Yesterday evening I was at work, bagging groceries. A man entered the checkout line and looked at me creepily in the way a lot of harassers and predators do, but it only lasted a moment before he stopped and focused on the transaction, so I didn’t walk away as I’ve been doing with suspicious customers. However, at the end of the transaction when he came to get his bags, he started teasing me out of the blue. I’m so sick of this sort of thing happening (I’ve submitted several similar stories on this site) and I wasn’t going to take it anymore so I told him to go to hell, then walked away. He got mad and complained at customer service, then went home, got his wife, and came back with her so they could both complain, even though the wife had nothing to do with it. Later I was pulled into the manager’s office, lectured about how the company’s money is more important than my dignity and self-respect, and sent home early.
I don’t regret what I said. I found out today that I’m not going to get fired, but even if I did I would have no regrets. I stood up for myself – and it felt great to make the harasser mad for once, instead of letting him walk away laughing. I hope he and his wife are mad forever.
This is getting to the point where I might just try to avoid all men. Not because I think they’re all harassers, but because there’s no way to know which ones are harassers until it’s too late.
Oh yes, and I may add that I asked the male cashier I’d been bagging for if the customer had said anything of the sort to him, and he said no.