Harassment in the Workplace

 

Have you ever heard or seen someone yelling at one another over some food in your workplace?  This type of behavior is verbal harassment, and it happens way too often for people to just brush off their shoulder.  This is happening to many young Americans today and ruining the work experience for them.   

Imagine yourself, you’re 16 years old and a few weeks into your first job.  You just got to know your co-workers around you and found them to be really nice.  Then. On a random workday one of your managers starts to get screamed at and threatened to go outside to “settle this”.  I don’t think anyone would want to work in an environment where the customer is this toxic and rude to employees.   

Well, this is the exact experience that happened to me, and I’m still at that job to this day.  As I was watching my manager get told to fight outside, all I could do was just stand and watch since the customers are always right.  Knowing I couldn’t do anything in the moment I start to think about the future and what could possibly happen next.  I started to think about how I could calm all the staff down after seeing what had just happened in the window.  After she pulled away unnecessarily fast, everyone was shell shocked at my manager's face when she turned around.  But no one was hurt, everyone was just a little shook up at the end of the day. 

This doesn’t just happen occasionally, the problem with verbal harassment is still on the rise in America.  with 66% of US employees saying they had experienced or witnessed verbal harassment in the past month.  This is a huge problem, and I don’t understand why people think they will always get their way whenever they raise their voice or have to threaten someone.  If everyone just treated people with the respect, they deserve none of this would have to be experienced. 

What if someone were to fight another person over a food item.  Then the worker would be in the wrong even if the customer started it first.  The business would probably get shut down after that and the customer would get a lawsuit against them.  Nothing would be in the worker's favor.   

Verbal harassment is something very powerful and can change how you think just by something so small being said. In fact, there is research suggesting that, in childhood, verbal abuse can quite literally change the developing structure of the brain.  This is terrible since children look up to parents or adults for the truth and to care for them, but if children start to get harassed by them, who are they going to trust? This could result in children developing poor adult mental health and could ruin the rest of their childhood.   

Patience is the biggest part of this problem.  Some people think fast food is instant food.  It’s not.  It actually takes a good number of people to run a fast-food business and if one of them can't make it, it slows the whole line down.  Also, if there's a long line in the front of the building you don't have to wait, just go inside.   

On this day, the women that was yelling at my manager went through the drive-thru knowing the inside was empty.  She could’ve easily parked her car and come inside with no problems, but she didn’t want to walk.  And the line was almost to the street, so she knew what she was getting into.  The wait was only about 20-30 minutes, and we were working our hardest inside. Everyone else in the line didn’t really mind the wait because they have patience.  This singular woman had to ruin mine and my co-workers' days. 

How this can be prevented is the question all the workers that have seen or gone through verbal harassment problem have been asking.  There are many ways I found to prevent verbal harassment in the workplace on a website called workplace fairness.  Some of them start training the employees for times when they will experience harassment.  Regular training sessions can help employees and management recognize, prevent, and respond to harassment.  Another way to prevent harassment is creating policies for whenever anyone thinks a customer is harassing them or one of their coworkers.  Employers should create and enforce comprehensive anti-harassment policies that define unacceptable behaviors and outline reporting procedures.  There are many ways to prevent this from happening, but many just don't put the time or effort in to do it.  The easiest way is to be just as kind as you can to the customer, and if this doesn’t work just walk away and have someone else deal with the rude customer. 

If any harassment of any kind is ever happening to you, there is always someone or multiple people willing to talk it out with you and stop whatever is happening.  I found a website called synthro that helps identify and respond to harassment issues.  Even if you don’t know if it’s harassment, reach out just to verify.  You never know what you may be dealing with, and it’s better safe than sorry.