So i’ll preface this by saying that I have only been working there for a month so far. I work at a department store in the mall called Dillard’s. I don’t quite like it for a number of reasons but the main one happened recently like 2 days ago.
I was closing by myself for the first time in my department and I was running around trying to get everything ready. When I went to go turn in my paperwork for the night I noticed a group of women staring at me but I didn’t think anything of it and thought I was too in my head. After I turned in my paperwork I was walking toward the door and ran into my coworker that I had made friends with, we’ll call her S. S and I then began walking and talking together but was stopped by an older lady. We’ll call this older lady M. She was also a coworker of ours. I had never talked to M before.
She walked up to me placed both of her hands on my shoulders and whispered to me that the group of women she was standing with earlier said they thought my outfit was inappropriate. Mind you, I had been there from open to close seeing multiple managers and no one had said anything to me about anything related to my outfit. Also, none of the woman that were standing around gossiping about my outfit were managers.
After that, M began looking me up and down and pulled down my shirt and was telling me how “were aren’t allowed to show our bellies” My shirt was tucked in. She then proceeded to take her index finger and touch across my thigh where my skirt is supposed to be. This made me feel wildly uncomfortable. As it made S feel weird as well, she shot me a confused/wtf look. Like did she really just put her hands on me and admit to gossiping about me.
This is when it got really weird. S and I tried to keep proceeding to the exit but M kept talking about the dress code after us and saying its the style to be modest?
When we finally got outside I was so in shock, I didnt know quit how to feel. S then told me I absolutely needed to report it and it was very inappropriate and uncomfortable.
The next day I went to go talk to the store manager. When I had explained the story and expressed my discomfort, the first words out of her mouth were “I’m going to play devils advocate here” She then began saying that it probably wasn’t her intention and that she was “the sweetest lady” and she probably went into “grandma mode”. This made me upset and I told her I was a little surprised with her response because I felt that what she did was a honestly ridiculous. She said she would talk to her, that was it pretty much.
I felt so defeated and felt that it was just brushed off? What if a man had did this to me would it be treated the same way? I would hope not.
My schedule is already made up for the month of December but I am seriously considering just not coming in at all and leave it at that. Or quitting over the phone, I haven’t decided yet.