Patricia Grisafi
If you’ve ever worked in a service job, chances are, you’ve been hit on. It’s never pleasant to be harassed when you’re at work, and sometimes it can feel like your boss or other coworkers don’t do enough to help you when you need it. In fact, being harassed by a customer can be downright scary, especially when you find out the customer is a sex offender or find them waiting for you in their car outside.
On Reddit, women are sharing some of the worst stories of when they were hit on at work.
And let’s just say that some older men are the worst.
CW: Rape
1. “Get On Your Knees”
“I was stocking shelves on my knees. Man walks up and says, “Mm wish you’d get on your knees like that for me.” I was 16. He was like 50.” — melodyeverly
2. Apple Store Creep
“I was working as a technician at an Apple reseller and was just coming in from my break. I saw a man seated in the waiting area and said: give me a couple minutes, Sir. I’ll be right with you and he nodded politely. I go in the back, take off my coat and go up to the service desk. For context, i’m a heavier girl who’s quite well endowed in the chest area. This 70 year old man looked at my cleavage and said: WOW you sure got a lot of tit on you girl. I straight up didn’t even know what to say since that never happened to me in a professional context. It happened again 3 days later (a woman this time) and my team coach and his coach laughed it off. I took it to HR and made a thing out of it. Eventually they both apologized and I said I’d refuse to ever service that man again and if they made me, they could find a new technician.” — Soft_Sheepherder514
3. Hit On At A Funeral Home
“I was working at the funeral home as a director and embalmer. A young man, who from what I could tell lived a rough life style, had died. His family and friends were gathered in the chapel and I was in the lobby, in my black suit buttoned up to my ear lobes with my hair pulled back. (I feel it’s necessary to say how unsexy I looked.) One of the deceased’s friends, a young man, approached me and started small talk. In the course of this conversation he told me that for the last funeral he went to (which I also directed) he and his buddies had stolen several vehicles in order to make it in time. I politely nodded when he added ‘You gotta get where you’re going, ya know?’ He then proceeded to ask if I had a card, which I provided as it was on a stand right next to me. He then asked if the number on said card was my cell phone number. He was disappointed when I said no, and again when I said no to giving him said number.” — SmallTownMortician
4. Sex Traffickers
“I had a guy demand to know my schedule so he said he could ‘come in every time I worked so he could ask me out until I said yes.’ I also had a man hit on me while coming in with his wife/girlfriend and 3 of their kids…she took them to the bathroom and he asked for my number. I’m pretty sure the worst was these 2 men who we are pretty sure were sex traffickers. I had already been warned by another coworker they tried to force her outside by cornering her in the lobby. They asked me all sorts of weird questions like what ethnicity I was, did I have family, etc and then stared at me the entire time they were at their table. I made sure I wasn’t up at the hostess stand alone.” — OverallDisaster
5. Fishing And Tackle Rapist
“I worked at a fishing and tackle store when I was 18-21yo and have had heaps of older guys get grabby. The worst, though, was an older guy who seemed really normal, I’m gonna call him Joe. He had a couple of daughters who were my age and they would all come in and get their gear before heading out on their boat. I’d run into him while at my fishing spot and we would always chat and a couple of times my boss and I had gone out in his boat to fish for Marlin ages from the coast. Then he invited me to go fishing with him and his daughters out at a spot a few hours from town. Said we would go stay at his property out there and then spend the next day fishing and catching snapper. He was a nice guy, and I’d known him for a while now, so why not? I told my boyfriend where I was going and said i would be back the next day. Joe picks me up and his daughters weren’t with him. They were already at his property and he came in to town to pick me up and grab some food for the trip. We get to his property and his daughters aren’t there. Turns out they weren’t coming after all, and now I’m alone with Joe about 4 hours from the nearest town. My ‘danger meter’ is on high alert by this time. He ended up drugging and raping me that night. I remember bits of it but not much. Then he left me there. Four hours by car from civilisation. With no phone reception. I walked for hours until a truck driver saw me and gave me a lift to town so I could call my boyfriend to come pick me up. Thankfully I never saw Joe or his daughters again.” — Wankeritis
6. Stalked After Work
“Followed me home in the bus after I said no. I had to hide in a 7-11 until he stopped following me and muttering.” — UnicornMeatTaco
7. Pedophile
“I was a hostess at a restaurant during the slower shift of mornings with maybe a lunch rush. I had this guy come in for lunch almost every Monday with some coworkers. He was probably in his 40s, seemed like a normal guy, gave me a side hug a time or two but he seemed harmless. When he found out I quit he found me on fb and messaged me some weird message that ended with something along the lines of ‘like the good girl you are.’ I didn’t ever respond, but it wasn’t maybe two months later I see his mug shot on the local news for child porn charges and seducing minors.” — AGib04
8. “Sir, Your Mother Is Dying 5 Feet Away”
“Came in for my nightshift and a patient was palliative, so I go in the room with the day nurse to introduce myself to the family and evaluate the patient. The son of the patient was at least 45 and smelled like he had been drinking. He said something like, ‘I’m glad mom has such a hot nurse with her tonight.’ Absolutely vile. Like sir, your mother is dying 5 feet away.” — chut2906
9. Our Daughters Go To School Together
“When I was 17 working in a retail store at a mall, some 40/50yr old man came in about a half hour to close. He obsessively followed me around the store asking me all sorts of questions. ‘How long you worked here? How old are you? What school do you go to?’ Etc etc. He started making comments about how my body is too grown and that I was ‘teasing’ him because he can’t have me since I was too young. He casually mentioned that his DAUGHTER went to my school and was in my grade. I asked him who she was and he said, ‘now I’m not that stupid. If you found that out then she’d tell her mother. We’ve been together 20 years and I’m not gonna lose that.’ I wish I remembered more of what he said because it was so vile that I cried for the rest of my shift in the bathroom. My manager was right next to me the whole time and she did absolutely NOTHING because she wanted to reach our sales goal. I hope that man rots in hell and that his marriage is ruined.” — -fae-fox-
10. “I Like Hearing You Scream My Name”
“I called out a customers name so he could pick up his drink. He came to grab it and said, ‘I like hearing you scream my name. That would be a good end to my night tonight.’ He was easily in his 60s and I was 15.” — Shallow-ishPuddle
11. “But I’m Sixteen”
“God I actually have a couple of these but I’d say that the worst was when I was working at a hot-foods counter at a large grocery store chain. I was helping what I had assumed was a couple about 40 years old until I heard the woman pestering the man about getting a date and finding a girlfriend and I realized through listening to their conversation they were brother and sister. I get their food and go to the register. As I am punching in the numbers the woman says to her brother, ‘what about her? She’s cute.’ And I glanced up really quickly but pretended I didn’t hear. Then she asks me, ‘are you single?’ And I replied, ‘Yes. But I’m sixteen…’ and the man looked mortified. She said, ‘sorry’ and I laughed and said it was okay. But then she said, ‘yeah, god, when I was sixteen I didn’t have a body like that!’ And I just…” — PM-me-ur-peen
12. Foot Fetish
“I worked at a sports bar with a couple bowling lanes/etc in college. I ran the games as more of a hostess so I was allowed to wear what I wanted. I was really into wild shoes at the time, and I had on this fantastic pair of thigh high gladiator sandals one night. There was a group of guys at the lanes for a birthday, the birthday boy was apparently the first to turn 40 and seemed a lil bummed but was being flirty all night and I was playing into it, ya know, workin for that tip. He was bombed after an hour, I went up to check on them and he noticed my shoes and was like ‘wOoOoOow I love those can I look at them’ so I was like sure and I was gonna put my foot on a ledge all Captain Morgan like, but he literally pushed me so I was sitting on a lounger and grabbed my leg and unzipped the shoe and like rubbed my leg it was very foot fetishy. It happened soooo fast. But his friends all immediately jumped and grabbed him like ‘WTFFFF WE ARE SO SORRY HE’S SO WASTED OMG’ and my manager also immediately started walking over and made eye contact with me so I wasn’t really upset about it, just hella shocked. They did in fact leave an outrageous tip.” — abledangie
13. Cornered In the Bathroom
“When I was 16, I worked at a movie theater as an usher (the ones who clean up after the movie) and a man who was at least 15 years older than me, stopped me and asked for my name and number. I was trying to make excuses like ‘no, I’m at work,’ ‘I can’t,’ etc. But he was persistent. So, being 16, dumb, and scared I wrote it down for him. I thought that was the end of it. I went to ‘clean’ the woman’s bathroom and he goes like halfway in the bathroom (there wasn’t a door, just a short hallway) and tried talking to me again. At this point, like 10 minutes have gone by and he was making a scene while 1 of my male coworkers finally stands up for me and eventually security gets involved. He’s promptly arrested and banned. It was traumatizing. Then I go into work the next day and the security guard apparently gossiped with all my coworkers about what happened and the next day I was getting questions from them like ‘why did you give him your number?’ Or ‘how was your night?’ And even one of my coworkers said that the only reason my coworker stood up for me is because he has a crush on me. I knew these comments were wrong at the time but I didn’t know what to do. Like, security apparently doesn’t care. It was a scary situation and I feel like I’m lucky to work at a place now that supports me.” — randomxuzer
14. “Do My Laundry For Me”
“The summer after I graduated high school I worked in the merchandise department of a theme park. I was folding T-shirts with one of the those t shirt folder things Sheldon had in the Big BangTheory. This guy in his fifties was just standing by the counter, and said, ‘that looks pretty handy.’ I said ‘ya I think I’m gonna take this thing home with me and do my laundry with it.’ He got real close up to the counter and goes, ‘how bout I take you home with me, have you do my laundry for me.'” — smilelikeumeanit2001
15. Drunk Girl
“Used to work at a hotel and some drunk girl asked me to sleep with her after walking her to her room. Was like…’nahhhh can’t do that.’ ‘Why? Aren’t I attractive?’ I felt so bad.” — unfinity1
16. Watching You
“I was working as an optician at our stores downtown location so we got lots of…interesting people in. One day an old (probably at least 70 and at the time I was probably 20) very weird man came in to have me adjust his glasses. He hit on me the whole time until I got very uncomfortable and had my male boss step in and finish up. He then insisted on leaving a note with my boss with his phone number and wrote out how he had been watching me through the windows and knew I was there on Wednesdays. He wanted me to take him to coffee because he had no car or job….needless to say I was downright scared and thankfully my boss had told him he wasn’t allowed to ever come back (he only took/kept the note just in case he did come back and tried anything we would have some prior proof of him being a creep) like why in the world would anyone think that’s how to approach someone? Not to mention the age gap?? Definitely my worst story, it’s burned into my brain.” — AlarmedFlower69
17. “You A Kardashian?”
“I was serving a huge group of guys and they were definitely high. When I got to their table one of the guys goes “I’m glad you’re the one that came over here” as he’s looking me up and down constantly, licking his lips and rubbing his hands. I was so grossed out but I tried to awkwardly laugh it off. As I was walking back and forth taking care of my other tables he kept staring me down and giving me the creepiest smile. I was beyond disgusted I just wanted to hide. Then when I got their drinks he goes, ‘you a Kardashian cause damn’ and bends over and gets level with my ass. I literally went omg and walked away. I asked a guy coworker to take them their food and went to the back. It makes you feel so violated it’s awful.” — strawberrystarlet
Featured Image: YouTube