Dear Prudence,
I work in an IT role at a very large, well-known and selective university. My role is very “back of house,” and I have no interactions with students, and neither am I involved in student life, admissions, or academics at all. I’ve recently received several increasingly demanding messages (some via LinkedIn) and several directly to my work email from a student services counselor working at my previous institution—where I haven’t worked for six years! The messages demand that I set him and some of his advising students up with a tour, connect them with dining services (?), faculty, and provide him information on public transportation and “sights to see.” This is not a person that I know, outside of working for the same institution years ago. We weren’t even in the same department!
Not only is this not related at all to my job, I have no knowledge or connections with these types of functions. Regardless, based on how aggressive the emails are, I don’t want to assist in any way. The messages are poorly worded with a lot of typos and grammatical errors and demonstrate a shocking amount of ignorance as to how admissions work at private prestigious institutions. The first two I dismissed as spam, promptly blocking him from my socials, but the emails concern me, especially as he’s now cc’ing me into emails to other people. I don’t think he can get me into trouble, but I’m embarrassed by his pushiness, his ignorance, and the fact that he is trying to leverage a tenuous connection with me to push his agenda.
To clarify, he is not faculty, he works in some kind of student support role. Also, this is just gossip, but my friend (who still works at my past job and knows him) told me he has been in trouble in the past for sexual harassment and he has a history of pushing boundaries. I also found an interview with the university paper where he says “he doesn’t take no for an answer,” which is why I fear he’ll keep escalating. My husband thinks I should escalate to his boss; however, according to his institution directory, his immediate supervisor position is vacant. I want him to leave me alone. Obviously, I’m not going to gatekeep how he interacts with my current institution—that’s not my business. I just want him to stop messaging me. I’ve gone over every type of response in my head and continuing to send the messages to spam and blocking where I can seems the best course of action.
—De-Tour De Farce