Blog 2
Treat Me Like I Want to Be Treated
The other day while I was at work this man decided to “flirt” with me. First things first, I don’t date men that I work with or come into my job. (Working with the public is weird for me like that and it makes things worse if a breakup goes bad.) I decided to ignore him. What’s a little harmless flirting? (Even if it does make me a little uncomfortable.) I hoped that me ignoring him he would be able to take the hint and leave me the flip alone. No haps. He wasn’t letting up.
I checked out his stack of DVD’s (that made me feel like I worked for Blockbuster instead of the library) and told him to have a nice day. (Maybe the only thing I should have said was the date his movies were due back.) His response was, “Thanks baby, you have a good day. I’ll see you soon.”
My skin began to crawl and I was disgusted. This man comes into the library on a daily basis. It seems like he singles me out when he needs help, even though there are 4 other people who work here. What am I going to say, “Sir, I don’t like that you called me baby –it made me feel uncomfortable, I don’t want to help you anymore…” –will that fly? I don’t think so. I also don’t want to say anything to the security guard, because (in my opinion) it’ll make the situation worse. According to him, I may just be “overreacting”. (I know that’s not the case.) However, how much is too much? When is enough truly enough?
This isn’t the first time that I have felt uncomfortable while working with some of the patrons at my job. One patron rented tons of books, games, and videos from my branch –we’ll call him John. Naturally, I knew his name because I stared at his library card all the time. Flexing my excellent employee skills one day I said, “Have a good day John!” He didn’t know my name so he took this as perfect timing to learn my name. He grabbed my name tag (which hung conveniently on a lanyard) starting at the top by my neck and slid his hand down –brushing his hand across my breast. I was livid. Why couldn’t he just ask me my name? What made him reach across the circulation desk and fondle me? I immediately told my manager what happened and the next day she said something to him. He said that I was making a big deal out of nothing, and that’s not how it happened. (Oh, so I’m a liar now?) I disliked this man so much. What gave him the right to violate me like that? Did he truly think it was acceptable?
After that I stopped wearing my name badge because I didn’t want to deal with any patron who thought that feeling me up was okay. John didn’t speak to me for a couple of years, which was a-okay with me. He just recently started speaking to me again. I speak, but I make sure our conversations don’t linger. I would hate for him to think it was okay for him to say something inappropriate and then I’d be marked as the one who was “blowing things out of proportion”.
I type all of that to say this –why do [some] men think that women want that type of attention. I don’t. Especially if I am at work, and if I don’t know you I don’t want you to say those types of things to me. Nor do I want you to touch me. Since when is it okay to go around calling women names like, baby, sugar, sweetheart, love, gorgeous and so on? Bottom line –its not okay. Nor is it okay to molest me. I spend most of my time either at work at or at home, I like to feel comfortable in both places.
