By proxy ...

(I swear, I'll get back to writing about how rubbish other people are at English, while being rubbish myself soon)

... I just want to get people's opinions on something. It may seem small, but it bugs me a whole bunch. Now you have a little back story, you'll probably go 'ah, this is why!'. Not exactly.

So, when I got promoted at work, I got handed a neat little factoid that should not be in existence. As a girl, in a position of power at work, I cannot claim sexual harrassment from anyone below me. This stems more from the fact that as a manager, I should be suspending crew members left, right and centre, before their behaviour gets to a point where I could claim that.

Right now, I want to claim it regardless of the fact I'm a manager. I feel like I have to do it anonymously, because of the management thing.

There's this guy at work. He's skeevy, completely skeevy. When he first joined, he seemed like a hard worker, like he got what the job involved when he walked into the store (rather than those people who think this job is hella easy and then realise that to do anything, you need to know temperature settings of equipment and the reasons behind procedures etc etc) and people were pretty happy with him. I'm a pretty simple manager, you do a good job and we get on well, you do nothing and I am the monkey on your back.

He broke up with his girlfriend a few months into working with us (the girl he'd coerced into having a kid. Nice) and oh, my God. He stopped working as hard, half my shift became Find Where He Is And Why He Thinks He's Getting Paid For Doing Jack Shit (which then meant I was there a couple extra hours catching up on my own damn work, so thank you) and when he was on the floor he would not shut up about what a bitch she is, how it's unfair he doesn't see his daughter all the time, blahblahblah (when he's not in, other crew will joke about the girlfriend, I may let the verbal bullying happen).

There was one time, a few months ago, he was on our office phone, talking to her about seeing her kid - while getting paid for it - and he said something along the lines of 'I only threatened you with a knife because you won't let me see my daughter' - he did this in front of his daughter, it turned out. I felt sick, just overhearing that. This guy should be investigated, that's abuse. You have an obligation as a parent not to expose your child to threatening behaviour. Well done dickhead.

You may wonder how this leads to me wanting to put in a complaint. Know how I said I have to chase him to make him do his fucking work? He says things when I chew him out that can be totally construed as harrassment. Like, I've tried appealing to his better nature (on a night shift "Look, I need to know where you are, if there's a fire I have an obligation to knowing where all the crew are. I have that responsibility") and I get shit back ("If there was a fire, I'd take off my top, grease myself up and get you out.")

That was, verbatim, his response. When I was done fighting the vomit that threatened at these words, I tried to logically explain to him that grease would do shit in that scenario.

At the start of the year, he did the disappearing act again. I found him on the phone, having a cigarette outside the back gate (strike one, he was late and claimed his phone didn't work. Strike two, that gate MUST be locked past 9pm for safety. Since I was the one with the access to our safe, I really didn't appreciate being endangered so he could breath in cancer. We do have a system for smokers at night where they exit through the front, where the CCTV is and we can keep an eye on them. So breaking two features set in place. Strike three, he hadn't clocked out. Strike four, he was my only till. Strike five, I had just bollocked him for sneaking out for a fag, and told him to Stay In Place, which is an actual thing at my store and not me treating him like a dog. He had come to me five minutes before this incident to ask for another fag and I had reasonably told him no, then expounded the reasons why. Strike six, he was discussing his love life, because that's more important than work when you're at work.) and I sent him home, then wrote an essay in the managers diary as to why I'd suspended him without pay. He told the other members of the crew he'd been discussing his child, because she was sick (funny, "I ain't going out with her, we're just seeing each other" doesn't sound like something you'd say in regards to your daughter) and I was being a bitch. He hasn't been in the store with me longer than an hour since.

You'd think that would put my mind to rest, wouldn't you? My superiors know that his behaviour upsets me and I cannot work with him. Nope, because in that hour? In that hour he keeps up the verbal crap, and how every time I direct him as a manager (this is procedure because ...) I must be coming onto him. Every time I say no, that's gross; I must be denying my desires.

And then there's the touching. He touches my back, my shoulders, my arms. Okay, that's harmless, but here's the line that gets crossed - I tell him not to. I say that the first time. I'm direct about it (I don't like being touched, don't touch me, I feel sick when you do that) and he carries on. He calls me darling, which again, seems harmless, but I've said to him as well, I'm your manager, I'm not your darling, if you have to call me something, call me by my name. Nope, I am darling.

Once I had the headsets for our drive thru on. A car of drunk girls came through, having a laugh. Great, happy for them. He then serves them, joining in and making crass impressions to flirt. Not at work, you freak, does he not realise he's representing the company and he's making the company seem like filthy old men? He once held up drive thru, on a separate occasion, just to flirt with a girl. He's skeevy and I hate him. I was complaining to a crew member I trusted on Sunday when he touched me again, several times, and the crew member (who yes, I've hugged in the past, because for me, you can touch me when I trust you) said the guy in question did it because he knew it got to me.

Hello? How is that an excuse to constantly invade someone's personal space and demean them constantly?

Am I just being over-sensitive? I hate the clause that says my position takes away my right to my body. I am so close to complaining about him, regardless.