A Different Era
Back in the day me and my idiot high school buddies all decided to go to work at a brand new Kmart in the area, the four of us all got jobs, one in electronics, two in building materials, and myself in receiving. We didn’t take these jobs with careers in mind it was just a a way to keep gas in our cars and a little mad money to chase skirts and drag main street, that’s what was important at 16 and 17. The work didn’t require much out of us other than showing up on time and a sense of organization. We owned the place.
The store manager was a chain smoking beer drinking middle aged guy from San Diego, he had two assistant managers, one was a Deadhead from NoCal and the other a power skirt from Portland, both climbing the Kmart corporate ladder in hopes of getting their own stores down the line. The store manager and the Deadhead loved us, they appreciated that kids our age actually had a work ethic and unlike the female employees, we were low maintenance.
The power skirt, let’s call her Ashley, hated us. She hated the fact she couldn’t control us, we were just crazy kids and could care less about the job, we could go to work anywhere, this was just a place where as buddies we could all work together. Ashley tried her damnedest to get rid of us, I personally was in human resources office at least five times for whatever minor store policy violation she could come up with. Ashley didn’t know the the HR director was a local gal who knew all of us, she would write us up for whatever and put it in our file which was supposed to be a threat for future positions in the company, like I said, we didn’t give a shit.
Hang tight, I’m getting to my point.
Women working in the store were your common variety retail store female employees, young ladies, old ladies, middle aged, married and divorcees. The sexual innuendo tit for tat (pun intended) was everywhere, the older gals teased the hell of me and my buddies. There were ass slaps, crotch grabs, explicit language, and jokes,……by the ladies not the men…..it was a grand time. My buddies and I had a code for hot women shopping in the store, Blue Light specials didn’t hold a candle to Code 36, when we called Code 36 at the garden shop, every male employee dropped what they were doing and headed to concealed leering positions to check out the hot babe, (even the Deadhead assistant manager), I had binoculars at the security windows in the receiving department loft…..like I said, good times.
This lasted for a year and a half starting spring 1979 before we all headed for college or other gainful employment. Not a word was mentioned about sexual harassment, never did we hear about a female employee filing a complaint or quitting her job because of harassment. Maybe it happened I don’t know, I do know that Ashley, the power skirt, was the first feminist I had ever met and she would have been the type of person to bring accusations to the attention of management, but nothing.
My point to this long winded story is women didn’t care or didn’t mention sexual harassment back then. It’s been the last three decades that the issue has become, well, an issue. I do know that when lawyers started getting involved and women saw a chance to make a buck corporate America started mandating classes and policies to cover their asses, can’t say I blame them.
It’s a shame that the innocence of the ’70’s has turned into an atmosphere where complimenting a female co-worker could land you in the unemployment line. There seem to be no guidelines to what harassment is, there’s a difference between “that’s a nice sweater” and “suck my dick”, I would assume most men understand the difference and act accordingly. Putting a hand on a woman’s waist while taking a picture isn’t the same as grabbing her ass but the lines have been blurred, if you don’t know the rules then I would steer clear.
Men holding positions of power are a different animal, the fact that most of the men are liberals is quite astounding. Bildo Clinton got away scott free from his transgressions, maybe when the most powerful man in the world walks away unscathed from obvious assaults that green lighted the others thinking they are above the law, that or they’re just pervs and assumed their money and power would intimidate women from coming forward, it would be the latter I assume.
It all seems to exploding and men are falling like flies, I wouldn’t have lasted a week in today’s corporate world. Flirting with the gals was normal stuff for me and my buddies, but it was all innocent stuff. Grab a chicks ass and you could plan on a slap in the face, and in small town USA, probably a call to your folks. You see we monitored bad behavior ourselves, we didn’t need a lawyer telling us something we did was inappropriate, apparently nowadays men are confused about the rules.
Anywho….keep it in your pants boys, don’t dip your pen in company ink, in this age of angry females you could get canned for a double take at Sally’s ample cleavage. To all the sexual predators out there using their power and wealth to intimidate and assault women, this is all your fault and you deserve whatever punishment is handed down.
On a side note, Ashley the power skirt got her revenge, she complained to human resources because I called her a bitch, she was, I was fired an hour later. Myself and two of my other friends started college, my other buddy chose to stay and made a career at that Kmart eventually becoming the store manager, funny how it all worked out.
