Yet I can still manage to look helpless and recruit the nearest man to help me. The only time that tactic did not work was when the nearest man was Russian. Must have been a cultural thing.
There is a huge difference between complimenting someone and sexual harassment. However, sexual harassers often begin with what seem to be harmless compliments, and the situation escalates from there until the victim realizes that it has progressed to sexual harassment. I guess that’s why some companies do not want people to even compliment each other—because it can be difficult to tell the difference between a harmless compliment and the beginning stages of sexual harassment.
You could have gotten the Russian to help in exchange for a fifth of vodka.
Does it rattle you if someone says "Ma'am"?
That one got me on the HR S*** List even after some one pointed out my mother's southern background (which catapulted me from Sexist to Red Neck)
If the Russian man was older, he went through Soviet training which emphasized that all sexes were completely equal. That might take a generation to change.