Hurray for my seven-year career with Buxtard Healthcare. God!
For the final few months, I became very close and good friends with the operator of the machine “next door”. On my other side was a man about my age who was very strange and creepy. However, after talking with him and getting to know him better, I felt better about him.
I would sit at the desk in my room with my giant machine and put testing numbers into a spreadsheet (that was only 10 years old – really good for THIS company). My desk faced the wall and my monitor was in a corner on the wall so that I couldn’t see either to my right or left behind me.
At some point months before I quit, Mr Creepy would walk up quietly behind me and stand behind my chair so closely that if I turned around, I would elbow him. That close. Of course, this always startled and scared me, which he thought was hilariously funny. He verbalized his ability to “sneak up on anything”. Weird, I know.
But you overlook a ton of bullshit from others when you work with them. He would perform his little “sneaking up on” bullshit about every two weeks. The timing varied. After the third time, I told him that I am an abuse survivor and that I was tired of his antics and to please stop.
He continued. After a time of two again, he said, “You know, I think people who are extremely jumpy have something to hide.” I told him, “No. People who are extremely jumpy were beaten by a stepfather in their teens and are afraid of people being too close”.
I did not want to tell him the truth. People are usually very disconcerted by it. But I thought I had nothing to lose and I was tired of his foolishness. He took a break of about two weeks and then did it again.
I went to my assistant supervisor and told him to tell Mr Creepy to stop it because I was tired of it. Now, mind you, this was DURING COVID, when we had been told specifically to try to stay 6-feet from each other, even while using masks. Yeah.
Turns out, he was also harassing my neighbor friend, who was also an abuse survivor. He would scare her to the point where she screamed. And he thought it was just so very funny.
I’m not fooled. It was a sexual thing. Sneaking up behind a female co-worker, standing within breathing distance of her, scaring her when she turns around (power over a female). No doubt in my mind this was a sexual thing. And it creeped me completely out.
After I told my assistant supervisor, I knew he went directly to Mr. Creepy and told him to stop it. Mr Creepy wanted to come over and apologize. I accepted his apology and told him to leave my room and go back to his room. Honestly? The dam had broken and I was furious.
I suspect that my friend-neighbor called another friend of hers to tell her what had happened. My friend-neighbor fought back by trying to scare Mr Creepy, thinking that would cure him of his problem. It didn’t. But she got caught scaring him and it kept her from reporting him because it would look like she was doing the same thing to him.
We had to walk through each other’s rooms to get anywhere unless we left our clean room and disrobed and that was inconvenient so we just breezed through each other’s room to go to the assistant supervisor’s desk if we needed something (a document, for instance). My friend-neighbor’s friend met me in Mr Creepy’s room and, seizing the moment for emphasis, I told her (in front of Mr Creepy) that my boyfriend was coming up and would be up here in about 12 hours. This freaked Mr Creepy completely out. I was glad.
The next day, I spoke to Mr Creepy very shortly but mostly, I stayed away from him. Just before quitting time, word came from the manager that he wanted to speak to me. I couldn’t imagine why this had gone to a manager except to hear my side of it and see just how serious it was.
I didn’t trust this manager to any measure because, honestly, he was a narcissist who enjoyed punishing people and making people uncomfortable with thinking they were going to be fired. Everyone hated him – no exceptions. Apprehensively, I went in and sat down – and, sure enough, he started in on me.
“Did you tell Mr ___ Creepy that your boyfriend was going to come up here?” “Yes”, I replied. “Well, you CAN’T DO THAT, CAROL! THAT’S A THREAT!” I absolutely couldn’t believe it. As much as I despised this poser, I never would have thought he would lecture me after a complaint about a male co-worker. I said, “I wasn’t even talking to him! I was talking to LL! Why? Is he scared?” Mr. Manager said, very concerned, “Yes! He’s scared!”
I said “Good! I’m glad he’s scared! He’s been scaring me for months and I have asked him again and again to stop. Now the shoe’s on the other foot, isn’t it and now he knows what it feel like!” The tables had been turned. He meekly said, “Well, you know I have to hear everyone’s story (although he certainly hadn’t asked to hear mine) – and I have to decide what’s going on.”
I had no idea why this manager had even been involved in this. I had reported it to my assistant manager, and as far as I was concerned, it was taken care of. I couldn’t figure out why Mr Creepy was afraid of my boyfriend unless he had done something wrong – that HE KNEW what he had done was wrong.
During my conversation with the manager, he never asked me what had happened. He never assured me that the problem had been taken care of. He never mentioned what had been done to me. Not one word.
So I assume that what Mr Creepy did to me for months WAS FINE. And that my scaring a creepy old man WAS DEFINITELY NOT FINE. Company policy review, anyone? Heads up!
I submitted my two-week notice by email 6 hours later.
Tears and Catharsis 