Last Monday, I was working in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Helping pull cable for a Parole and Probation office renovation. The end of our workday comes and I set about loading the ladders on the truck. Got the ladders nice and secured, and moved on to strapping down the work cart so it's not rolling around the truck.
I noticed a homeless man walking up to me, thinking he was going to ask for money or ask to use the porta john, but gets really close, too close. I ask “what's up man!” And responds “I'm Aspen what's your name?” Gave him my name and he asks, “what are you doing?” “Working…?” I say. “Do you need any help?!”, he asks. I replied, “no, but thanks anyway, I really appreciate it!”. And he kinda laughs and says “haha hell yeah man!” And I stupidly thought that was the end of our interaction and I turned my back to him to finish strapping the cart down.
Well, not even ten seconds later, I felt something pressing up against my right butt cheek, and I turn around thinking dudes trying to lift my wallet!!! But no, homeless man had his penis out and he had pressed it against me. I shouted “what the fuck?!?!” And he backs off with this crazy look on his face and I ran back to the building where one of my coworkers was coming out, getting ready to load his shit in his truck.
I tell him what happened and pointed the dude out and he actually asked me if I was ok, and well, I really wasn't at the time. I've never been sexually assaulted before and it was a total shock…
I told the rest of my coworkers what happened and one of them actually laughed and said “I thought you were into that kind of thing?!”
The next morning I told my branch manager what happened, but didn't say anything about what my coworker said. And all he told me was “I'm sorry that happened to you, but there's not much I can do aside from encouraging you to file a police report.” We had to go there the next day, and I spent the first few hours of my shift filing a police report and I was just a nervous wreck for the entire day, and ended up calling out the following day.
I'm doing better now but I fucking hate this job now. The shop is incredibly toxic and we've had a number of guys quit, including apprentices. I'm currently looking for other work and have found something similar but nowhere near as physical and I don't have to drive all over this state, unfortunately im not going to be able to apply until after the new year.
So now I just have to suck shit for a few more weeks…
I'm just so over working. I make decent money on some jobs but I get taxed half to death and im constantly pawning my stuff and right now I'm dealing with a massive car repair bill that's been taking me months to come up with the money. I'm just fucking tired of it all.
Fuck work. Thanks for reading.