Seemingly Harmless
The customer drives up in his giant white SUV and all the servers know what’s coming. Its mid-afternoon, a fairly slow time at the restaurant, which always gives him enough time to strike up a conversation with whomever he’s decided to hit on today. The other servers urge the prettiest (and straightest) among them to hide in the bathroom while one of the queer ones handle Customer X. When he walks in, he asks, “where is my girl?” — is this a brothel?
He’s a good customer, eats a full meal including dessert, orders our newest boozy slushie and sits for an hour or so at our outdoor tables. No one wants to offend him by telling him to leave them alone. He’s badgered one server for her number, kept her talking at the table for 15 minutes when there was work to do. He’s asked the queer servers about the availability of others.
As I witnessed this for the forth or fifth time, I thought, “why are we putting up with this? What gives him the right, really, to make someone fearful or uncomfortable in their own workplace? Isn’t it time this stopped?”
I’m not the owner, so I didn’t want approach him right then and there. But I walked back to the kitchen and brought it up with the owner, a woman who shares my committment to change this industry, and one of the servers listened in.
“This has got to stop. As an HR manager, and for you as the owner, we have an obligation to protect our employees from the stress of having to manage this.” I said.
She agreed, when the server — not the one hiding in the bathroom- chimed in, “He’s harmless. He’s just like my dad, he wants the attention and to prove his manhood. We just create a united front when he comes in.”
A “united front”? Like a battleground. We are talking about the workplace. I explained to her, we could just wait until his kind dies off…” Actually that wouldn’t work. He’s brought his adult son in with him sometimes to see this spectacle. His son sees this whole charade, and may even think this is normal. His behavior indicates a lack of boundries.
On this day, the day after the passing of a great feminist icon, we must remember that we cannot continue to abide this behavior. Even if we feel we can just ignore it, and it doesn’t bother us. Because it objectifies people, particularly women. It’s a micro-aggression. It may seem innocuous. It may seem harmless, but it can lead to absolute harm. It demeans anyone on the side without power.
We are not talking about Harvey Weinstein here. Its just a small step. For me, its a message to my staff that they are valued, safe, should never be objectified. By co-workers, by management or by customers.
