My Coworker Brutally Harassed a Girl Who Refused to Date Him.

I had never met a man who was as judgmental of women as Frank was. He worked in the men’s shoe department but would often make his way to the lady’s shoe department so that he could stare at women. His favorite women to ogle were the women who worked at the makeup counter. Sometimes he even made comments to them about their appearances, like when he told my pregnant coworker she looked ‘comfortable’ because she’d been too sick to put on makeup. He had no problem telling any woman that he thought looked ‘rough’ or even ugly.

Luckily, Frank found me unattractive, so he mostly left me alone. I wouldn’t have even noticed him, but his behavior soon affected my job. I was a commission-based salesperson, so my pay depended on keeping the guest happy enough to make a sale. Guests would often comment about how uncomfortable they felt with him watching as they tried on shoes. His behavior caused more than one guest to leave the store, so I tried speaking to him about his behavior.

He wasn’t willing to listen to what I had to say, because I was ‘too ugly for my opinion to matter’, so he kept visiting the department. Management got involved and asked him to stay in his department, but the allure of women proved too much for him. He even started coming in on his days off.

Being around Frank both repulsed me and made me uncomfortable. I didn’t think I’d be able to dislike him any more than I already did, but he soon proved to be one of the most disgusting people I’d ever met.

One day, I was leaving work when I noticed a girl on the ground with people all around her. She was having a seizure, and they were trying to help her. It was the first time I’d ever seen anyone in that state, so the image of her on the ground is one I haven’t forgotten. I know the experience was humiliating for her because she told me that she’d become known as the seizure girl.

An ambulance came to pick her up, so the entire store found out about her seizure. Most people were too polite to mention it, but it was all Frank could talk about. I can still remember his huge smile as he shook his body like how she had. He had an endless array of seizure jokes that he aimed at her. I had been helping a guest, but I turned around and told him how disgusting he was being. He informed me that he was glad she’d had a seizure and that he didn’t care if she would have died.

I didn’t have to wonder what she had done to cause such a reaction because he’d volunteer that information to anyone who would listen. She’d gone on a date with him, and he thought that made her his girlfriend. It outraged him that she dared to date someone else. To make matters worse, the man she was dating also worked in the store and was Frank’s friend before ‘stealing’ his girl.

Sometimes rejection can be ugly, but this was one of the worst cases I’d ever seen. He wanted people to feel sorry for him, so spread rumors about the girl. He claimed they had an intimate relationship and that she had cheated on him with her current boyfriend. During the dinner, he took pictures and showed them to his friends. Soon, there were a handful of people who sided with him and began harassing the girl themselves.

Other rumors spread from her side. People said that she only thought of him as a friend and wouldn’t have gone to dinner with him if she would have known he would think otherwise. They said he was following her around the store and threatening to fight her boyfriend.

The girl and her boyfriend both reported Frank to management. Luckily, the store manager took the situation seriously and told Frank he would lose his job if he continued to harass her and her boyfriend. The stern warning didn’t stop him, as he still spread rumors about her to his friends. None of his friends ever stood up for her, and when I did someone told me he had pictures of them at dinner. It was as if my coworkers thought the one dinner cemented them as a couple.

The situation was finally resolved when the store manager caught Frank in my department. He asked me what Frank was doing in the department and I gladly told him he was staring at women and explained that he’d made customers leave in the past. The store manager wrote Frank up, which caused him to complain about me to his friends even more. He claimed he’d only gotten in trouble because I’d ‘snitched’ on him. He stopped showing up for work shortly after being written up.

I haven’t seen Frank since the day he came to brag about his new job. He claimed to be making more money than he’d ever made before. He visited the makeup counter and pitched his voice loud enough for the entire store to hear. It was clear he’d come to show off to the woman who had rejected him, but she didn’t even glance in his direction.

I didn’t know the girl ever dated Frank, but even if she did, she didn’t deserve what Frank put her through. Unfortunately, she’s not the only woman to suffer harassment after rejecting a man. Many women fear for their safety after doing something as small as declining to give a stranger their phone number. Most men aren’t like Frank, but the ones that are make life harder for everyone.