I'm a waitress in a restaurant. I've been with this restaurant for two and a half years, and I mostly really like it here. A few months ago, we got a line cook, Bradley, who is really pretty funny and also very nice. He's like the 'class clown' and everybody loves him. If we're slow, he's the first one to start goofing off with impressions and whatnot. He's very kind hearted, always complimenting people and whatnot, myself included.
Recently, he's been doing this thing where, if we have to go in the walk in (big, walk-in refrigerator) together, or are there at the same time, he will make jokes about 'making a move' or 'better keep the door open so they won't wonder what we are up to in here, har har'. He has never made me feel threatened by those jokes, he knows my boyfriend, he's just being the same old silly Bradley.
What he doesn't know, though, is that about a year ago, another employee attempted to sexually assault me in that same walk in. This employee, James, had been 'work flirting' with me for a while, making jokes about taking me on dates and making smooch noises whenever I walked by. One day, he cornered me in the walk in and tried to force himself on me with a kiss. I had to use literally all my strength to keep him off me. After he kept trying for a few seconds, he backed off, laughed about it, and left.
Bradley has no idea that this ever happened to me. He started working here after James had already been fired (for an unrelated reason; my biggest regret about the whole thing is that I didn't tell a manager about it sooner, but at the time it didn't seem like a 'big deal' and I felt kinda responsible for it). When he makes jokes like that, though, it makes me very mildly uncomfortable, because that has happened to me and it's not great to think about.
I feel like if I told him 'please stop making those jokes because that's actually happened to me,' he would feel really, really guilty. Like I said, he's a good guy with a big heart. He would feel awful. I'm not mad at him, and I don't want him to feel awful, because how could he know? But, at the same time, I feel like if I just ask him to stop, then he would feel like he had actually done something really bad, almost like he had made me sexually uncomfortable. Like, if I just ask him to stop because it makes me uncomfortable, he would feel like he harassed me. And then he would feel bad again.
So I just really don't want him to feel bad. Should I just ignore it? It's not like it's actually damaging me, and I don't feel unsafe around him or anything, I just kinda wish that the jokes would stop.
tl;dr: Coworker makes jokes that are really similar to an attempted sexual assault I experienced, not sure how to go about it.
Submitted May 01, 2016 at 04:06AM by NotThePCPolice http://ift.tt/1Nc1ymu relationships
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