Media in Current Events

So I did not cancel on Toni, I had her over last night and we had a quaint evening. It was like play pretend for her to see what living together is going to look like. She is very excited about my cooking. There are no busses in my area so we met at the Winners near my area. I got there too early and I had so much anxiety while I was walking around. I’m pretty stressed about my finances right now. My credit card declined again so I am going to have to be grown for a moment and sort this all out tomorrow.

Last night I dreamt that I was at a crossroads with my old place of employment. I was rehired with the same salary and the same shifts and I was not sure if I wanted to go back or not. I was so conflicted about everything. I even went for a run in this dream to clear my head lol. When I woke up I somehow started talking about that place with Toni. A few weeks ago Hetal told me that Larry has been visiting the stores in our area again. He had a conversation with Karamjeet that made her uncomfortable. He was shocked that Karamjeet, a woman from India, actually drinks alcohol and he suggested that they all get together for drinks. Karamjeet knows the backstory with Larry.

Larry is an operations manager who is in charge of installing operators at various restaurant locations. He was having a marital affair with an assistant that affected the climate throughout all locations. Also, an ex-employee came forward with how she felt taken advantage of back when she used to work for him. His M.O. is to have people over for drinks and then get them drunk and take advantage of whoever he can. I brought this forward to our regional manager and long story short they handled it internally and transferred Larry to the other end of the city. They did “not have evidence”. They even told me that they have a lot invested with Larry so they can’t just cut their losses. They hoped for my understanding. I was not satisfied with how that was handled but I moved on with my life and waited around for this to catch up with me. Sure enough, I saw it coming as soon as Karamjeet told me “I heard what you did to Larry, he was your favourite manager and you stabbed him the back.” Then she and I argued about if it was ethical for management to fraternize with our employees. She felt the same way as the rest of the managers throughout all of the locations, as long as they are of age then who cares? My stance was that as long as we are standing in the way of a career progression we should not be taking advantage of them because they are vulnerable. It is not okay.

So this morning I pieced it together that Larry has returned to that area because I am no longer employed there. This was probably their endgame. Karamjeet has a history of marital affairs with employees as well so this is why she did not have a problem with helping them fire me. “I only hire young attractive men that I can have fun with.” she told me. Straight up.

Toni pointed out the obvious, that I am still not over that place. Even though this was three months ago. I told her it is because everybody that I left behind was left vulnerable. I protected them from Larry and Brad and Kirk. I stand up to those racist, fascist, misogynistic bigots. I constantly had to remind my employer about how he is supposed to treat his employees. “Brad, you can’t call the east Indian woman here your harem as a joke because it is not funny and is not okay.” Employment Standards, Human Resources and the Labour Board can not do anything because these stores are not unionized. There is nobody to protect employees from harassment without a union so that is why it is hard to let it go. Toni suggested that I try and get this story to the media. I suspect that they would go with this story because there is not much news in my city. Last year another restaurant had sexual harassment claims about management go national. It trended and those managers were forced to resign. Is this what I really want though? Is this want I need to move on? It wouldn’t fix anything, it would just hurt the store’s image and I would not actually get anything out of it.

Getting Karamjeet fired would be nice though. Not going to lie. When her store burned down I hired her so that she would not have to collect unemployment insurance. She returned the favour by firing me. God, I just hate her guts so much.

Last updated August 04, 2019