Basically the title. I’m getting so tired of being harassed as a grocery store cashier. For a little bit of context I’m a young feminine-presenting person (nonbinary, closeted). I’m only 20 but maybe the worst part is, I look much younger than my age. Especially when it comes to my height, I’m short. Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent. Anyways. I work at a pretty nice grocery store, but at least once every other shift there will be a creepy guy who will either keep staring at my chest or ass. It’s even worse whenever they buy these massive 24 packs of alcohol and I have to bend down to turn them over because the barcode is on the bottom.
The worst one by far was two or three days ago, it made me feel super gross and I’m still thinking about it. There were these construction worker dudes, three of them, that all came in to buy food for their lunch break. Fair enough. But what was creepy was when they first started the conversation. “You’re so pretty little lady, why don’t you smile for us?” Okay. Creepy. But maybe they’re just teasing. Let it go. But they didn’t STOP. “Such a shame you won’t smile for us.” “Why don’t you smile for us?” “We’ve been working hard all day it would cheer us up.” Shit like that. For the whole time I was getting them through their orders. I finally just smiled to get them to stop and they just said, “Seeee we knew you liked us.” I almost cried. I know it isn’t the worst I could possibly face but these three men were big, muscular and scary. And I was stuck at the register because that’s my job. I couldn’t tell them off because they could easily play it off as them just joking around or giving compliments.
That isn’t the first time I’ve ever dealt with a situation like that. I’m a grown ass adult and these men will infantilize me. “Do you need help counting change?” No dickweed, this is my job. It isn’t just the men either. Women do it a loss less of the time but I’ve had a few older ladies get cross with me over something so trivial and insignificant that isn’t even my fault.
Not sure where this was going but I needed to say something about it. If anybody else has similar experiencs I’d love to have a discussion about it.