Sexual harassment is no joke, but it’s made even more painful when the people around you shame you for reporting it when it happens.
That was the case for eighteen-year-old Emily Houser, who until last week had worked at Chili’s for around two years, so it was a pretty good run.
During that time, however, Housersaid her manager, Josh Davidson, who was twenty-fourat the time, took interest in her, sexually harassing and relentlessly pursued a relationship with her.
“He began forcing me to go on dates with him,” Houser told BuzzFeed News. “He would just show up to my house uninvited and say he was outside and I had to come with him.
“Over a two-year period, it just kind of escalated into him providing me with gifts of significance and money and flowers and cards and things that I wasnt really accepting of, things that made me extremely uncomfortable because I was not sure what he expected of me from these gifts,” she said.
When she turned eighteen last April, he only got more aggressive.
“On my 18th birthday, he showed up to my high school in the parking lot and just kind of rampaged me with gifts and asked me to officially be his girlfriend in front of a bunch of people,” she said. “I said no, and he replied in a very pompous way, saying he didnt care if he got fired if we were together, and he didnt care if he lost his job because he just wanted to be with me.”
At the time, Houser tried to continue doing her job, despite the harassment but then Davidson started harassing another young woman.
Thats when I decided I should report the situation, because even though I came out of the situation fine, I dont know how another young girl is going to feel, she said.
At this point, Houser (wisely) put in her two weeks’ notice and contacted Chili’s corporate headquarters. They conducted an investigation, and rather than firing him Davidson was relocated to the Chili’s in Montgomery, Pennsylvania.
This past Sunday was Davidson’s last day at that location, and several of the workers threw him a “F*ck Emily Houser” party to support him and shame her for reporting the abuse.
The party even took place in the restaurant, and the locations general manager was even there laughing and cutting the cake.
One of the workers who made the “Fuck Emily Houser” cake posted it on Instagram, and several workers commented “#teamjosh.”
When Houser saw the cake on Instagram, she just felt numb at first, she said especially because she’d considered her coworkers to be some of her best friends.
“I didnt know how to feel, except I just didnt really feel anything,” she said. “And then I just started to cry, because I came to terms with the fact that I did call these people my friends and I did love them and care about them, and I have no idea why they were doing this to me.”
In a now-deleted Facebook post, Houser shared what was going on.
The worker who posted, and all but one of the commenters, have since had their Instagram accounts removed. It is not clear whether they were banned or removed by choice, though Houser said many people reported their accounts for harassment after she shared those screenshots on Facebook.
Copyright 2017 Social Zazz