a fellow conference attendee was a jerk on the airplane — Ask a Manager

A reader writes:

I (a woman) travelled by myself to a work-related conference and encountered some bad behavior on the flight. A quick search on AAM indicated many readers asked questions related to work-related trips with folks within the same company. How about with folks from another company? Other than ignoring and walking away, what would be your take?

A tech-related conference was in Las Vegas. At least 90% of the people on my fully-booked flight were heading to the same event. (By the sight of company-branded swags and talking to folks in the line-up, it’s not hard to figure out where the folks were heading.) An anti-harassment policy in writing has been in place for the event, with the highest form of punishment being permanent expulsion from the event.

The person on the window seat and I, who had the aisle seat, told each other what we do and where we work. Many folks on the flight did the same. The flight was almost four hours from the east coast. My neighbor made anti-mask, racial, and sexual remarks. I told him the remarks were not welcomed and ignored the remarks that followed. Then he used his knee to control my tray table and treated me like someone who didn’t understand English. He also gestured that he wanted to go to the restroom at least eight times (yes I counted). When he returned to his seat, he purposely bumped my body. He also asked for extra alcohol during the flight, but the flight attendant refused to give him the extra serving.

When the flight was ready for the passengers to disembark, I picked up my belongings quickly and left. I never saw this person during the event again.

Since the behavior did not occur at the conference, I can’t report it to the organizers. Although the travel is a part of work, I can’t report it to my workplace because the unruly neighbor does not work for my employer. This person wasn’t violent or visibly drunk so others could not see. Messaging this person’s employer’s HR would not yield any favorable results and might be inviting him to retaliate.

Yeah, there aren’t great options here. The best one probably would have been to talk to a flight attendant during the flight and see if you could be moved, although I realize it’s too late for that now.

It’s not entirely true that conferences with anti-harassment policies aren’t interested in behavior outside the conference — if you’d been harassed by a fellow conference attendee at the hotel bar after a day of workshops, for example, most conference organizers would want to know about that, or even if it had happened in a restaurant across town that you had both ended up in while you were in town for the event. But you’re right that the airplane was pretty far afield from that. That said, depending on how flagrant this guy’s remarks were, it’s possible that they’d still fall under the conference’s policy, particularly if he identified himself as a fellow attendee.

Beyond that, though, you’re right that there’s not much recourse; this is more like encountering an ass in the wild than encountering one in a work setting.