i've always wanted to take a go cart.

The catalyst was a customer — ­ a father of four who had put his hand up the shirt of a busser clearing his family’s table. The busser was so stunned she didn’t report it, but the event sparked a flood of reactions from staff members who’d had similar experiences. At our meeting, women shared stories about harassment from customers and said that when they tried to report it to male managers, they were often ignored because the incidents seemed unthreatening through a male lens.

We decided on a color-coded system in which different types of customer behavior are categorized as yellow, orange or red. Yellow refers to a creepy vibe or unsavory look. Orange means comments with sexual undertones, such as certain compliments on a worker’s appearance. Red signals overtly sexual comments or touching, or repeated incidents in the orange category after being told the comments were unwelcome.

When a staff member has a harassment problem, they report the color — “I have an orange at table five” — and the manager is required to take a specific action. If red is reported, the customer is ejected from the restaurant. Orange means the manager takes over the table. With a yellow, the manager must take over the table if the staff member chooses. In all cases, the manager’s response is automatic, no questions asked. (At the time of our meeting, all our shift managers were men, though their supervisors were women; something else we’ve achieved since then is diversifying each layer of management.)

In the years since implementation, customer harassment has ceased to be a problem. Reds are nearly nonexistent, as most sketchy customers seem to be derailed at yellow or orange. We found that most customers test the waters before escalating and that women have a canny sixth sense for unwanted attention. When reds do occur, our employees are empowered to act decisively.

You pass by a small crowd of hungry children, and decide you’d rather 455 apples go rotten than give them to some snotty brat who isn’t your problem.

It doesn’t matter how hard you’ve worked for your 500 apples, or that you aren’t the parent of any of those kids. in the moment you decide to walk away, it doesn’t matter why they’re hungry, or who owes who what.

You had the opportunity to help people, you had the ability to help people, you had the resources to help people. You had everything you needed to make a small, tiny little difference in someone’s life, and you decided not to.

capitalistic hellscape: mmmmnooo kant dew that fdskhkjfh

everyone with fucking sense: uh why the fuck not?

You

Fool

Like, Boomers hate when we do that, but I think it’s one of the best things about us.

You’re gonna have a hormone crash, and it’s gonna be weird, and for the first couple days you’re gonna feel weird and bad emotionally and maybe feel like you made a mistake.

Yeah, that’s actually normal. Your breasts produce hormones and trigger hormone production elsewhere, and removing them induces something like a mild form of postpartum depression.

IT WILL PASS.

For the first few days I couldn’t even glance at my chest without feeling horrible, like I’d done something egregious. A few days later and I’m fine and thrilled, just as I thought I would be. The hormone crash is real, it’s okay, and don’t freak out about it too much. It will pass. You’ve done the right thing and you know it.