Pervos in the workplace
I was watching NOW on PBS a little while ago, and the topic was about teens who suffer sexual harassment at work. It’s been 30 years since I was a teenager, and I know first-hand that this is nothing new.
My first couple of jobs were summer jobs. The summer I was 15, I rode my bike to some farm, where I picked blueberries. I probably would have made more money if I didn’t eat so many of those blueberries, but hey, they were tasty.
The next two summers after that, I had summer jobs that my mother got for me, in the office at a local college. They were good jobs, and no pervy guys were trying to chase me around the office furniture.
The first job, other than the blueberry-picking gig, that I got on my own was at the Cumberland Farms store up the street from our house. I was 18 at the time, just out of high school. anmd still living at home with my parents.
It was okay for a while, until they fired my first boss, Darlene, for allegedly stealing money. I was soon to learn that this was a common way to get rid of people, to get out of having to give them raises or benefits or anything.
The new manager was this guy named Elwood Bell. He was a skeevy pervo who tried to hit on me almost from Day One. As I said, I was 18, a little older than the girls in the NOW story. But still, getting hit upon like this was a shocker, as this had never happened to me anywhere before.
He used to do stuff like come behind the counter when I was there, and rub up against me. The store also sold adult magazines, and he used to look at them, and show me what pictures he liked.
I was very uncomfortable with this, and I wasn’t sure what to do…remember, sexual harassment lawsuits were not a big thing back then. Also, I was just an 18 year old kid, still living with my parents. I was legally old enough to vote and drink and live on my own, but I was stil a kid in many ways.
One day, Elwood’s wife and kids came into the store. I sensed that Elwood was a little scared of his wife, even though she was only about five feet tall, a lot smaller than me (I have been 5′ 10″ since I was 14). Maybe she had very large brothers, or a father with a very large gun. Who knows?
Well, I used this to my advantage. I had also managed to find out where Elwood lived (no, we didn’t have Google back, then, I used the good old-fashioned phone book). So, the next time that he tried anything with me, I told him that if he did it again, I would go to his wife and tell her all about it.
He was much better behaved after that. Until the day he tried to accuse me of stealing $29.00 out of the cash register. He came and counted out my drawer, but didn’t count the $29.00 in food stamps that was there. He started yelling at me, calling me a dumb blonde and a thief, threatening to get me in trouble.
I took the drawer from him, counted it out again, including the food stamps, and it balanced to the penny. After that, I removed my store key from my ring, threw it on the counter, and walked out, telling him that I quit.
I hadn’t even made it all the way home before he started calling my house, begging me to come back. My mother told me that the jerk was on the phone when I walked in the door. I took the phone and told the jerk that if he called me one more time, I’d go to his wife about all of the pervy crap. That shut him up once again.
Then, when it was payday, I walked over there to get my final check. Elwood said that he didn’t have it, that there was some problem with processing it. I did not believe him. He was stuck there having to wait on customers, because I wasn’t there to do it, and he couldn’t find anyone else who wanted to work there yet.
I stayed there and made a big stink, despite Elwood’s trying to get me to shut up in front of customers. I once again reminded him about the wife thing, and voila! All of a sudden, he did find my check after all!
The lesson to be learned here is to NOT be afraid of these exploitative bosses. No matter how tough the times are, there is no reason to have to put up with this crap from anyone. No job is worth having to suffer this abuse day after day. These teen girls need to tell their parents right away about any such incidents, if the parents make them quit, it’s for their own good.
This was not the end of my sexual harassment experience, though. Years later, I worked as a cook at a brewpub. There was this skeevy dishwasher who had the hots for me. He used to pay $100 for a hooker every payday, and he started offering me that money to take her place. He would not let up.
It came to a head the day that I was reaching up onto a high shelf to get a pot, and this pervo snuck up behind me and grabbed my boobs. I screamed bloody murder, and the boss yelled at me for screaming. Well, sheesh, what if this guy was grabbing YOUR wife’s boobs, I bet you’d kill the mofo.
Mike (who I actually met at the bar at this place) wanted me to quit, as soon as he found out that this guy was offering me money for sex. I had to keep him from going back into the kitchen and killing the guy, as much as he did need killing.
I finally did make the choice to quit, because of the hostile work environment. I also made the choice not to file any lawsuit, even though now I wish I had sometimes. It might be nice to own my own brewpub! I do know that neither the head cook boss nor the pervo dishwasher are no longer there…but they could both be working elswhere and allowing this crap to go on wherever they went.
No job is worth the humilation and degradation of sexual harassment. NEVER feel like you MUST put up with it.
