#MeToo
While on line at my local barista the other day, I overheard a conversation between a man and a woman, the theme of which was the recent barrage of sexual harassment accusations being leveled at men in positions of power, prestige and wealth, especially those whose victims were women.
“Is it really possible that all of these women were sexually harassed?” the man wondered aloud, “And if it’s true, what the hell took them so long? Why now? They’re calling it the Weinstein effect.’”
The woman’s head shook disgustedly at the mention of the name and she sucked her teeth before muttering, “Gross.”
“How about you?” He elbowed her playfully. “Have you ever been sexually harassed?” She looked down at her boots for a moment, and when she raised her face to him there was a sardonic smile on her lips. “Oh yeah,” she said kind of sadly. “Yeah, I have.”
By the time I’d collected my skinny vanilla latte, I had decided to break a pact I’d made with a co-worker and friend nearly thirty years ago.
I was twenty-seven and had been a recruiter in the HR department of a large financial services corporation for about a year when I first met him. He was in his mid-forties I think, and in the process of taking an existing department and forming a separate subsidiary, under the umbrella of the huge parent company. I went to his office to talk with him about his future hiring needs, which he assured me would be massive. He also said we would be working closely to accomplish his goals. It seemed like an exciting diversion from the hiring I’d been doing, and although there were more seasoned recruiters at his disposal, he seemed to want me. He had such confidence in me, it was flattering.
After that first meeting, we had several more, although he always scheduled them around lunchtime, and then when I showed up, he’d casually mention that he was starving and we’d talk over lunch at a nearby restaurant. Most confusing of all, he seemed to be doing most of the recruiting and hiring himself.
And then, he recruited me. He had a way of speaking that reminded me of old gangster movies. Over lunch at his favorite downtown restaurant, he had a habit of turning away from me when he spoke, and he seemed to be always surveying the room. He’d order for me too, which made me vaguely uncomfortable, like we were on a date or something. But there was nothing you could put your finger on. Nothing that wouldn’t sound crazy to someone who wasn’t there. I shook it off. When he asked me if I wanted to be his assistant, with the promise of bigger and better things down the road, I told myself that he thought I was bright and capable, and I wanted to live up to that impression. I said yes.
During the first few weeks I worked for him, I’d often walk into the office and hear him blasting the same Fine Young Cannibals song, “She Drives Me Crazy,” but he’d shut it off as soon as I walked in. Once, I told him, “I like that song, why do you shut it off?” And I thought I saw his cheeks color. Once again, I shrugged it off. Not only could I not fathom a romantic feeling toward him, the very idea that it could have something to do with me seemed the height of conceit. He was a grown man for crying out loud! Married. He wasn’t a teenager with a crush. Get over yourself, Tricia.
One afternoon, he sent me to the office of the CEO at the top of the World Financial Center to pick up U.S. Open tickets. While I was there, I met a beautiful woman who he would also recruit, and she would become a dear friend. When I got back to our offices, he gave the tickets to me. I was thrilled. When he heard me gushing over them on the phone with my then-boyfriend, he stormed out of the office, slamming the door so hard that that heads shot up in the surrounding cubicles and offices. Shocked glances were exchanged. What the heck?
About six months after I started, we moved the entire operation to a new facility. As promised, my job titled changed and I no longer worked directly for him. What didn’t change were the lunches. The “invitation” was always extended under the pretense of wanting to pick my brain about something. Again, it was flattering. On the other hand, the more this new business was defined, the more I realized I really didn’t understand most of it. I knew I was bringing nothing to the table so to speak, and I began to notice that once we were away from the office, the conversation would turn to other topics anyway.
Once, he was telling me about a married friend who was having an affair. My response was simple, “I don’t understand that,” I said, shaking my head. “If you want out, get a divorce.” He was visibly agitated after that, and he dismissed my remarks with something like, “How would you know anyway? You’ve never been married.” It was true, but the way he said it stung like a slap. He cut that lunch short and we drove back to the office in silence.
Not long after that lunch, another invitation came. This time, I told him that my department was very busy, and that my (immediate) boss would not be happy if I went out for lunch with his boss. His voice deepened into a lascivious drawl, “Well, then you better not tell him.” I was speechless. In that moment, everything I’d been refusing to acknowledge crystalized. There was dead air on the line for what seemed like eternity. When he spoke next, his voice was filled with disgust, “Christ. Forget it.”
Aside from him, the senior management of that subsidiary consisted of three men at that point. One of them was openly hostile toward me, although I couldn’t imagine why, I’d barely had any interactions with him. The other, depending on who else he was with, could be overly solicitous, or rudely dismissive. As I was several layers of management beneath all of them, only the third seemed to have a reasonable response to me, which is to say that he seemed to barely know my name.
I remember that I was in a good mood the morning the envelope came. I had just gotten to work, and was humming softly as I picked up the interoffice envelope on my desk and began to unwind the twine closure. Tilting it to let its contents drop to the desk, I froze. There, on my desk was a Fredericks of Hollywood catalogue with a yellow sticky note on it. In his distinct handwriting, the note said, “Choose something you would wear in public, and something you would wear in private.”
I was horrified. My heart was pounding and I realized that I had physically backed away from my desk. My head spinning, I tore the note off the magazine and tore it into a million pieces. I spun around wildly. When had he been here? Was he here now? Had anyone else seen? And then, Oh my God. What am I going to do now?
What I did was ignore his calls for days. It was a large facility, and I kept as far away from his office as possible. The more I stayed away, the more often he called. I started to avoid being at my own desk as well. I just stayed on the move. I told no one for about a week. The woman I’d met while getting the U.S. Open tickets was another of his recruits. She’d known him longer than I had and had become for me a trusted friend. I went to her office and as soon as I began she jumped up and closed the door. We talked for over an hour and during that time she told me that she was glad I’d come to her, because she had reason to believe that he’d led other senior managers to think that there was something going on between us. There was, in fact, some resentment brewing among those who’d heard and assumed I’d received preferential treatment as a result. Good God, I thought, I wouldn’t exactly call the treatment I’d gotten preferential.
She said didn’t believe it herself, but hadn’t known how or when to tell me. Then she told me about the time he’d done something similar to her.
I wasn’t sure if I felt better or worse when I left, but of all the things we talked about that day, not once did we discuss confronting him, or telling anyone else about the things he said and way he behaved. On the contrary, that’s the day we made the pact, and it was to “take this to our graves.”
I couldn’t avoid his calls forever, so the next day, when I saw his name come up on the display I picked up. I said hello and what he said next was more a statement than a question.
“You’re really pissed at me aren’t you.”
Under different circumstances that sentence would have been comical. He was the CEO for crying out loud not my boyfriend! I should have said, Yes, I am. I should have said, How dare you? Or even, What in the world did I do to give you the impression that I was in any way open to that? What I said was, “If anyone other than me had opened that envelope, I’d never be able to defend myself.”
I got lucky. He was fired by The Firm at-large within weeks of that event. Still, when it happened, I actually felt bad for him. News had travelled fast throughout the building, and when he called me into his office that last time, I went willingly. Truth be told, I felt I owed him that one final dignity; to come when called. If I thought he might apologize before he left for insulting me, or taking advantage of the twenty-something me, or even the trouble he’d caused me within the company, I’d have been wrong on all counts. What he did, was give me some advice for the coming weeks: “Keep a low profile.”
He suggested, during that conversation, that without him, my job security was now tenuous as well. He implied that I really didn’t add any value to the firm, and he practically flat out said that the only reason I had a job was because of him. I sat there silently, and took it. When I got up to leave, I thanked him, and wished him well. What I felt, however, was a combination of rage and relief. Regardless of what happened to me there, I knew I’d never have to see him again.
I didn’t lose my job. In fact, in subsequent months my role within the company became more defined, and over time, a clearer career path emerged. His replacement, a true, class-act of a guy, brought with him an atmosphere of friendly professionalism that truly changed everything. I remember the years that followed and the people who worked there with great fondness.
The point is that now, when I hear people wonder aloud if it’s possible that all of those women endured sexual harassment and kept silent for years I can say with confidence that yes, it is not only possible, it is probable. In my own case I was afraid for many reasons. Not the least of which was the very thing he’d hinted at during our last meeting. For a period of time, anyway, he’d successfully convinced me that whatever talent or potential he’d “seen” in me, it was a vision that few others shared.
I didn’t know who I’d complain to either, in that particular part of the firm, the buck stopped with him. He was the CEO, the top guy, the head honcho. I was afraid he’d deny it – and what, exactly, had he done other than make me uncomfortable? He’d never touched me or exposed himself to me or anything that overt. I was afraid of being labelled troublesome. I was afraid that I was far more disposable than he was in a business that was, effectively, one of the last great bastions of the ole boy’s network.
As a sometime “tiger mom” and stepmom to five strong, hard-working and ambitious daughters, I’m comforted that this type of thing is being excavated across multiple fields. Yes, women are “coming out” now like never before, and the single most important reason for that is that they can. Now, there’s a much better chance that they’ll be heard, and the right people will suffer the consequences. I pray that if, and when any of them experience something like this, they will recognize it immediately, and tolerate none of it. Most of all, I hope they never blame themselves.
For a very long time, I wanted to believe that what was right in front of me was not, in fact, what I thought it was. I was naïve. I was embarrassed. I was young. He was none of those things, and had he not been my boss, I don’t believe for a second that he would have behaved the way he did with me. He wasn’t the first to abuse his position and power, and he won’t be the last. But it’s really that simple,-and that complicated.