It was a legal office that was part of a well-known insurance company. The manager was a conservative Catholic. He believed that a man and a woman speaking to each other too much was “basically the same as sex”. He told me it was acceptable to speak to men if I absolutely had to, but I needed to say what was necessary and then stop talking. He accused me of having sexual affairs with multiple coworkers, literally for speaking to them too often, conversations going on for too long, going out for lunch together, etc. Normal coworkerly behavior.

Since interacting with them would be “infidelity”, he ignored the female attorneys in the office. He’d invite all the male attorneys out to a nice restaurant for lunch while all the women ate a bag lunch in their offices, etc. They couldn’t stand him. He was nice to the support staff, but I think in his eyes, they were “good women”: married with kids, Catholic, subservient towards him.

He thought I was horrible because I lived with a boyfriend, didn’t want kids, wasn’t religious, etc. I tried to have an adult conversation about it where I told him I respected his beliefs, but I didn’t share them, and it wasn’t his place as a manager to punish me for not sharing his religious beliefs. But, he insisted it had nothing to do with religion.

The company’s attitude was that he was the manager, so I had to do what he told me to do. 🙄