I wanted to tell the story of leaving my first job, because honestly, screw those guys.
I was 16 working as a hostess at The Rib and Chop Steakhouse in my city. I worked just about every night, including weekends, from 5-10. I would be at school during the day, shower and change at home, and I was never late to work. I had no disciplinary problems or anything of the sort either, I struggled to learn everything for my first few weeks but once I picked it up, I was a model of civility.
Being a woman in a position of service, I pretty quickly got used to the side comments about my body or my attractiveness overall. Most often from older men, but none of them ever laid a hand on me, so I laughed it off. I would like to reiterate that I had to learn this lesson at 16.
One day, a man I had not seen before was suddenly promoted to manager. There was a huge fuss being kicked up by the waitresses and some of the people in the kitchen, who apparently had been jockeying for the position. They sent him out to watch me work at the front, mostly an excuse to get him out of the office where everyone and their mother was complaining about him.
He stood next to my podium and watched me work for a little while, until the initial dinner rush slowed and we had time to talk. During the small talk, he asked for my age. I thought nothing of it and happily provided the answer.
His eyes locked on my uniform, which was a black v-neck. (because it is relevant, I was and still am rather large in the breast area) and said “Really? Rack like that I would’ve guessed you were close to 21.”
I remember how cold it felt all of a sudden. The conversation pretty much ended there, with him occasionally bringing up his wife while texting her back on his apple watch.
I went home without any further incident, and came back the next day hoping he wasn’t there so I could just do my job in peace.
I was cleaning the exterior of the windows into the lobby, and he walked up to me on the other side of the glass. He was inside the restaurant, and at first I thought he was pointing at a spot I’d missed, until I realized he was pointing at my chest and miming for me to pull down my v-neck to expose myself more to him. I pretended I couldn’t see him, and kept spraying. There was a stepstool by the window so I could reach the top parts, and I stepped onto it, only to watch him on the other side miming binoculars and trying to stare down my shirt. He made it very obvious that’s what he was doing, it was almost cartoonish.
Again, I did my best to ignore. I was afraid that if I said something, since he was a manager, I would lose my job.
About an hour later, I was back at the podium, and he had again made some excuse to come stand behind me. I tried to stay as far away from him as possible. I could hear the typing sounds coming from his apple watch, and the occasional sigh followed by a pet name, so I knew he was texting his wife. I continued to do my job, when suddenly, he caught me at an uncharacteristically slow moment. He started talking about his wife, telling me how beautiful she was and how kind, and how she looked on their wedding day.
He showed me a picture then, of her in her wedding dress. I can’t remember if she was beautiful of not, but I do remember being slightly moved by how obviously he cared about her, before that feeling was immediately squashed. He leaned forward, wrist with the apple watch still held in front of my face so his whole body was pressing mine into my podium. He used his other arm to scroll to the left on the watch, effectively wrapping around me in a bear hug from behind. I was stuck, I could feel him and I felt sick, and to make matters worse, after scrolling past a few more wedding photos, there it was- a picture of his wife, completely naked. He showed me that picture for a while and I tried not to think about it, hoping he would just get off of me.
He whispered in my ear that I should go to dinner with him AND his wife, and then he left for the bathroom.
I broke down into tears. I walked out into the dining area and one of the waitresses who had always intimidated me before asked me what happened. I told her everything. She was horrified and immediately handed me a pen and her notepad, and told me to write everything down that I could.
Long story short, the police tried to pull the camera footage but “one of the managers” had “accidentally” deleted it all. Since there was no evidence of my claim, they stopped investigating and even suggested I just “take a breather and try to talk through things with him.”
I was asked to resign as I had a “problem with authority” and had “always had an attitude problem towards management” which was the most bullshit lie, maybe ever.
At 16, with no outside support and experiencing so much for the first time with so little understanding, I quit on the spot, and left that night watching over my shoulder and praying he couldn’t follow me to my car or find my address.
I got in a bunch of trouble at home, but I was lucky to have supportive friends.
Basically, workplace harassment is so common and so dangerous for young women. I was in an incredibly dangerous spot- if that waitress hadn’t asked me what was wrong, I probably wouldn’t have ever reported him out of fear, just because he was a manager. I can’t imagine what else he would’ve done to me had he continued to exercise that power. And the fact that he had any control over the cameras is horrifying.
Now, three years later, he is still a manager there.
Fuck the workplace hierarchy, fuck pedophiles, and fuck the concept of work.