First Instance of Shenanigans
It happened during that first spring after 9/11. I had worked there two years as a temp. Side note: At my job, you start out as a part-timer, then work your way up to a permanent position. Most people don’t get that far, but anyways.... We had this gross supervisor I called ‘Nervous Mike’ because he was always uptight and chain-smoked. He was also really gross and smelly. He had a huge Neitzsche mustache and reeked of stale cigarette smoke. I’d always instinctually back up whenever he came near me. He was always flirting with the party girls. A couple of times, I’d hear them squeal after he’d sneak up on one and pinch her ass.Â
At our job, we’d sometimes have to help other temps if they were too slow at their jobs and didn’t make the cutoff time of 6:30PM. One day, Nervous Mike asked me to help one of the hoochies at her job because she supposedly was ‘running slow’. I knew it was bullshit, and I knew the girl was asking for a special favor because she needed to get out early to make some sort of appointment. If she would have just had the common decency to ask me to help her, then I would have gladly. Instead, she got flirty with the supervisor and had him pull rank to get me to stop what I was doing and help her, as if my time wasn’t valuable. I was so mad that I claimed ineptitude and got out of helping her. When she got almost done (at a decent enough time) we passed each other. I shrugged. She didn’t say a word because....what would she say?
Later, the douche got transferred out because one of the party girls flipped on him and filed sexual harassment. I get that he was considered solely at fault for being in a position of power, but I blame the girls too. I could see with my own eyes they were flirting back, and for one to try to inconvenience me asking for a special favor was telling. Just because I was never one of the ‘cool kids’ who let gross skeevers touch me and got into the dirt-baggy party culture in general, doesn’t mean I should ever be treated as a subhuman at work. This is a battle I’ve been fighting all these years.
