Today was the second day of orientation for the work training programs at the Pine Street Inn.
These are notes about things that happened, from the morning to the afternoon:
-I went to the front desk at the men's side of the shelter. When I told one of the female employees at the front desk that I was there for the orientation, she took her coat off. She was wearing a plaid shirt that said "ADDICTED 02."
-Wet Floor sign in the same place as yesterday, at the entrance to a room that opens into the stairway that I had to walk up to get to the classroom. Janitor's cart in the first room after the stairway. Another Wet Floor sign visible in the next room after that.
-Male trainee who sat to my left and coughed at me yesterday, today wore a shirt that said "REVIS 24" on the back. He moved to sit in the table in front of me, so that I could read his back all day. He left his coat at the table next to me.
-During the break at 10:30 a.m. I went to wait outside the women's restroom. A female trainee who had just left the classroom gave a loud "HUH" vomit-cough while walking in the hallway toward me.
-That's a picture from today of the fire alarm in the women's restroom used by the women who are on that floor for work, training, or to buy food at the cafeteria.
-There was a knock on the restroom door while I was still in the restroom. When I left the restroom, a female janitor was right outside the restroom, with her cart. She immediately went into the bathroom when I left it. It was the worst possible time that she could have chosen to clean that bathroom; during a 15-minute break for the trainees.
-During lunch, 3 male employees of the Pine Street Inn coughed at me in the cafeteria within 10 minutes. I wasn't even eating in the cafeteria, I just got my food from there, from where it was set out for the trainees. Every time that I went into the cafeteria, someone coughed at me. I'm fairly certain that one of them is a supervisor of the food services. When I had my interview with him for the program a few weeks ago, I thought that I saw him rub his nose when the interview was over and he was introducing me to other people in the kitchen and asking someone to show me how to get out of the building. Today, I heard a male person cough a few times when I was in the cafeteria, behind my back. I turned around and he was there. It was after he coughed at me that two other male employees did. With a direct supervisor sexually harassing me, everyone will get the message that harassment of me will be tolerated and that I'll get into trouble if I object or try to get help making it stop. I'll be subjected to it every day, Monday through Friday, while I am expected to stay focused on being trained, while I am expected not to lose my temper.
I have to take the time to write these notes, my only defense against what's happening to me. It's not even a defense, obviously, because the same thing happens to me over and over. It's just a record of the abuse and predetermined failure for which the conglomerate has created the conditions for me at everything that I try to do.
I have to take the time to write these notes, trying to be accurate and fair. I have to do that, and to think about that, and I also have to do all of the things that the people who aren't being harassed and who are harassing me have to do: be on time, be prepared for class and work, do my homework, follow directions. While I'm being treated as if I'm less than, I have to do more than, all the time, with a smile, never losing my temper, never getting impatient, always trying to think of the appropriate way to address being abused when all I'm trying to do is improve my life. I have to pay attention to what's supposed to be happening, the training, with no hope at all that the abuse will stop because it's not being called what it is. It is sexual harassment that creates a hostile work environment and interferes with my ability to work, and which I am expected and actually forced to accept or be denied this opportunity. Every day is Quid Pro Quo, is having to put up with being harassed or having to leave.
This situation has the potential to derail everything else that I'm trying to do, also, from my being able to stay at the shelter to my being able to get housing through the Pine Street Inn, which I have had to try to do because no market landlord will rent to me.
-During a class exercise for which I had to stand in front of the room and give a brief presentation, another of the Pine Street Inn supervisors coughed at me, in front of everyone.
-Someone else who works for Pine Street Inn and who is part of the training program stopped me at the end of the day and told me to tell someone if anyone harassed me. He seemed sincere, but I know that there's nothing I can do and nobody whom I can tell; the person whom he told me I could definitely talk to if someone starts harassing me is the person who interviewed me for the program and who has already harassed me twice. I thanked the person who was trying to encourage me to succeed in the program, walked out of the room and into the cafeteria, and was coughed at by a male trainee almost immediately.
That's a picture of a Wet Floor sign that was next to the door through which I left the men's side of the shelter today, when the orientation was over.
Copyright L. Kochman, July 1, 2015 @ 7:10 p.m.
