I could go into the kitchen and curse and be angry and mean and always get it multiplied and sent back to me. I could come in sweet and get theatrical displays of their affectedness shot back to me. I laughed my way through that whole summer, despite how stressful it was.
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One story I remember in specific was getting dolled up to go out with my friends on a night off when I got a text saying my check was ready to pick up. So I swung by work to pick it up. I got it, but on the way out one of my managers (a very nice lady) called me into the kitchen.
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When I got in and asked her what she needed, she said “Nothing, I just wanted to give the boys something to look at.” The kitchen erupted into catcalls, wolfwhistles and banging pots and pans. This is one of the few times I was so overcome I just blushed and scurried out.
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I went out that night with my gal pals feeling like a million bucks. Later everyone checked up to me, worried by reaction. I reassured them I loved it, I just had a moment of uncharacteristic shyness, which they took as huge relief. They’d all been worried they’d upset me.
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Several of them even apologized before I’d been able to tell them it was completely fine. They were concerned they’d overstepped. I wasn’t a piece of ass, I was a coworker, a friend, and someone that needed protecting. When guests got fresh with us, no one was ever madder on our
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behalf than the cooks. None of the cooks would’ve ever hurt us and they would’ve killed any of their own that tried. We knew this. On occasion they (roughly) escorted out guests who bothered us with pleasure, and would interrupt their work to walk us to our cars when we closed.
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For this thread, I purposefully picked stories where the “hitting on” bordered on extremely scary or at least off-putting. I’m sure some women reading this think I’m nuts. And let me just say— I do NOT speak for all women on this topic, and I don’t pretend to. And before someone
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goes there, no, I am not so stupid as to have been psyoped by the patriarchy into believing that harassment is fun or good. What I stated above, to me, never felt like harassment. On occasion when the cooks overstepped their bounds or Dave got a little too drunk, I told them.
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They heard about it. If I had had to get nasty or mean, I would’ve. In my life I HAVE had to get extremely nasty or mean to ward off creeps. But these situations above were well-intentioned. I never felt unsafe. I trusted myself to protect myself, to raise as much hell as needed.
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Implicit in that is the trust that I would yell “fire” if it got too bad. The cooks got concerned they’d scared me, they reached out to let me know they’d meant no harm and to apologize. Dave was always well-behaved if I reminded him to be.
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Replying to
Wait there’s more thread!!!! Don’t stop this is only the halfway point, you can only type so much out at one time!!!
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love the rest of the thread too, thank you 💪
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