Boys club at work, cant cope

LegacyUser

Hi, going unreg for this.... any advice would be great

Been working as a waitress now for over a year in a hotel. All started off great, til the past few months, me and a few of the female receptionists have noticed the kitchen staff (all male, polish) making very rude pass-remarkable comments. Such as, ''your breasts look great today'' ''shall we go outside for a bl*-job'' ....you get the picture. Very ovbious staring at us in a leery manner, and generally making us feel uncomfterable.

Now, its worse for me, I am always in and out of the kitchen, have to talk to these guys every two minutes. I mentioned it to one of the male managers, who gets on great with the chefs, and he said he would sort it.

Now, its worse. They will not say one word to me, except to insult me. They have been asking for an apology, telling me I was out of order to complain to the management, and even refused to cook the receptionist her dinner, which we get free meals with our job. She was too intimdated to say anything.

I have been crying in work, I cant handle the stares, whispers, bullying.

Our general manager is female, but all of the chefs are clever ebough to 'suck up' to her, and stay on her good side.

I am at a loss here, I am dreading actually going into work every morning...


help?!

ongarboy

Hi OP,

I've very sorry to hear you are enduring this dreadful behaviour. This is workplace sexual harrassment. Your manager has an obligation to you to make your workplace a safe environment that is free of bullying, intimidation or harrassment of any sort. The fact that you have raised it with your manager and things have not improved (in fact has gone worse) means you manager is not addressing this correctly.

I suggest you start documenting the date and time of every single incident that occurs starting now. Detail each event and how you felt after it. Also ensure such incidents as not getting a meal or other recriminations from previously raising it are also included. Once you have compiled a sufficient list of incidents, I would then gave your immediate manager one more opportunity to address this by providing him with the list and ask for a private meeting so that you can discuss the issue with him verbally one to one. Assuming he has a shred of competency and promises to address it, ask that he provides you with updates on how he has handled the issue. If you feel nothing has improved after a reasonable period, I suggest raising it with the general manager.

Good luck!

Gary4279

Hi Op,
As above I would suggest making detailed notes of all incidents and reporting it to your manager after a short time if it does not stop. If you manager repeatedly ignores this you can leave and claim unfair forced dismissal due to their lack of competence in dealing with the matter.

Hopefully you don't have to go down this route but in a court of law it would be up to your employer to prove you wrong, you would not have to prove that it is correct. Having the notes would be evidence enough. I must stress this is a last resort.

newmug

I'd suggest buying a dictaphone, about E100 for a decent one in Argos. Record everything they say, it will make for a much stronger case for you.