Pretty Sure That's Sexual Harassment, Dude

I think I have a pretty solid sense of humor. I'm pretty difficult to offend. I mean, there are lines you don't cross with me, but I'm sure everyone has their lines like that. I'm not okay with jokes about rape, but short of that, jokes of a sexual nature aren't disturbing to me. You want to show me a photo of a palm tree covered in lights to resemble an erect penis ejaculating? That's pretty damn funny and clever. (Unfortunately, I'm not certain of the origin of this photo. It's been passed around on Twitter and Facebook and such quite a bit. At any rate, here is a link to it. http://www.utefans.net/message.php?id=1469443 If somebody knows the original source, please let me know so I can give credit where it's due.) You're in awe and want to show me a photo a girl sent to be printed at our store of herself masturbating? It's hilarious that she has no shame and sent that for a stranger to develop. Dirty jokes? Awesome. That customer has a nice ass? I agree. I probably have way more examples of this, but it's five a.m. where I'm at and I should be attempting to sleep instead of blogging like a lunatic.

So, here's a thing that even I think is too much. I'll be using fake names

At my retail job, we recently got a new supervisor, a male in his early thirties, who we'll call Adam. Our store manager is an older woman, probably in her mid- to late-sixties. We'll call her Linda. She is also frequently spoken of negatively by store associates. So, Adam's first day, he sees that Linda is not super popular with the store associates, and decides it'll be fun to join in on trash-talking her (awesome leadership, dude. Awesome). He gets pretty intense about it. There's an orange-y, clumpy stain on the floor of the floor, about which Adam remarked "I bet that's from Linda's cunt. Look, it's even got little hairs that are her hair color!" To me, that's not funny, just weird. Inappropriate, but not really offensive. Just weird. Our store sells personal lubricant. Adam will frequently pick up a bottle of lube and hold it up to some random associate, and say something in the vein of "I bet Linda uses this with her husband! Ewwww!" Again, inappropriate, weird, not funny, but not really offensive.

I was recently told a story about Adam's first day at the store. A female associate, who we'll call Sheryl, was  sitting alone in the break room when Adam walked in. He sat down in one of the cheap little plastic chairs and said "You know what would be awesome right now? I would like to have a beer in my right hand, lean back in this chair, and get a blow job."

Let's break that down. "Hi, female lower-level employee. I'm a heterosexual male in a position of authority over you. A blow job would be nice right now."

Not cool, brah. Not cool.

Fortunately, Adam's last day with the company was today. He had already turned in his notice before I heard this story. If he were to stay, I would have reported that incident. I don't think this incident falls into any grey area. I think that's straight-up sexual harassment.

I support coworkers being friends. I think it helps with morale and teamwork. It makes going to work less dreadful. I've worked places where nobody was supposed to talk to anybody else. Spending 8 hours in a small store with three other women and not speaking is horrible. Joke with your workmates. But don't tell a subordinate you're in the mood for a blow job! Don't even tell someone at your own level you're in the mood for a blow job!