At 19-20 y/o I had my first crappy job with a semi horror story with a creepy coworker. Knowing what I know now and experiencing what I’ve experienced now, I probably would have done things much differently.

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He was 12 years my senior who would make comments about my clothes or “stare” at me.  After working there for a year, numbers were exchanged due to the nature of the job and some offsite work where I tended to need help navigating as the newbie.  As a result, when I left the job, creepy worker kept contacting me.  I told the creepy coworker via text very directly please stop contacting me as I do not want to remain “friends” because he’s condescending and it’s not a friendship I want to keep.  He was “sad” and said he’d respect my wishes, only for me to find out years later he would not.  He was persistent in contacting me when I directly told him not to.  I then blocked his number only for him to generate google numbers to keep contacting me as much as he wanted.  Sometimes he would even say “I know you don’t want me to talk to you” but essentially did so anyways.  Mind you, he had a girlfriend all through out the time I worked with him, and I heard through the grapevine he is now married with kids.  But still, it seemed like somewhere in his head this was totally okay to forgo my direct wishes.

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Every time I texted and KNEW it was him but there was no way to prove it and my police friends said there was really nothing I could do.  The last text I received was 4-5 years after I requested for him to stop texting me (with 1 text per year up to that point) with him sending me a photo he found of me on my best friends wedding website saying “look what I found!” Like that’s a totally normal thing to do.  I was shaken by this text because it was a pretty high level of creepy and my coworkers saw how shaken I was and my new boss at the time told me to change my number as well as my police friend.  I was upset with my friend for publicizing my picture when I had been so careful to hide and privatize everything.  I was upset that I had to cave and change my number and since I’ve been even more private about what is publicly visible.  I limit my personal photos on my account because of this.  But I’m seeing how problematic that is because I’m basically living in fear.  I’ve been censoring myself because of this fear.

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Thinking back, I wish I knew enough to report him to HR.  Though I don’t know what that would’ve done anything, at least I would have fought for my ability to feel secure in the work place.  I wish I didn’t block his number because that way it could be proof that traces back to him so I could maybe have taken legal actions.  I’m not sure what the protocol for that is, but at least that would have been proof.  I guess I think about the what if’s because I’m thinking about the next 19-20 y/o coming into a new work environment.  My nieces, and future daughters as well.  Though I’m still jaded by that experience, I don’t want to act in fear but be courageous in my voice and my writing.  So this photo today isn’t much, but just a reminder to myself to stop living in fear and paranoia and to not censor myself because I’m afraid of what others will do or think.  I’ve definitely thought about “what if he finds me” but my 30 year old self is ready to take on that fight if necessary — the fight that my 19-20 year old self didn’t know how to take on.