I know that there are several sexual harassments between my plight and what most opposite-sex face.
I’ve always known my boss to be friendly and accommodating but didn’t get the picture at first when Madam started giving me extra cash for t-fare, lunch hour treat and all. I thought she was being nice.
Things were going smoothly as other staffs were growing wary and getting jealous of our boss-staff relationship. But I never knew what the consequences might give birth to.
Months later, I realized I was the only one out of 12 engineers the company is still owing three months salary. Every other field engineers have been settled except me. Haha! me of all people, Madam’s favourite engineer.
Days after I noticed, I confront the accountant about what’s going and to my surprise, she said Madam haven’t acknowledged any of my documents and she tried knowing what prompt such actions but Madam is not ready to hear her out.
Okay, if that’s the case I’ll ask her myself, for about two weeks, wasn’t able to go office due to field work and all, traveling from one state to another.
Thought it would be convenient if I push the issue to the official WhatsApp group, after complaining and all she still didn’t acknowledge any of the chats.
Then she chats me privately, saying she purposely delayed my documents that if I need her to sign those paper we need to sort things out privately.
I took it like it was normal, till she initiated a WhatsApp video the following night, on seeing her I blink off because I couldn’t believe what I saw she’s half naked and to my surprise she said “OH SORRY, I WAS ABOUT TO GO FOR A SHOWER” and I replied maybe after you’re done ma! at that particular moment, I wasn’t looking at the screen. She continued with DON’T TELL ME YOU’RE SHY. Couldn’t answer any of her questions, I press the red button and ignore her video calls afterward and message her that it would be convenient if we chat.
She didn’t respond to any of my chats, but keep initiating the video call, at this point I noticed she’s careful of chatting. To cut the story short, I went over to her office to put the issue at rest once and for all.
She called me into the conference room, shut the door and held the key, closed the blind and switched on the AC. She started to cling towards me, and at that point, I was not bothered. At least Madam wouldn’t effectively force herself on me, hurt or blackmail me. I wasn’t stressed or bothered about it until it took a turn I never expected.
She leaned forward and told me how she’d love to have me and all other gibberish my brain couldn’t comprehend because of the fact that I wasn’t feeling the atmosphere. I was shocked and just frozen at first and then she turned from being nice to commands and threats that if I didn’t oblige to her request she wouldn’t sign the document and all.. 3 months effort, 330k go just fly?.
I tried to explore the circumstance precisely, played it off as though she was just pulling my legs or some sort of silly pranks. One negative word from her about me would paint me black. She’s trying to utilize that as a leverage, accentuating the influence she has.
I tried enough to stay away from her closeness by expressing gratitude for all she has done and smiling inconveniently and all, but most importantly sending a NO NO signal to her request.
Regardless of what I said or did, she veered back to IT WON’T TAKE LONG, JUST 5 MINUTES AND WE’RE OUT OF HERE. Still couldn’t believe what I heard.
She moved back with some threatening statement like “You don’t want your job anymore shey?” I smiled it away, knowing my position at the company and that it wouldn’t be appropriate. At that point, she started grilling me on why I wouldn’t want a decent sensual pleasure from her coupled with other freebies I would have access to and also rubbing shoulders with the big guns in the company.
At that point, lots of positive and negative thought flooded my mind; WHAT IF THIS WHOLE SCENARIO CHANGES TO A RAPE CASE, and I know no matter what I say people won’t believe my side of the story and they will react with unsurprising drivel: OLOJU KOKORO NI, OTI RI OLOWO, OLOSHI ( That I was just a gold digger, an idiot). At that point a thought just flew in, why not record this, I did and minimized my phone to the home screen.
At this point, she started to unbutton her suit and removed her earrings, my feet trembled, sweated heavily despite the AC. And all I could pray for was, I need to wake up from this nightmare and all this should be over with.
My prayers answered but this time it wasn’t a nightmare but an actual reality, her phone rang, and then she picked up. After a lengthy conversation, she ended the call, hissed and said, Akin (not real name for legal reasons) we will continue this other time, but for the main time think about it. She then zoomed off.
I Couldn’t believe what just happened, I rushed out before she changed her mind to come in again. I went down to my desk to pack my tools, laptop with other necessary things and went home.
I was to supervise a BTS installation the following day, I called the site FSCE that I would not resume work the next day and that he should notify the project manager, so it won’t look like I didn’t notify them of the development, this was after much deliberation and legal consult from my dad’s lawyer.
Madam called me that night to ask why and I told her I quit since I couldn’t provide what she wanted. She laughed it off saying YOU DON’T MEAN IT. and she hung up.. That was the last I heard from her.
After two days she called me that since I refused to resume work and let us settle the issue amicably then what happened between us should stay between us, but to me, it didn’t stay between us, it has taken a legal turn and the issue has been reported along with the conversation I recorded.
As of now the case is still pending but heading the right way.
There’s nothing good about sexual harassment. It’s profoundly perplexing and frightening. In a society where people find it hard to secure a job and in another turn some trying to keep their jobs and with the alarming rate of sexual harassment, you can feel disempowered and lose your job or career. Let us learn to report any sexual harassment or abuse case to the appropriate authorities.
A concerned reader of Deedeesblog.
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