July 12, 2005 5:48 pm

Bearing Witness

:note: My Dying Bride – “Sear Me MCMXCIII”

Today I was a witness to an act of sexual harassment. :worried:

I didn’t fully comprehend what had happened until after the fact, so I didn’t say anything to the offending person at the time. I’m still sort of beating myself up over that, but I went and reported it – to the president of the school (!) – immediately after my shift was over so I at least feel a bit better now that someone else knows.

I was at work, helping a faculty member fill out a print request form. She was leaning on the counter filling out the form, and I was busy telling her what information I needed from her. I noticed a young man stroll up and stand behind her in line, cell phone in hand. I didn’t pay much attention to him as that sort of thing happens all the time. However, I could see him out of the corner of my eye, and he began holding his phone awkwardly out in front of him, held it that way for a few seconds, and then just walked off.

I’m positive he took a picture of her ass with a cameraphone. :dis:

Like I said before, I was busy at the time and didn’t initially pay much attention to him. I have no idea who he is. Nor can I reliably identify him – the most I can say about him is that I think he may have been wearing glasses and he likely had short-ish, dark hair. And that could describe almost anybody. I’m pretty good with faces so there’s a chance I may recognize him sometime in the future, in which case the president recommended I make some sort of attempt to get his name, but I can’t say for sure because I didn’t get a good look at him to begin with.

I feel so awful for the teacher. She had no idea it happened, and I’m pretty sure the student didn’t realize that it was a faculty member he was photographing either. Not that it makes it any better, but I wonder if he would have still done it had he known she was faculty.

The president took notes while I was talking, and we both agreed that there was no need to let the teacher know about the incident, simply because we don’t see it doing any good. In fact, it’d probably do more harm than good. So she won’t be finding out about it, and he let me report it anonymously as well.

Hopefully this doesn’t turn into a huge thing, but in case something bad happens, at least there’s some record of a prior incident. :blah:

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2 Comments

  • bruce says:

    .. Why does that not surprise me at all? People these days. *Shakes head.*

  • Geez, we used to get guys in the bar with those damn phones trying to hang over the stage and take pics, how annoying. Just go buy a playboy and stop already people.