My 23 year old daughter just started a new job at a car dealership. She’s had experience clerking at a dealership before, so this was a quick hire.
She texted me today, saying a sales manager was making creepy comments to her about how if he were her boyfriend, he wouldn’t keep his hands off her, that yesterday, she looked like a girl and now she looks like a woman. Gross all the way around. :mad:
She said she’d never encountered anything like this before. She said she mentioned it to another lady who worked there, who told her he’s done the same thing to her.
I told her to talk to her boss tomorrow and document what he says, that they could get in big trouble if this isn’t addressed.
I encountered some sexual harassment back 30 years ago, when I was too dumb to realize what it was. As little as five years later, a manager at a restaurant I worked at got fired for asking another server what her bra size was.
Part of me wants to go down there and get in this asshole’s face, but the bigger part of me knows she needs to handle this herself.
Maybe I’m naive, but it floors me that people in this day and age think this kind of behavior is appropriate.
Andecdotally, I have found that some of the worst people you will ever meet work at car dealerships – the kind of people (mostly male) who simply don’t care what’s appropriate, and will do whatever they can get away with. I’m sorry your daughter has experienced this.
There was an old Star Trek (TOS) episode where Alternate-Universe-Sulu tries to hit on Uhura. She rejects him at first. Then Uhura starts hitting on A-U-Sulu. Then when A-U-Sulu starts trying to get intimate, she hauls off and belts him, saying “Sorry. I’ve changed my mind again.”
After buying a used car from a dealership this week, I’m convinced that nothing has changed in car dealerships in the past 35 years (since I bought my first car from a dealership). Lies, condescension, sales gimmicks, and pouting when I wouldn’t buy their extra “protection” packages. Very unpleasant all around.
Looking back, the first time I encountered sexual harassment was in the mid-70s when I was in the Navy, but I was too dumb to get it at the time. Yes, I’d been pretty sheltered up till then. It was at a party for the end of a training class, and one of the instructors came up to me and said “You know, I can lick my eyebrows.” My reaction back then was a perplexed, “Um, OK…” and it wasn’t till some time later that I realized what he was saying to me. So I guess sometimes ignorance is bliss.
I think for your daughter, and really anyone in such a situation, the first response should be a firm “You are making me very uncomfortable. Please stop talking like that.” And documentation, as has been mentioned. Yes, the guy is very creepy and inappropriate, but unless your daughter feels physically threatened, she needs to tell him to knock it off before reporting to the boss. She shouldn’t let him turn her into a scared victim if she can help it.
Sadly, even in 2015, we’ve still got beauty pageants and scantily clad cheerleaders and other sorts of occasions where women choose to be objectified by men. (Don’t get me started on the beer girls at Bike Week.) As long as that happens, sexual harassment will endure.
I can’t say what is in his head but I interpret it to be a comment on the mindset of car salesmen. If they are the type of person who believes that no means yes with customers they will likely have that opinion with women.
She goes into work this afternoon. I’ll be curious to see how her boss deals with it. Hopefully it won’t be along the lines of, “Oh, he’s harmless. Ignore him.”
I didn’t have to read past the first sentence of your OP, but this post makes me question your veracity. I’d need to see pictures of this dealership where women are not sexually harassed. I was under the impression it was required by law.
It’s time to move on for her. But not until she’s asked the owner for a copy of their sexual harassment policy and contacted a good female attorney with a reputation for biting these a-holes in the ass for this type of behavior.
Not wanting to rock the boat is one thing, but from the examples in the OP, what’s being said is unambiguously harassment. I’m not one for rocking the boat, but one of the things I’ve learned recently the hard way is that sometimes you need to rock the boat or people step all over you. This is a case where failing to act will set a precedent that it’s acceptable and, as a result, it could get worse. And more, even if it doesn’t bother her that much or she only stays shorter, by calling them on it, hopefully she’ll save someone down the line who is too restrained to do anything about it.