Sexual Harassment Stories and Experiences

Cricket, Arizona  

     I worked at a restaurant for over 6 months and all the while was harassed by the cook… all the female employees were.  He would hug me from behind, rub my shoulders while whispering things in my ear, refer to me as his wife, and constantly ask me to marry him even though he knew I was already married. 

     He did similar things to all the other women/girls.  If they were young (15-17)he would call them his “daughters” while holding their hands, and would be touchy-feely.  He always used pet names like gorgeous, beautiful, sexy, sweetheart, etc.  His behavior  seemed innocent at first but got more aggressive the longer I worked there.

     I told the owner about the harassment and she posted a memo that everyone had to sign.  This man signed the memo but never stopped his behavior.  Whenever he would make little comments, touch me or make eyes I would refer him back to the memo, but he would just laugh. 

     Toward the end of my employment I gave up trying to get him to stop harassing me but continued to protect the other girls.  I was a supervisor, so I had the authority to tell him to leave them alone.  He took this to mean that I was jealous and focused all of his attention on me.  I didn’t like the attention but at least he was leaving the girls alone.

    When I finally quit my job, the last thing I told the owner was that she should stop his behavior.  I was met with a full denial that anything ever happened and was told that this was a “malicious accusation.”  I was also told that when questioned, everyone said they never saw him behaving inappropriately.  I’m sure she was lying and never asked anyone about his behavior. 

     I can’t let this predator continue working with these young girls… especially since I’m not there to protect them anymore.  I feel guilty about getting him in trouble but I realize that what he is doing is wrong and has to be stopped.  I plan on pursuing this further… obviously, I will have to take my complaint to someone higher up than the owner.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 10th, 2007 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Sexual Harassment in the Workplace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.