That Time I Was Sexually Harassed By A Coworker
In the summer of 2010 I started working part-time in the promotions department of a New York City radio station. It was the start of my senior year in college, where I was studying radio & broadcast journalism. I was very excited because, after working for free at several internships, I was finally getting paid. The station I worked for was part of a network, so we were in a massive office. When I started the job, I knew that an ex of mine worked in that office but at a different station. We dated very briefly, maybe a few months. I’ll call him John. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in about a year, so I didn’t really expect awkwardness. A week after I started working there he had already spread the news that we had dated, across every station. That’s when I stopped being “Veronica” and was just known as “John’s ex,” and I hated it. It was that kind of office.
Needless to say, I was furious. Over the next few months I bumped into him a few times but we never talked. We finally spoke in October, when we got sucked into a conversation with a coworker about a band he liked (that I was seeing later that night). I took that as a sign that we were both going to be adults and civil to each other, and I was so relieved.
Later that night, I texted him something about the band being good, thinking that this sort of text small talk (is that even a thing?) is what would make it not weird at work anymore. He responded hours later with a picture of his erect penis. This was several iPhones ago, so the texts have long been deleted, but I remember the post-dick pic conversation going something like this:
HIM: *dick pic*
ME: Have you ever heard of HR?
HIM: lol
HIM: You wouldn’t report me
ME: Fuck you. I will.
I was so angry. I went to my college advisor (who knew us both) and told him what happened. He was shocked but told me it was not in my best interest to report him to HR. He said that corporate radio is a rough place for women and while they would most-likely fire him, that I would also get labeled as a “liability” and be “phased out” of my job because I was only part-time. I was very disposable. I had heard of this happening to women in the industry from my co-workers. I didn’t want this fool’s dick pic to ruin things for me, so I said nothing. I did, however, get very drunk with my coworkers one night and showed them the text conversation. I learned that he had done the same thing to another woman in the office. She hadn’t reported it either.
I think about this a lot and it bothers me because I didn’t know what to do. And I think that a lot of women my age (I had just turned 21) wouldn’t know either. Would getting him fired be worth maybe losing my job? Would it be played down because we used to date? Would it seem like I asked for it because I had texted him first? I didn’t know the answers to any of those questions then, and I don’t think I know them now. All I know is that I will never let anyone do that to me again.
