I am thinking back to when I worked at a gym when I was 17, my boss was a very attractive man and he was very open about hitting on me and if I flirted with him he played along, would give me rides home and text me off hours where he'd tease the idea of me and him getting intimate.
Finally, I ended up giving him a BJ in the kitchenette room.
Later that week, I casually mentioned to one of the female staff (that was 10 years older than me) that he was flirty with me and that I could ask him for a favor and he'd do it.
Next thing I know, I'm being reprimanded for telling her about him and I by him. Then I found out I was no longer being given full time hours, he got rid of all my summer hours and instead of working 40 hours a week, I was being scheduled 12 hours a week at most.
His reasoning was that I was leaving for college in September so they wanted to give all the CITs the full time hours to train them up, meanwhile I was a highly trained coach at level 2 out of 4 – this took over a year of courses to attain and you required at least one level 2 at all times. Whereas CITs had zero training, zero courses, and were not allowed to work autonomously.
When I approached him and said that I needed more hours or I would have to get a job somewhere else and that I had already started looking, his response was “well then if you want to quit that's you're choice but if you're looking for other jobs then I can't keep scheduling you”.
Looking back now, it's very clear that the female staff had saw the situation for what it was, a 35 year old man/manager was targeting an underage worker and then punishing her for saying something that could have gotten him fired/charged. She didn't last much longer, maybe 3 weeks? And then I was removed from the schedule completely.
While he remained the general manager.
I feel guilty towards myself for not recognizing how inappropriate it was for me to be flirting with him, but at the same time I tell myself – no, he was 35 years old, he was your manager, he flirted with YOU. You, at 17 didn't know better and you were punished for his predatory behavior almost getting caught.
So yeah, not sure what my point actually was for this post, maybe just a rant? It pissed me off to get fired right before summer from a job that I had paid $500+ of my own money to get trained at, including 5 courses that were all on my own time, a job I genuinely loved and enjoyed, and a job that had to legally pay me above minimum wage because of my qualifications for a factory job that I hated all because it was the only place hiring for the summer at that point.