    1. Seashell*

      I think you underestimate how selfish some people can be. They barely know this guy and all of a sudden he’s trying to be their pal/sounding board because of current events? That’s weird. He’s doing it because those events matter to him, not because he’s concerned about anyone.

      I didn’t like the results of the election, but I can’t see conversing about it in the workplace with someone I barely know beyond “Yeah, it’s disappointing, but that’s life. Another election is coming in 4 years.”

      It doesn’t sound this office’s work is specifically involved with the US election or the attack in Israel, so no one outside the office is going to look down on a lack of discussion of these events in the office.

      1. Liza*

        How nice for you that you are able to shrug off the election results. Many of my coworkers don’t have the luxury and are wondering if they Ms be able to work remotely from states or countries who will not consider their existence a sex offense

          1. NotBatman*

            Yep. I have many friends with disabilities who might not safely be able to exist in public if he follows through on that mask ban.

        2. Hlao-roo*

          To be fair to Seashell, they wrote “I can’t see conversing about it in the workplace with someone I barely know,” so they might not be shrugging off the election results in their personal life and/or with coworkers they are close to.

      2. Pool Noodle Barnacle Pen0s*

        I agree with this take. Don’t assume you know my feelings about something, first of all, and secondly, don’t assume I’m OK with comforting you or commiserating about something that’s not related to work even if we do share the same views about the election results. It’s inappropriate. If you need emotional support, look to your personal connections not your professional ones.

    2. Someone Online*

      As a supervisor, I am letting my employees dictate how I respond. Some want to talk and commiserate. Some are happy at the outcome. Some haven’t brought it up at all. At work I am here to respond to their needs. I meet my needs with my friends and family, as is appropriate. I work in a field that has the potential to be severely impacted in the upcoming administration, especially if campaign promises are met. This is a marathon and not a sprint.

      1. phedre*

        I agree, I work at a nonprofit that serves marginalized communities that will be severely impacted when the promised policy shifts happen. Our program participants and staff are rightfully very concerned. It would be beyond thoughtless to not acknowledge that. But at the same time, as a supervisor I follow my team’s lead. I let them know about the EAP and to please practice self care, I allowed folks to leave early or take a mental health day if they needed, and if they didn’t want to discuss it we didn’t. It is not their job to manage my emotions or try to make me feel better – it’s my job to support them appropriately.

    3. Tea Monk*

      I’d be ok with some leeway to have a mental health day. Higher ups making sure to protect vulnerable groups would be good but I know they might not be able to

    4. also queer*

      Yeah, it’s tricky to get the balance right (and not put employees in an uncomfortable position where they feel they need to console a higher-up or accept their attempts at consolation), but after the 2016 election, I really appreciated seeing that my grandboss was also visibly upset, and that another higher-up brought in breakfast and reserved a conference room for folks to commiserate. That said, this was all voluntary—people who wanted to participate did, and those who didn’t (whether because they were indifferent to or happy about the result or because they wanted to process differently) didn’t.

    5. Prof_Murph*

      I think the academic context matters here. Things operate differently at a college/university than in industry – e.g., tenure-track faculty are often working together for 30+ years. And given that higher education will be/is under fire and at danger of losing important federal funding, is it so terrible that a manager was checking in on things, regardless of political leanings? But I also understand that if the manager was seeking out comfort from his supervisees or a way to ‘suss’ out who voted what way, that’s problematic.

  17. Captain Kangaroo*

    Letter #1

    When I was in high school I had a new teacher with the same problem! The poor teacher was mortified when I told him myself about his ‘situation’ so please alert him yourself. If you don’t, a little pot stirrer will!

    1. SAS*

      Yeah, if this is noticeable enough for multiple students to officially report it, the most surprising part of this letter is that the teacher has not picked up on what must be a significant amount of in-class chatter. Teenagers are NOT SUBTLE.

    2. Nobby Nobbs*

      And if the kids are already informing the administration of the problem going on at seated eye level and nothing is done, I wouldn’t actually be able to blame them for going to the source!

    3. Safely Retired*

      I have my doubts about the teacher not being aware of his display. Mortified, as in your instance when being told, could have been a cover for getting caught out.
      Of course it can also go the other way. I can recall quite alerts among fellow male students of “little beaver” and “camel-toe”. Certainly the second is a similar display? For that matter I can assure you (as a man) that I have always been quite aware of (but not complaining about) visible nipples, by simple shape or coloration, or both.

  18. Just Asking Questions*

    LW #2, I also don’t like getting unscheduled or unannounced calls and it’s really because the people who do it are bull-in-the-china-shop types, which puts it into BEC territory for me. Since I don’t want to be annoyed when answering, I’ll usually just finish up what I’m doing and then give them a call back with an explanation that I was briefly away from my desk (copier, water refill, whatever), was meeting with someone or needed to get to a save point. It’s not a big delay but it puts their request back on my timeline without feeling like I’m ignoring a responsibility.

  19. Grith*

    LW2 – unannounced video calls are a bit of a dick move and I agree with the part of the answer where you should feel fine to ignore them to an extent, or at the very least, answer with camera off.

    But I think extending this to “anyone trying to get hold of you without pre-arranging the conversation” is very out of step with every job I’ve ever worked. A Teams voice call is basically an analogue to a phone call – and no job I’ve worked at would accept someone just deciding they “didn’t do” phone calls. Occasional use of “DND” or “Busy” settings are fine, and it’s also perfectly reasonable to ask that support requests are emailed so that you can triage or do appropriate searches/checks before responding, but answering your phone is a pretty basic job requirement for most desk-based jobs.

    1. Jackalope*

      To me the pre-arranging isn’t a huge deal effort-wise. My coworkers, for example, will usually drop me a line saying, “Hey, can I call you?” I write back about 95% of the time with a yes, every now and then with, “In 5 min, let me wrap this up,” or “I’m out the door in 5 min, can’t talk until tomorrow,” and we’re good. It’s not a big deal, but it does make a difference on my end.

    2. el l*

      They have the right to choose to call without asking.

      And OP has the right to choose to not pick up, and call back when convenient.

      (Unless you’re in a role with an on-call availability presumption)

    3. SpaceySteph*

      It bothers me significantly more to get a cold teams call than a cold telephone call, and after a lot of pondering on this, I think its two things…
      1. They can see if you’re available on Teams, so they know if you’re screening them if you don’t answer, which makes it feel less like you can decline.
      2. On Teams it is so easy for a quick ping “have time for a call?” before dialing so someone cold calling you is making a choice to skip that step which also feels very rude/entitled to your time. Just because my bubble is green doesn’t mean I can talk.

  20. Where's the beef?*

    What a weird response to LW1. I’ve lost count of how many letters there have been over the years mentioning large-chested women; the only difference is that the responses were uniformly along the lines of “that’s just her body, get over it” and “why are you looking at her chest in the first place.” What am I missing?

    1. Nina*

      Breasts are a secondary sexual characteristic, comparable to a beard. Genitals are a primary sexual characteristic. Showing bra straps is not the same as showing underpants, showing outline of breasts is not the same as showing outline of penis, it’s reasonably easy to buy pants off the shelf that do not show the whole shape of your whole penis but very difficult to buy tops off the shelf that do not show the approximate shape of your breasts, et cetera, et cetera.

      It would also be inappropriate for someone with a vulva to consistently wear pants that showed the shape of their vulva, which is in fact a more comparable situation.

      3. March*

        Ahh that is a brilliant argument. Yes, a beard or maybe even more accurately, chest or armpit hair: you’re not going to flaunt those outside your clothes in the workplace, but who is going to have beef with seeing a hint of rug through a shirt in passing?

          1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

            Armpit hair is not pubic hair. Pubic hair is specific to the genital area (it’s right there in the name). Beyond that, I agree that they are the same type of hair, and they both start growing when puberty starts… BUT armpit hair IS incredibly gendered. Women are not supposed to have any, whereas men are just supposed to not show any when in business clothing.

      4. DreamsongSims*

        I agree with you to a point. There’s a big difference between a woman wearing a work appropriate shirt and expecting men to deal with the fact that she has breasts, and a woman wearing something not work appropriate that shows more than the shape or outline of her chest. I see this as the equivalent of a man wearing a low cut shirt or unbuttoning to the point that I can count chest hair and make out the size and shape of his pecs. Both inappropriate–save it for clubbing. That’s what the men I know have to deal with in the workplace–overexposed/inappropriate attire from female coworkers that reveals too much flesh. If they bring it up they are asked why they are looking? That’s a double standard.

        As for this teacher…if a woman has to wear a bra around her secondary sex characteristics, shouldn’t a man have to be equally restrained in the parts of his flesh that can at times draw attention? If men had to wear a jock (or heaven forbid a cup!) 24/7/365 I suspect we’d all be singing a different tune.

    2. bamcheeks*

      I think the difference is probably the degree of hardship / effort required to make it Not A Problem. The thing with having large boobs or a larger body is that there is often no winning — you can try looser tops and get told you’re unprofessional ones, fitted ones and get told you have gapage, stretchy ones and told your nipples are too visible and so on. The problem is literally the shape of your body and there are sometimes literally no clothes that will make it OK.

      If they talk to this guy and he says, “Actually, I have a really hard time finding pants that fit because my hips are so skinny and only tight ones like this stay up! These are heavyweight canvas/denim, and I don’t think there is another style of trousers that would work better!” I would also switch to the, “OK, that’s your body, everyone needs to move on” camp.

      But if the problem is fairly easily resolved by wearing looser or heavier weight trousers, then that’s not an unreasonable expectation. Especially when the nature of teaching is that your crotch is frequently at students’ head height.

      1. Where's the beef?*

        Thank you for your response. I’m still not wholly convinced, but yours is at least a reasonable attempt to respond to the substance of what I’m saying. Many responses seem to fall into the category of “it’s different because… it just is!” Totally bizzare.

        1. Kitten*

          I think it’s comparable to a teacher wearing a top with excessive cleavage. It might be fashionable but not appropriate for school.

        2. profe*

          The difference is that adult coworkers can/should be expected to accept/politely ignore coworkers’ bodies whereas children can’t really be. Any female teacher with common sense (so no, not all of them) is conscientious of things like cleavage, visible nipples, visible underwear etc. Yes, even if it is more difficult for them because of body type, I promise they’re conscientious of it. It’s just all around unpleasant to expose children to too much of your body AND to have children fixated on it, either uncomfortable about it or too enthusiastic about it, talking about it, teasing, taking pictures, circulating pictures, etc etc etc. Like it’s just fraught in so many ways. For example, ‘upskirting’ is apparently trending on tiktok right now and some of my coworkers have been victims of it.
          Now on the other hand, simply having breasts/a butt and having their shape visible because that is the shape of one’s body is fine and something students and adults need to accept (even though kids will sometimes still be inappropriate about it).
          In summary: Visible shape of body= fine. Visible DETAILS of body=not great. Adults can be reasonably expected to politely ignore such things. Teenagers SHOULD be learning politeness and appropriateness but in a room of 30+ of them, at least one has snapchatted it.

          1. Cohort1*

            Add to this that high school students, while still children, are also in the midst of a huge hormonal surge that makes them hyper sensitive to anything related to sex, especially bodies.

        3. Frosty*

          It’s comparable to a woman wearing tight pants that show the outline of her vulva. If a woman with large breasts wore a top that accentuated her breasts – low cut, defining each breast, clinging, thin material, then absolutely yes, she should and would be called out on it. Same with a man if he was wearing the same type of top and his chest was on display like this. It’s just not appropriate at work and doubly-so for a school.

          If you’re okay with a man showing the outline of his penis to children you should just say it. This teacher needs to be wearing thicker fabrics, and/or changing his underwear type etc. so that his penis isn’t pressed against his trousers.

          I would say the same thing about labia.

          1. Where's the beef?*

            If you’re okay with a man showing the outline of his penis to children you should just say it.

            I don’t think I’ve seen a less charitable interpretation than this in my entire life. I’m not normally the sort of person who seeks to police what others have to say but I can’t imagine this is compatible with the commetnting rules, which require commenters to give each other the benefit of the doubt.

        4. New Jack Karyn*

          “Many responses seem to fall into the category of “it’s different because… it just is!”

          This is a misread of the many, many commenters who have carefully explained that breasts are not genitals.

      2. Wilbur*

        Belts and suspenders have existed for centuries. I think this teacher can find a suitable alternative.

    3. Duckling*

      Working with children, who cannot be expected to manage their responses in the same ways as adults and are vulnerable to exploitation.

    4. Allonge*

      I thought about this: if someone says that their coworker is wearing a see-through blouse or pants, or what they wear is actually inappropriate for the dress code, usually the advice is to mention it. If someone has a large chest, that is a different thing – not something you can control, and comes with some limitations in how you can dress. Bra straps are also not an indecent exposure.

      It’s also rarer to have people’s breasts exactly at eye level at the same distance that you would see a teacher’s crotch if he is walking by in the classroom, with students sitting down.

      1. londonedit*

        Yep. If someone just has large breasts, and is otherwise wearing clothes that meet the dress code, then no, you don’t say anything about it. But, to use examples from Where’s the beef? further up, if a woman came to work with visibly very erect nipples, or camel toe, then I expect someone would have a word with her. Same as if she was wearing a brightly coloured push-up bra under a very sheer blouse. ‘Those leggings don’t fit the dress code’ or ‘Underwear shouldn’t be obviously visible under your clothing’ are perfectly acceptable rules for a professional dress code, even if they’re things that people wear ‘out in public’ outside of work. And it’s the same here – I think ‘trousers should not be tight enough to outline your genitals’ is perfectly acceptable for a workplace dress code, especially for a school, and it doesn’t really matter what gender we’re referring to with that.

        1. Where's the beef?*

          Teachers have bodies too! A well-endowed man is no less suitable an educator than a large-chested woman. As long as he’s not dressed like David Bowie in Labyrinth then I think people should probably just get over it—and over themselves for that matter.

          2. Liz*

            They couldn’t post a picture. It’s that obvious. Why does my daughter have to look at his dick? Visible nipples or cameltoe would also be completely inappropriate at school

            1. YetAnotherAnalyst*

              They *did* post a picture, because it’s *not* that obvious – and then removed it when it was pointed out, because it’s one of those things that once you see it you can’t not see it.

          3. Allonge*

            The part of it he cannot control – the size of his penis – is of course out of bounds for mentioning. But he can control how tight the pants he wears are and also what else he is wearing, to a certain extent (do shirts need to be tucked in or can they provide some coverage, is there a way to use patterns as a distraction?).

            All this would apply to women in the nether regions – we can expect that students are not in the position to be able to tell if someone is wearing thongs or knickers, for example.

          4. Coffeebreak*

            You are asking kids who have complained about being uncomfortable about this to “just get over it?”

            1. bamcheeks*

              It’s not necessarily “just get over it” but there are absolutely times when it’s ok to tell teenagers that their discomfort did not more important than other people’s ability to have a body.

              Can this guy fix this issue relatively quickly and easily by wearing different trousers? OK, great, we’re done. But if this was eg. a woman who has tried three different types of bra and was already wearing thick jersey tops but her nipples were still visible, it would *absolutely* be correct to counsel the student that they need to deal with the fact that people have bodies and that they need to learn to manage their own discomfort.

              1. Coffeebreak*

                These aren’t nipples, which everyone has. This is a clearly outlined penis, at eye level, in a classroom of easily exploitable children. Stop pretending it’s the same thing or comparable, it’s not.

          5. TerrorCotta*

            Multiple kids in his classes have been so uncomfortable by *not being able to avoid* looking at his CLEARLY OBVIOUS DICK they actually went to administration. Can you recognize that this is very, very, rare for high school students? Who would otherwise just snicker a bit and make it an inside joke?

            At the most generous best, he’s absolutely oblivious to what he’s been wearing, and will be GRATEFUL (albeit horrified) when he’s informed that all his students can literally see his glans every morning.

        1. Insert Clever Name Here*

          My dress code at work doesn’t specify that genitals should not be visible but I don’t go into work with my labia showing. This is a ridiculous thing to rules lawyer.

        2. DashDash*

          My work dress code doesn’t say we can’t come to work naked, it just describes what clothes should be like IF we wear them with the assumption that everyone knows you have to wear clothes to work.

          By DressCode’s logic, that means I could walk in nude and they wouldn’t be allowed to send me home because “don’t be naked” wasn’t already written down?

        3. DreamsongSims*

          Most teachers are expected to follow general rules of decency and morality. It’s usually a clause in the contract, and this could fall under that.

    6. Irish Teacher.*

      That he is dealing with actual children. While yes, people should just ignore it, the reality is that 14 year old children are not going to. Either they are going to be afraid that he is doing it deliberately (a lot of kids today are raised, for obvious reason, to be very aware of possible predators) or more likely, they are going to be mocking him about it, between themselves and possibly making snide remarks to him, hinting at it in a way that means he knows they are having a dig at him but doesn’t know what they are making a dig about.

      Yes, any students who are rude to him should be disciplined but the reality is that there is no form of discipline that stops all misbehaviour and as a teacher, it is best to avoid anything that…sort of gives an easy opportunity for it. Kids will take any opportunity to start giggling about something just to waste a bit of class time and something like that is an obvious target.

      The answer to “why are they looking at it in the first place?” is because they are teens who are still learning appropriate behaviour and while they probably know they shouldn’t, they just know that as “it’s something we’ll get given out to about so we’d better make sure we don’t get caught at it.” They don’t have an adult’s understanding of why it’s wrong.

      There are many things that would be fine around adults but not when teaching teens, simply because they are still kids and “just expect them to behave appropriately” isn’t always as realistic requirement for them, especially as you can’t fire students. Yeah, you can expel them but that is much harder as teens have a legal right to an education and a legal requirement for them to be in school whereas adults don’t have a legal right to a job nor there is a legal requirement for them to be provided with one, so while adults who reacted inappropriately could be fired from a job, you can’t fire kids who do so and therefore it is better to avoid the issue.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        To be fair, if students were talking about staff member’s bodies I wouldn’t have a problem with seriously shutting that down. I wouldn’t expect it to work like magic, but I would address it and expect to be listened to. I definitely have judged headteachers for not addressing body shaming or sexual comments. Even when they are just commenting on teacher’s clothes – which is way more understandable – they need to be told to knock it off if they are being disrespectful. But then, I agree with the rest of what you’ve written if as a teacher it’s something you know will not be appropriate yourself and can prevent (rather than a missed target, or a wardrobe malfunction).

        1. bamcheeks*

          Yeah, this is where I stand to. When you’re working with young people, there are definitely places where you’vre the only professional in the room and you’ve got to have greater awareness of this kind of stuff. But that doesn’t mean students are automatically in the right and can’t be taught the principle that other people’s bodies are not being bodies at you.

            1. YetAnotherAnalyst*

              This seems sort of irrelevant to me, to be honest. Schools near me routinely remove photos over things that are no big deal but may attract internet outrage (teachers and/or students holding red plastic cups, storytime with local notables, school lunch options). They also remove or edit pictures where the removal ends up being the bigger story (removing disabled or minority children from pictures, editing student pictures to meet unspoken beauty standards, etc). Removing a photo over, say, an unfortunate shadow or a salacious optical illusion would be reasonably routine here.

              1. Ellis Bell*

                Yeah if a teacher’s photo happens to be featured online holding a glass of wine at an event, or on a beach near people in bikinis, that image is usually scrubbed if it can in any way be linked to the school. This is why most teachers’ personal social media is in the name of Pet + Granny’s maiden name.

            2. Danzig*

              To me, the photo is a point in the other direction, because it means the photographer/social media person *didn’t* initially notice his pants. So whatever it showed is both obvious once pointed out and easy to miss if it isn’t been.

    7. Ellis Bell*

      I think the golden rule for all genders is that you can police clothes, but not bodies. You can ask people to dress in line with the culture, you can’t ask people to take on extra burdens to hide their bodies. If someone is wearing the same types of clothes as everyone else, then you need to stop staring past their clothes at their body. The main difference between this and the letters about well endowed women is those LW’s frequently say that even though the women are dressed similarly to the others, they want them to dress differently because they have big boobs. I could be wrong, but I don’t think this is an issue of OP’s employee being so very well endowed that typical pants are an issue, I think it is an unwisely tight pants issue.

    8. metadata minion*

      Breasts are part of the normal topography of a clothed body in most US culture. Short of wearing an extremely tight binder (and frankly not really even then) or a voluminous cloak that would not be appropriate in most workplaces, there is no way to hide the fact that I have breasts and I shouldn’t be expected to.

      Conversely, if you look at my pants, you can make a reasonably good guess as to their contents. I would fill them out differently if I had the convex variety of plumbing. But if you can tell anything more about my genitals than their very general arrangement, this is a problem and I should wear different pants in a workplace context.

    9. Jennifer Strange*

      I can guarantee my breasts are larger than this man’s penis. Completely hiding them would be impossible without wearing a literal potato sack. Him wearing slightly looser pants to not show his penis is within the realm of reasonability and reality.

      1. bamcheeks*

        Because people use “the students are uncomfortable” to argue against teachers with a limb difference, or a facial difference, or trans and non-binary students being able to dress appropriately to their gender and use the right toilets, or a female teacher being told that clothes that are appropriate for a colleague aren’t appropriate for her because her body’s the wrong shape.

        There are lots of reasons why this isn’t the same as those situations, but that’s why “the students are uncomfortable” isn’t a good reason by itself. You’ve got to look at the broader context to decide whether their discomfort should be accommodated or whether they need to be supported to deal with their discomfort because it doesn’t take priority over someone else’s privacy.

        1. Goldfeesh*

          But this isn’t “students are uncomfortable because they aren’t used to seeing a teacher with a missing limb”- it’s “students are uncomfortable because they can see a penis.”

          1. bamcheeks*

            Right, hence why I said that you’ve got to look at the context and that student discomfort on its own isn’t enough.

            1. Dahlia*

              Okay, let’s read the question as, “Why isn’t it enough that the kids are uncomfortable because they can see a penis in class?”

              And maybe answer it?

        2. BigNerd*

          How about ‘The students are uncomfortable with the degree to which they’re being exposed to genitalia’? That’s a pretty fair rule.

          By that rule, limb difference is fine, trans people are fine, women with large cup sizes are fine. But students are allowed to feel uncomfortable with adults and/or other students vacuum-wrapping their crotches.

          The broader context here is that it should be no big deal to be asked to modify your behaviour due to someone else’s reasonable discomfort. You’re not a villain if you sneeze loudly next to my ear, and I’m not a villain for asking you to try and turn the volume down a bit next time by leaning away from me or something. You do a thing, I ask, you modify your behaviour in whatever way is most convenient for you, we all move on, society keeps running. And it is reasonable for children to feel uncomfortable being made aware of the shape of people’s genitalia. Children are hard wired to feel embarrassed by that stuff during early puberty, so that the ones with a uterus don’t end up pregnant too soon and smash up their hips. It’s a hard-coded evolutionary survival thing, like babies being hard-wired to lick everything. They’re supposed to be immature about this stuff, and we as adults need to support them through that stage of development. Nobody’s the bad guy here, it’s just biology and sociology doing as they do. (Not to mention that even many adults still feel uncomfortable about the genitalia of anyone who isn’t their child or intimate partner, anyway, for biology-based ‘keeping a certain percentage of couples as fully monogamous is a good survival strategy for a species’ reasons.)

    11. Generic Name*

      Because it’s easy to wear pants that don’t show all of your dick. It’s impossible (without resorting to a burka) to wear a top that doesn’t show the shape of your boobs. I can’t believe this has to be explained.

    12. Hyaline*

      To me, FWIW, the educational location does make a difference, too. If my officemate at Basic Corporation had unfortunate pants, I don’t think this is really anyone’s business to try to fix. But if you’re working with students, the dynamics are different, and something should be said. FWIW I don’t recall any AAM questions about *teachers* with too much cleavage exposed, but my reaction would be the same–sorry, but in some environments, as a large-chested woman, maybe you don’t wear v-necks, and high school teacher would be one of them–and if the AAM answer to those questions I don’t know about was “those students just need to deal,” then I disagree.

      There’s also an element that sometimes the complaint about boobs is “I can see this person has boobs” which…is not something you can fix outside of requiring the person wear a tent. A person’s inherent shape can’t be completely concealed. But excessive cleavage or décolletage can be, just as, say, a person having a large posterior can’t be concealed but their ass crack sure can be.

    13. Emily of New Moon*

      If you had a 14 year old daughter, would you be okay with her male teacher wearing tight pants that showed the outline of his genitalia? I certainly hope not.

    14. Unkempt Flatware*

      It shouldn’t be so hard to see that you can’t show off your sex organs. Boobs are not sex organs.

    15. manon*

      I think a common theme in letters about large-breasted people getting dress code comments is that there is no winning – it’s not limited to thinks like visible cleavage, the mere fact of your entire body shape is a problem. If you’re dressing in accordance with the dress code, it’s unlikely that any reasonable changes (eg retiring a specific blouse) will actually resolve the original complaint.

      Because this is (ahem) a smaller area, there are reasonable steps that can be taken. I think the comparisons to visible vulva/camel toe are spot on – some people’s anatomy pair better with certain cuts of clothing than others. Yes, it’s due to their anatomy and is not really their fault, but also asking that they try another cut of pants is not a huge imposition.

  21. Roeslein*

    Lw#4 – It seems pretty obvious the new company is just using auto-complete in their Outlook, I very much doubt they are emailing his old company on purpose! This actually almost caused a lawsuit at my company when a client emailed our new hire at her old company which went straight to her old boss and triggered her non-compete.

    2. londonedit*

      Yep. For some reason, and I’ve no idea why, my boss’s email occasionally auto-fills my email address as the personal one I used when I sent them the application material for my current job years ago, and not my work email address. Absolutely no idea why it chooses that address, and why it only occasionally chooses it, but it does, and then we have an ‘I sent you an email about it…’ ‘No, you didn’t…’ ‘Yes, I’m sure I did…oh hang on, it’s gone to the wrong address’ moment.

      1. Nightengale*

        At my last job, the medical director (2 steps above me) sent e-mails to my personal e-mail for over a year after I started actually working there.

        1. Lady Lessa*

          A few days ago, that happened to one of our vendors, and I politely told the salesman (who is a good guy) about it copying a several year deceased co-worker.

    3. Consonance*

      For sure. I have one employee who I still have to be careful about emailing – about 50% of the time when I start typing in her name, it auto completes to the personal email address she used to apply with (over a year ago!). So annoying, and probably made worse by the fact that I didn’t notice once or twice, so now my computer believes it’s being helpful. Probably also not helped by the fact that I type in her preferred name, which is consistent with the actual address of her personal email, and while consistent with her display alias at work is not the same as her work email address. Think a name like Abby vs Abigail.

      For reasons beyond my comprehension, my workplace keeps employee email addresses active but claim to have no ability to enter those emails after the person has left. Therefore, when Joe resigns and takes a new job, Joe’s email remains active for eternity. If Joe didn’t set up an away message or forward his emails, then there is no way ever in the future (!) to go in and make that change. I’m delighted when people remember to put up an away message when they quit.

  22. Falling Diphthong*

    Letter 1: I think one thing going on here is that we check our appearance in the mirror straight on at our eye level from a few feet away. Weird geometry things happening down by the waist or ankle–that are evident to people sitting across the room and looking at us–can be hard to notice.

    Usually I notice this in the context of a pregnant woman attempting to get away with a standard loose-fitting dress and not realizing that the front hemline is being hiked up to crotch level by the belly. So this being in the same general region of the body, I would imagine a similar mismatch of perceptions going on–if you stood a few feet away from this person and focused on their face, as we do when checking our appearance in a mirror, then the clothing situation happening down near the crotch wouldn’t stand out the way it does for seated people 15 feet away and looking at a standing person.

    I would use the photo from the instagram page, because that directly illustrates the problem. This is about visuals, so use the visual to make clear what you mean.

    1. londonedit*

      I agree that he probably doesn’t even realise. Lighting can also play a huge part – I’m sure many of us have been caught out by tops that seem fine at home, but you go to the loo at work or in the pub and you realise it’s far more see-through than you thought! Or that dress that catches on your tights and rides up at the back when you’re walking, or the buttons that won’t stay done up, or whatever. I really don’t think this chap means to show off as much as he’s showing off, but I definitely think someone needs to have a quiet word with him about it, not least because if he’s working with teenagers then they absolutely are going to be laughing about it behind his back.

    2. ItHappens*

      This! I discovered the dress I wore to my best friend’s wedding was see through on the bottom at the wedding. It was not obvious to me and hadn’t been pointed out (or it wasn’t an issue, or it was something about how it aged) the couple of times I’d worn it in the past and I mostly had “top half” mirrors while getting ready. Her wedding was out of town and actually involved multiple events so I had to have 4-5 dresses and I wore a bunch of old favorites that most of the attendees wouldn’t have seen before, so I had the added issue of thinking about previous family events where I’d worn the dress.

  23. DressCode*

    For LW1, I’m surprised the response didn’t mention it’s not against the dress code. That gives them a lot less standing to address it IMO.

    1. Nina*

      A lot of dress codes assume everyone is a reasonably intelligent and sensible adult and don’t spell out obvious things like ‘the outline of your genitals must not be clearly visible’.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        … that? That is the comparison you choose? You don’t like a particularly common slang term for genitals, and you get on your soap box to compare it to a racist slur with literal centuries of history? Ok. As soon as people are getting lynched for having a penis, you go right ahead and make that comparison.

      3. DE*

        That’s probably not something the principal can do by fiat. They’d probably have to sit down and negotiate the language of the contract and hold a vote on it. It’s unlikely that a district is going to want to spend the time doing that in November.

        1. ThatOtherClare*

          Regardless, it’s worthwhile adding to the schedule now to address it at some convenient time next year.

    3. WellRed*

      Lots of things don’t have a policy until something happens to make people realize there’s no policy and maybe there needs to be. See also: where’s common sense.

    4. I should really pick a name*

      I’ve very rarely seen a dress code that addresses how well clothing fits.

      At the end of the day, they’re allowed to address things that cause issues whether there’s a formal policy or not. A typical dress code does not say “you must wear clothes”, but the company is going to do something if you come in naked.

    5. Bunch Harmon*

      I’m a teacher. My dress code says I must wear “modest” clothes, with no visible underwear and no excessive skin showing. Other schools I’ve worked in have just said I must dress business casual or professionally. Visible genitalia would arguably be covered by all of those codes.

      1. DressCode*

        Yes. But the original poster asking how to handle it explicitly says the clothes don’t violate their dress code.

        1. Allonge*

          But the clothes still manage to do something that makes multiple students uncomfortable to the level of complaining to the administration.

          The dress code may be inadequate! May need an update. It’s not written in stone.

        2. Bunch Harmon*

          I would love to see the dress code they’re working with. It’s possible that the LW doesn’t realize that “professional” (or something similar) is the catch-all for these kind of problems. There’s no way to write a dress code that covers every situation, and if they don’t have a catch-all in it, the district needs to add one.

        3. ReallyBadPerson*

          I would argue that this man’s trousers violate the spirit of the dress code, if not the letter of it. I assume the LW was looking at it literally. I have never seen a dress code that explicitly stated that penises and camel toes couldn’t be displayed, and yet, all sane people know this is the case.

    6. Jennifer Strange*

      I mean, I doubt their dress code says teachers can’t come in wearing clown costumes, but they could still enforce it if it came to it. Dress codes are neither legally binding nor an exhaustive list of every scenario.

      1. DE*

        Teaching is, for the most part, a union gig. So our contracts are a lot more “in stone” than the agreements most white collar professionals sign. You can change the contract but it’s not an easy process and all sides have to agree to it. My relationship with my principal is a lot different than someone in a for-profit industry’s relationship with their boss is. I think that’s why OP is being so careful with how she approaches this.

    7. Insert Clever Name Here*

      Funny thing about policies, including dress codes, is that they can change when there is a need for it, they don’t have to stay as originally written.

      We’ve all seen policies before where something so glaringly obvious is spelled out that you wonder what the story was behind it needing to be included.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        I worked at an organization that had a literal eight page dress code policy, that went so far as to specify that undergarments must be worn UNDERNEATH clothing rather than over one’s pants and shirt, and also that plaid hair was not allowed, and it STILL didn’t actually specify that your genitals should not be visible.

        I also worked at an organization where the literal dress code, verbatim, was “cover your tits,” and nobody ever assumed that visible genitals were acceptable there either.

    8. Hyaline*

      I’d rethink whether the dress code might actually give you standing even if it doesn’t explicitly state “no visible penis lines.” Dress codes are often vague–especially in educational settings–where words like “distraction” or “not conducive to learning” can be leveraged pretty widely. It’s impossible to list every potential scenario that could be “not conducive to learning” so it’s left up to admin to interpret/enforce.

  24. 653-CXK*

    LW#2: My boss loves to use the unannounced (“pop”) Teams call when an email message isn’t enough, or she needs the information right away before a meeting. Sometimes a pop call lasts about a minute, other times an hour, depending on what she’s working on.

    If I’m deep into a project and need to focus, I won’t answer immediately, but I will wrap up whatever I’m doing and call back (similar to what I do with phone calls – I let the majority go to voice mail so I can screen them, and then get the information from the voicemail and call back, usually within five minutes).

  25. Stanley steamers*

    Sure, LW1 can decide to NOT say anything…and then when the parents find out about this, the 6 o clock news finds out, etc.

  26. Varthema*

    as a former teacher, well worth pointing out as well that students always have a different view of their teacher than the teacher has of him/herself in the mirror, or even that of other colleagues/the general public – students are looking up at the teacher from a slightly lowered position, for reeeaaaally long periods of time. I remember noticing minutiae of my teachers’ wardrobe far beyond that of anyone else in my life simply because of that. So as a teacher, you can’t really just think to yourself, “ah, no one will notice” because students absolutely will, it’s hard not to.

    1. Clisby*

      Yes – and it’s not just the viewing angle. Students spend a lot more time looking right at their teachers every day than they’re likely to do at any workplace.

    2. Not your typical admin*

      This! While not the exact same – I volunteer with a high school age theater group. They’re allowed a lot of freedom with costuming. However, about once a year we have to have a conversation about how things that look okay in front of a mirror might reveal more than you want when you’re elevated and moving around on stage.

    3. Ann O'Nemity*

      True, but the school also had to take down a photo of this guy because it looked so inappropriate.

  27. Friday Hopeful*

    For the ex-employee email. Why not put an auto reply message on there that says “so and so is no longer working for this company (word that better please lol) , please forward all emails and inquiries to newemployee@email.

  28. Rosemary Shrub*

    LW3 – as someone at a major research institution my suspicion is that your grandboss is bungling a message they’ve been getting from HR for the last several weeks.
    I’m very new to academia on the admin side of things and was surprised how the last two months there’s been consistent messaging about being available to staff around the election and prepared to offer resources. As a newbie I made a point of joining a couple different HR sessions around this and getting some direct wording and suggestions – but if I hadn’t done that I’d have simply heard “be available! It could be tough for people!” I’ll also note, from speaking with our faculty director, that faculty was only getting that messaging in the last two or three weeks, and I think generally more cursorily, so your great grandboss may have a real sense they had to do *something* but not have been as prepared for what.

  29. Knitting Cat Lady*

    #1:

    Had a music teacher like that in secondary school. 30 years ago, all girls. He wore jeans and leather pants so tight you could check his circumcision status.

    He stopped doing that after an article in the student newspaper described one of his lessons and viciously mocked him. Author showed him no mercy.

    This is the sentence that made him stop wearing those pants, rough translation from German:

    “He sat down at the piano and his face contorted in pain. No surprise with pants that tight.”

    The article also got him to change his after shave to something less horrible and wear a clean shirt every day.

    So, subjecting OP1’s teacher to vicious teenage mockery might help?

    1. Dr. Rebecca*

      I mean, it *may* be effective, but let’s try a cordial conversation between peers first, instead of jumping straight to the nuclear option, hmm?

      1. Be Gneiss*

        I’m willing to bet that if multiple teens have approached school administration already, that vicious teenage mockery is probably already trending toward the nuclear option.

      2. Ellis Bell*

        I assumed Knitting Cat Lady was joking, but this kind of bluntness from students is exactly what you can expect if the adults aren’t quick off the mark to be candid in a more polite way.

        1. Knitting Cat Lady*

          No idea how that article in the student newspaper came about, as i was only 10 at the time, but it was VERY effective in shaming him into dressing differently.

          And yeah, if no adult will step up and deal with it in a tactful manner, the students can and will get absolutely savage.

  30. Our Business Is Rejoicing*

    For #1, I had a friend in university where it was very obvious which way he “dressed”–because, particularly on his jeans, there was literally a lighter, worn spot there. And these were not particularly tight or thin jeans or pants, and he was definitely not the type of person to want to highlight how “big” he was. I never said anything (this was university, not a work situation) but this letter got me wondering what he was eventually able to do about it.

    1. Anon Commenter*

      Back in the day, a certain, um, fashion advisor recommended that men use sandpaper (lightly) on this particular area of their jeans in order to intentionally create this particular desired visual effect and to attract attention to this particular body area.

  31. tabloidtainted*

    My biggest issue with commiserations like LW3 describes is that it then makes leadership silence cruelly noticeable.

    1. Tech Industry Refugee*

      I agree. Goodness, I would love even an acknowledgment from Leadership of the current events in my small company full of women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people. Even just to say, nonpartisanly: “We understand this is stressful for some. Take the space you need.” Radio silence.

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        Yup. I made sure to send my employees an email Wednesday morning recognizing that some of them may need time and that it was okay. They all were appreciative of it.

      2. tabloidtainted*

        If I had to choose, I think my preference would be for leadership to say nothing all the time rather than pick and choose when to say something and inadvertently reveal which employees/events/tragedies they think are worthy of commiseration and which are not.

      3. Timing of Words Matters on Anything Political*

        It would be best to have said something like that the day before any election results came in!
        Timing matters.

        Better to act to keep the any politics out of the office (unless a particular party’s election or non-election is key to the very nature of the company’s work).

        Otherwise, the manager / company is bringing party politics into the office -which should be always avoided (again unless such is in fact key that place’s actual work).

        1. Timing of Words Matters on Anything Political*

          I meant to reply as to Tech Industry Refugee’s comment of, “Even just to say, nonpartisanly: “We understand this is stressful for some. Take the space you need.” Radio silence.”

          Timing matters, say it the day or days before any results come in.

  32. Definitely not me*

    #1 made me laugh out loud because this exact thing happened at my high school back in 1979-80. I was a freshman and one of the new teachers hired that year had been a 3rd-string NFL quarterback who didn’t last long as a professional football player and had moved out west to be a high school teacher. That part was admirable. It was near the end of the 70s “leisure suit” era, and this tall, athletic guy seemed to own only two pair of pants, both made of stretchy polyester and very tight. One pair was white. Yeah. So Tall Jock’s crotch was just about at eye level for all of us sitting at our desks, and the students in the front row had no choice but to see… the outline. It was the talk of the school for awhile. He also used a suggestive adjective to describe one of my classmates, who was a very pretty girl, but we were 14 at the time — Ugh. The thought makes me cringe and I don’t recall ever what happened to him.

  33. DBB*

    LW #1 – If he’s not breaking dress code, be prepared to change the code or you’ll have to address ever male or female staff member who is perceived to have too-tight pants, regardless of their anatomy exposure.

    LW #2 – An unannounced video call is no different than an unannounced phone call. (some managers actually use video calls as a way to make sure their remote workers are actually working.) Anyway, the solution is the same for both types of technologies – DND. I use it on Teams when I’m conducting an in-person meeting in my office, just like do with the DND button on my phone.

    1. profe*

      Nope, this is where it’s about the spirit of the dress code rather than the letter of the dress code. It’s also about the fact that he has the right to know about the issue, and it matters a great deal if he knows and doesn’t care.

  34. Best Coke Ever*

    I can see how in #3 the boss’s efforts might have come off as awkward or inappropriate, but I would give some grace assuming that he’s trying to help – puts him ahead of most execs

  35. Tradd*

    Letter 4 – It’s amazing how oblivious people can be when you tell them multiple times to not use an email address for someone who has left a company. I’ve got agents I deal with overseas who are still including the email addresses for people who left my company 2+ years ago. The emails have been shut off, so I guess the senders are just ignoring the bounce backs!

  36. H.Regalis*

    If other people can tell if you’re circumcised or not when you’re wearing pants, the pants are too revealing

  37. Been teaching far too long*

    #1 needs to be addressed immediately.

    Either #1 he doesn’t realize it, and he’s probably become an unwilling Intragram sensation from his students or #2 he’s looking for that attention and that is not a good fit (pun intended) in K12 ed.

  38. Texan In Exile*

    LW4 – did your former employee apply for the job with the competitor with his work email? Why would they even have that address?

    1. Falling Diphthong*

      He was the rep for Old Company’s interactions with New Company. New Company hired him away, but the email for “Gustavus” still auto-completes to “Gustavus at Old” and no one is looking at the auto complete.

  39. profe*

    LW#1 – this teacher needs to be told yesterday. He should have been told the first time it came up. If one pic made it to instagram, I guarantee that other pics have circulated. It will be awkward but students are noticing and talking about his genitals and he needs to know about it. It’s a little surprising he hasn’t found out already (although of course if he knows and is okay with it or even doing it on purpose that’s a far worse situation but then you have that very important information). It’s not about policing people for having certain types of bodies, it’s about the realities of working with teenagers and the necessity of protecting them from certain things and also yourself. The standards of propriety are different for teachers, often wrongly, but sometimes rightly. Avoiding this conversation is a failure of leadership.

    1. fhqwhgads*

      I think you misread the bit about the pic “making it to instagram”. I don’t think the pic was posted because of the issue or to comment on it, so there isn’t a concern about “circulating”. I think it was a generic group photo at school that happened to include him, and once it was pointed out how he looked in the photo, the photo was removed. But it wasn’t so obvious that anyone noticed it prior to originally posting the photo.

  40. Lauren19*

    Teams should have (as I recall – new job doesn’t use it) an option to message the caller instead of answering. So a quick ‘hey can’t talk right now, catch up later’ or ‘i’m in the middle of something, are you free in 20 minutes’ I think solves the responsiveness and focus issues!

  41. seriously?*

    tight pants teacher isn’t displaying his wares on accident. you need to watch out for this guy, he’s getting his jollies with this.

  42. fhqwhgads*

    LW4, I think it’s highly unlikely they didn’t bother to assign him his own email address at their company. It is much much much more likely that Outlook or whatever email program they’re using is autofilling his old one, but on-screen just displaying his name from their contacts. So they’re not noticing because it says “Dude’s Name” in the “To” not “dude@oldcompany.com”.
    They need to update their contacts/clear cache, etc.

  43. Ess Ess*

    Story #1 reminds me of a long article I read (I think in the New Yorker) about the wardrobe issues they had with the actor Burt Ward that played Robin. Unlike Batman Adam West, Robin was unfortunately a little too large for his tight costume. They actually forced him to take medication to try to reduce the visual problem.
    Just to clarify — I’m only sharing this anecdote. I’m absolutely not recommending this option be suggested to the teacher under any circumstance.

    1. juliebulie*

      Where did you see/read that he had to take medication?? What medication would that even be? (Steroids, maybe?)

      Adam West said they (both of them, though it was mostly a problem for Burt Ward) ended up stuffing their pants to obscure the excessive detail revealed by their costumes.

      2. Ess Ess*

        I read it in a long magazine article a few years ago. I think it was New Yorker since that’s about the only magazine I subscribe to but I can’t be sure. In the article, it specified the type of medication but now everything on the internet just has a vague description of the pills without giving the actual chemical. Googling it now has a lot of articles about interviews with Burt Ward confirming it.

  44. Religious Nutter*

    LW2 – I share your pain! Unannounced calls are extremely disruptive. I handle them almost exactly the same as you do.

    I get a repeat offender I’ll address it with them the next time we talk. “Hey, sorry I couldn’t answer your call on Tuesday. I couldn’t drop what I was doing to answer you. My work often requires deep concentration, so a sudden call can be really disruptive. Can you check with me by text next time to confirm if I’m available to talk?”

    I’ll follow that up with an email “Per our conversation, I’d really appreciate it if you send me a text message in teams to check if I’m available for a call. A summary of your question would also be really helpful. Thanks for your understanding as it really helps my workflow.”

    If I get repeat offenses after that, I both won’t respond AND I’ll refer them back to the email some time later. “Hey, I saw that you tried to call me yesterday afternoon, but you didn’t check with me ahead of time or tell me what the call was about. We talked about this on DATE, so I assumed it wasn’t important and let it go to voicemail. ”

    If you respond by text after they call out-of-the-blue, you’re training them that “If you want to get ahold of me, call me. I won’t answer, but then I’ll text you and you can get an answer to your question right then.” it’s better to train them “If you call me out of the blue you’re not going to get the answer you’re looking for.”

    All that might sound harsh, but I work in IT. If we don’t set HARD limits on contact methods, people will never follow our established processes for communications.

    1. My Job is to Be Available*

      Religious Nutter, you seem to have a very good approach for your job in IT.
      For other jobs, like the kind I’ve been in for decades, one might be considered as not doing their job it you pushed back so much generally not being available for such kinds of interruptions. Context in my world is supporting revenue-bearing agreements.

  45. Hyaline*

    Sorry to drag an old reference in, but #1 made me think of that Friends episode where someone is dating a new guy and he has a habit of wearing unfortunately short shorts, and they all agonize over whether to tell him, who is going to tell him, how to tell him…and then the coffee shop barista just walks over and says “hey, put the mouse back in the house, bud,” and, bam, it’s handled.

    All that to say: As awkward and embarrassing as these situations can be, it’s in reality a very low-stakes, easy fix–someone needs to just steel themselves, rip off the bandaid, say the awkward thing, and it’s over.

  46. RagingADHD*

    I think #3 really depends on the size and structure of the org or the department. On Wednesday morning I went to talk to a friendly coworker who is technically senior to me but not in my reporting line, because we both needed to decompress a little.

    After a few minutes, our group head (my “grandboss”) tapped on the door because he wanted to check in with her for the same reason. He asked how we were doing, and wound up joining in our conversation a bit about how he and his husband were feeling overnight and with the early-am news reports.

    It was a really human moment, and it made me feel a lot better to have that connection. That said, we’re a small group of maybe 15 people and we are very collegial. I’ve given him fruit from my garden, and we’ve had events at his house.

    It would also be absolutely not okay for him to send out an email referencing world or national events unless it had been vetted by corp comms, and anything with the remotest whiff of partisanship or controversy would never be allowed.

  47. Ann O'Nemity*

    #1 – Students are complaining about their discomfort!!! Students are generally less likely to make complaints about something like a teacher’s attire unless they genuinely feel uncomfortable.

    This needs to be taken seriously. There are minors involved! In an educational setting, students have the right to a safe learning environment. Schools have an ethical and legal responsibility to treat these complaints seriously, especially when there are multiple reports, because they’re often genuine indicators of a problem that needs addressing.

    1. Rep (taylor’s version)*

      Eehh that’s a little too far of a take. Ethical violation? Legal violation?? Students not feeling safe? Unless I missed it in the letter, he’s not rubbing up on them or touching himself, or pulling it out, you can just *see* the outline. This is not any different than being able to see someone’s nipples, though I understand why neither would be acceptable from a staff member in a school setting.

      1. Ann O'Nemity*

        It’s a huge red flag, and I don’t mean that as a pun.

        And I didn’t say it was an ethical or legal “violation;” I said the schools have an ethical and legal responsibility to take the complaints seriously. That means talking to the teacher and keeping an eye out for future instances of inappropriate behavior.

        1. PP*

          I want to add, it is entirely possible there could be a minor who is or has been the victim of a sexual assault or incest. So there may indeed be a student who is particularly upset / uncomfortable / etc. by seeing the outlines an adult’s genitalia.

    2. Boof*

      If it was a women’s nipples seen through a shirt, would you say the same?
      I’m going to handle this the way I’d handle a similar issue if it was a woman – if things are transparent or way clingier than anyone else is wearing, address professional attire. But in this case of it being outlines I’ll leave room for the person actually just having no idea – maybe they recently had to change their underwear situation and didn’t realize stuff shows now IDK – the possibilities are limitless just start by saying “hey, unfortunately your pants are showing more than you probably intend, and some students have even mentioned it, are you willing to change your wardrobe?” is the best starting point.

      1. Dahlia*

        Nipples and penises are not equivalent. Penises and vaginas are. If I could see every line of someone’s vulva in their pants and they were a teacher, yes, I would be concerned.

        1. Boof*

          Yea but things have to be a lot tighter to see camel toe – I realize both analogies are imperfect – I chose nips for this one because nips are “outies”, like peens; vag are “innies” so you have to get a LOT tighter to see. I guess maybe transparent “I can tell what sort of underwear you are wearing” pants are the nearest equivalents? Without seeing the pants in question, the fact that this is happening in pants to someone new makes me just think it could be totally unintentional

          1. Dahlia*

            Men also have nipples. Him having visible nipples would be the equivalent to visible nipples.

            We’re talking about genitalia. The nearest equivalent is genitalia. It doesn’t matter how tight the pants would need to be. Those are the equal things.

            1. Boof*

              If the genitalia are different logistically then they are different things, no? Same thing with men and women’s nipples; which one do you think is easier to see through clothes?

    3. Ellis Bell*

      Did you read this as deliberate flashing or something? It’s literally just a wardrobe malfunction, or a misstep in dressing for a situation where students will be seated at crotch-height which is a much lower angle than the teacher can see in their own mirror. Students are not terrified or scarred for life by wardrobe malfunctions, they are usually just highly amused. A lot of the time this stuff gets covered in teacher training (teaching is like acting, so dressing for the part is usually covered), but if it’s not, then the hemline that’s too high for the drama stage in the hall, or the pants that ride down the backside when you pick up a pencil etc, just gets addressed in the workplace and the teacher is usually grateful to be told before a student tells them publicly. Kids are happy to openly shame you, bless them. It’s just a job where clothes have a much brighter spotlight on issues that would often go unnoticed in an office.

      1. Ann O'Nemity*

        It’s possible the teacher is doing it on purpose, or maybe he’s oblivious. But I find it highly concerning it’s been going on so long that multiple students have complained to the principal and a photo was removed from social for being too explicit… but no one has actually talked to him!

    4. Still anon for this*

      You are reading a lot into the single line that mentions students: “Several students have gone to the principal to share this information.”

      1. Ann O'Nemity*

        That’s possible! I’m a mandatory reporter, so I may be particularly sensitive to this letter.

  48. Rep (taylor’s version)*

    I have a coworker who wears tight enough pants that you can see the outline of his boxer briefs on his upper thighs, but thankfully that’s all you can see!

  49. Come on y'all*

    The amount of comments insinuating that LW #1’s teacher must be/is likely to be a sexual predator is pretty alarming. You all have some serious assumptions to interrogate.

    1. manon*

      People are really extrapolating a ton about both the teacher’s motivations and the students’ feelings. All the letter writer said was “several students have gone to the principal to share this information.” We don’t know anything about the dynamics of the school or these students. Going to the principal to “share this information” could indeed be complaints coming from students who feel extremely uncomfortable or unsafe, but it could legitimately also be like “hey uh can someone give Mr X a heads up because he should probably know we’ve noticed but it would be awkward to say it directly.”

      There was a vice principal at my high school that plenty of students had a pretty casual relationship with. People seem to be thinking that telling the principal means there has to be some big formal escalation but it could just be someone stopping in at the end of their lunch period to pass a comment along to a trusted adult that seems like they’re in a position to act on it since they have seniority.

      To be clear, I agree with Alison about the answer in general – this should be absolutely be addressed with the teacher and if he’s resistant to that feedback and the behavior doesn’t change, that could be a red flag. At this point though, there’s nothing in the letter that really screams malice.

    2. Anon for this one*

      That is part of the reason I didn’t comment, and am going anonymous on this one.

      He’s a new teacher, so he may not have much fashion sense, or money to buy a lot of new clothes. If he comes from a disadvantage background (like I did) he’s probably used to not wearing dress clothing and has no idea how to choose them. He could just be buying whatever he remembers his teachers wearing when he was in high school.

      Also, if he’s always been well-endowed, he’s probably used to feeling snug in that area. Some men are showers, and some are growers, and just like small-breasted women vs. large-breasted women, not all clothes will fit everybody the same.

      The rush to assume he’s some sort of predator is alarming, especially as this is usually a fairly enlightened community.

      1. Boof*

        I’m gonna agree based on facts in evidence it’s similar to someone complaining about too much camel toe – could be a total accident people aren’t usually able to see their groin well and it’s not like he’s wearing booty shorts or something!

      2. DisgruntledPelican*

        Eh, I feel like a subsection of the comments assuming he’s a predator is pretty par for the course for this comment section

    4. Hroethvitnir*

      Thanks for saying this. Of course there’s always a possibility, but it’s not even close to being for sure, as some people seem to think.

      It really disturbs me how much some people see all men as predators – it’s not a good thing for kids not to have men in caring roles around them, but that’s what happens when you’re treated with suspicion for your gender.

  50. Boof*

    For LW3 – the wild thing about this year’s election is, roughly half the country is devastated / terrified, and roughly half the country voted for the president elect. If you don’t know who you’re talking to you can’t assume you know how they feel about the election; and contrary to some rhetoric you can’t judge how someone falls politically etc just by looking at them (unless they’re wearing political clothing, I suppose – but that would be VERY poor form right now at work and then managers would have a right to step in).
    I think the managers need to not assume, but to be willing to deal with it if there’s any effect on the work place. If someone says they’re stressed and need some extra grace, fine, maybe talk about it a little and ask what they need (it shouldn’t drag on for months, but if people are grieving a bit for a week or two, heck yes give a little leeway); if someone’s running around bragging or catastrophizing, shut it down, not appropriate for work.
    Definitely don’t run around assuming you know what people are feeling and trying to manage their emotions!

    1. Danzig*

      I agree with all of this with one tweak: the president-elect got just over half the votes that were cast, but (like in most elections) that’s well under half the country once you account for non-voters. So if the office reflects American adults of voting age as a whole, it’s more like just over a third voted for him, just under a third voted against him, and a third couldn’t vote or sat it out.

      I don’t know whether that makes me feel better or worse, but I think it’s relevant in general and in answering this question.

      1. Boof*

        Yea but I don’t know what the non voters thing, at least, I don’t feel confident saying they definitely all felt one thing or another.

  51. FunkyMunky*

    #2 my policy is that unless we have a scheduled call, I absolutely pay no attention Teams calls. if it’s important, you’ll msg me first or schedule a time to chat. people who just pick up a phone and dial are outside of my realm of patience. Half of the time it’s people who call in response to my email (and then email back saying they just called me?!), too.

  52. Put It Away, Pal*

    One of my favorite MST3K episodes is 1977’s “Code Name: Diamond Head.” At a pool party scene, Roy Thinnes walks by the camera in a full crotch shot, wearing skin-tight white pants, and Crow says, “I’d say he’s got about, ohhh, 35-cents in his pocket!”

    Dude may be “fully clothed,” but still inappropriate, particularly when working with minors. Hell, I work with a woman in her 40s who comes to work wearing too-thin leggings and crop tops, and I’m not a prude by any stretch, but I still want to tell her to put on some clothes because we’re at work (in HR, lol), not the gym or a dance studio.

    Just tell the guy he needs to wear looser trousers. I sure as hell hope someone would tell me if I was walking around sporting a giant camel toe!

  53. MWF*

    For LW #2. I work in IT at a non-technology organization with about 150 users. What has helped

    1) Have a ticketing system in place if you don’t already. Direct most, if not all, inquiries/requests/
    etc to that system. It also helps with change management and making sure requests don’t get lost. It helps if most if not all your IT team also follow this route.

    2) Talk with your supervisor, but enforce ‘Focus Time’ both in theory and use Teams tools. There’s a focus time/Do Not Disturb setting that blocks all teams notifications (you can set filters to allow alerts from people like your boss). And set focus blocks to do focus work on your calendar! Get the backing of your boss, most should say ‘yeah of course’. It’s totally normal and really helpful to get quality work done.

    And then follow through. Don’t automatically check teams messages/emails/etc while doing focus work and keep open the apps that you need!

  54. Really?*

    It’s a real bummer to see all these insulations that the teacher in #1 is a predator and has to know what he’s doing. Especially when there have been so many letters regarding dress codes and women’s bodies where the response and comments encourage the idea that the person in question either may not know, or that it’s not appropriate to comment/police people’s bodies, yet here so many people are insisting he must be a predator. Just really disheartening to see. If it was a young female teacher who was experiencing a similar wardrobe malfunction, I don’t think people would assume she knew what she was doing and she’s not safe for young boys to be around.

    1. Ann O'Nemity*

      One in 10 students is subjected to adult sexual misconduct in school before they graduate high school. 85% of perpetrators are male. The risk is real.

      That doesn’t mean the teacher is 100% absolutely a predator, but I think perv pants is a big enough red flag that the administration should take it seriously and address it.

      1. Really?*

        I understand the risk is real. But that doesn’t mean you can assume he must know what he’s doing and he’s actively being predatory. I agree that they should address it and take it seriously, but can we not also not assume because he’s a guy with a wardrobe malfunction he’s a predator?

    2. Put It Away, Pal*

      This is not about policing anyone’s body. This is about what is appropriate to wear at work, particularly around minors. I have extremely large breasts. I cannot hide my shape, and I would balk at anyone suggesting I try to do so (because that’s impossible short of wearing a giant cardboard box), but I CAN avoid wearing shirts that over-expose my cleavage to my colleagues, or strapless bustiers that push my boobs up front and center, or see-through tops that show my cheetah-print bra. There’s nothing wrong with having large breasts or exposing cleavage in general, and I’m not ashamed of my body, but I understand that humans have eyes and “looking” at others’ bodies can happen both voluntarily AND involuntarily and lead to discomfort for all parties. It’s a perfectly avoidable situation for most adults.

      This teacher may be gifted with a horse dong. Bully for him! But as a professional adult working with children, he has a responsibility to wear properly fitting clothing that does not expose the details of his “gift” when his crotch is at eye-level to his students in most classroom settings. Men have PLENTY of access to trousers of all sizes and fits that do not require the outline of their penis to be visible.

      1. Really?*

        Look, I think that someone should absolutely talk to this guy because it’s not appropriate workwear. My point there’s no reason to assume he’s doing it intentionally and with nefarious purpose, nothing in the letter indicates that. Clothing can fit differently when you’re looking at it from a different angle. From his perspective he literally might not see the problem, and if no one tells him, how could he know?

    1. Boof*

      NGL all I can think of is a shot of joe biden someone was tittering about online once – it wasn’t inappropriate clothes (come on I mean how many people are probably involved in a president’s wardrobe choice??) just lighter colored pants, the right angle and lighting, and yeah maybe you can tell that someone might possibly have anatomy somewhere

      1. Boof*

        (but says the OP says this person’s clothes are definitely out of the norm I think they need to tell them that they’re showing too much – if they react with anything but mortification THEN I’ll start to question what they’re really doing, but without at least having that conversation this could be totally accidental by what the LW wrote in!)

  57. Yours Sincerely, Raymond Holt*

    Very grateful for the unscheduled calls answer because this is the way I work as well. I’ve wondered if it was right. I do answer if I’m genuinely available but if I’m in the middle of something I’d finish or come to a natural break first.

    In my case, the colleague who does most often is someone who also often just doesn’t turn up which we do schedule in a call. Then she’ll call unannounced. So I have said to her that it’s better to schedule in a call (even if it’s just “in half an hour”) and to let me know if it’s urgent.

    She doesn’t have a great assessment of what’s urgent either though.

  58. Dogmomma*

    #1. think the extremely tight pants are on purpose. It skeeves me out that it’s done at all, but he’s looking for a reaction from the kids/ women teachers and possibly getting off on it. if there’s kids mentioning it, it’s inappropriate. You can’t do anything about what he wears on his personal time, but this isn’t professional and is actually kind of creepy. Whoever is in charge needs to say something.

  59. Gustavo*

    LW1: I strongly disagree that it only matters because he is a teacher. I can’t fathom any workplace (outside of a strip club or certain types of bars) where anyone should be subjected to seeing a man’s penis. If you can see the outline that clearly, it’s not ok to wear to work. Now, if it’s just a bulge that’s a little different because I’m sure some men just aren’t able to hide bulges (like large breasted women can’t really hide them) but the outline? That’s absolutely inappropriate. I don’t need to know the shape, size, and visual details of my male coworkers penis. The same I wouldn’t want to see the outline of a female coworkers labia.

    I feel like this man either is just blind or oblivious (which is a little concerning since he is teaching kids, but he can’t even notice that his penis is showing?) or he knows and is a creep.

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