Hello everyone. Sorry for the mistakes, english is not my first language. Also, sorry this is going to be long, but context is important.
For context, I work in a restaurant. I met the manager there when he was only a waiter and we started to get along pretty well, we would stay the two of us for hours after closing talking, till the point the boss told us we were no longer allowed to stay after 12. At some point, he told me he would like to have something with me if he didn’t have a girlfriend. Since then, I have noticed some behavior that I find super toxic. Just to put a couple of examples, he gets obviously jealous if he thinks I am flirting with another guy (he “jokingly” threatened one of the cooks that he would get him fired if he kept on flirting with me. We weren’t flirting, he’s a friend and we were just talking). He gets happy when I fail in my relationships with other men. At some point last summer I had a group of friends that I hung out with almost every day, and my manager confessed to me crying that he loved me (I assumed ad a friend, but I’m not sure) and he was not jealous, but he would make me stay on purpose to close so I felt forced to stay and talk to him like before. He has made a lot of comments about me “being in love with him, and maybe in a parallel universe or another life we could be together”. I have sat him down more than once to talk about this issue and to make clear to him that I have no interest and to remind him that he has a girlfriend (whom, according to him, she’s always bitching about everything, she’s jealous and controlling, and with whom he has been fighting on and off for the past year and a half over her being jealous of me). He always turns it around and says that he’s just joking and being friendly.
I have noticed this pattern where he effs up, I get angry because I feel so defeated with this friendship I end up crying, then he comes and offers some excuses and apologies, is nice for a moment, and I forgive him and we are back in square one. I know this if effed up, but I have a really hard time seeing the red flags and setting boundaries. I know it’s a big issue for me that I have to work on.
Also, for context, we sometimes had these games where we wrestled a little bit, throw a towel on each other’s faces, or pretend to bite so the other lets go… Not so often anymore, and most times it was me stopping him from being annoying.
Because of all of these things, I have been trying to keep him at a certain distance since I don’t think our relationship was longer healthy, nor it has ever been.
A couple of days ago we were in a situation where I wanted him to give me something and he wouldn’t, so I pretended that I was going to bite him and, the second he put his hand away, I would snatch it away from him and walk away. Well, instead of pulling his hand away, he slapped me in the face. I looked at him and his reaction was to laugh. I said to him hell no and walked away to clock out and go home. When I was downstairs changing, he came after me and went full-on manipulator-mood, told me that I couldn’t go home, that it was a reflex and I perfectly knew he would never hurt me on purpose, that he didn’t understand why couldn’t we talk about this and laugh it off, that I was overreacting as a trauma response (he knows I was abused till I was in my middle teens), that I couldn’t leave and that I was being ridiculous. At no point did he apologize or asked me if I was okay or if he hurt me. He denied there was a mark on my face when I showed him because I have rosacea and my face was already red all evening. I left to my friends’ house, the one I mentioned before who is a cook, and told him what happened. He and his girlfriend convinced me to call my boss and tell him what happened.
We met the next day my boss, the manager, and I, and talked about it. He then apologized and said he was very sorry and would never do it if he could go back in time. I said this behavior was unacceptable and that I no longer wanted him to talk to me about anything that is not work-related. My boss was there to basically scold us both, talk me out of going “no-contact” with the manager (alleging that the manager and I always had a very special bond that went further than “just friends”), talk me into “putting this past us” and offer to take the incident to human resources (honestly I feel he did this as a formality and did it once the meeting was basically over). He also tried to bring up my trauma to justify my intense overreaction. I said that I reacted accordingly to the situation, that I would not let the manager back into my life, that I would die on this hill, and that I didn’t feel it was necessary to take this to HR or anybody else. I think this shouldn’t be my decision and he should be the one to make the choice and handle this situation thinking of my safety and not what is best for the company.
Honestly, I don’t know what to think anymore. The manager swears and repeats to the end that he didn’t do it on purpose, that he would never hurt me like that, and that it was a reflex, but there are some people in my life that tells me I justify people’s behavior all the time, that I minimize what happened and that he slapped me because he can’t get what he wants from me and he just did it when he saw the chance.
What do you think about this last statement? Do you think I should take this to HR? Should I have a conversation with the manager explaining my point of view on the full extent of the problem or should I just let it go?
​
T.L; D.R. The manager in my company, with whom I have a toxic friendship, slapped me in the face while at work. He said it was a reflex but I’m starting to think he did it on purpose. Idk if I should take this to anyone else besides my boss (I already did).
11 comments
He assaulted you. There’s no excuse
Yikes. Stop being friends with your superior for one. And two you should’ve taken his behavior to HR forever ago. Either go to HR or quit because this isn’t okay in any way.
Who cares if it’s a reflex, he assaulted you.
He assaulted you, in your work place. Truthfully, he should have been fired for slapping you.
If your workplace doesn’t resolve this to your satisfaction, I’d think about checking with a lawyer about labor laws in your country. If that isn’t an option, I’d start applying to other restaurants or some other type of work.
You may also be able to press charges against him. All depends on if you want to go nuclear or not.
You should look for another job. This situation is very bad, you don’t want to deal with a violent and manipulative man who only wants you for sex-on-the-side. Don’t quit outright, until you find something else.
It was a poor idea to play any of this guy’s games in the first place. If you have a similar situation in another workplace, go above the manager’s head right at the beginning and ask for help navigating the situation.
Best of luck to you.
I don’t need to read your post at all, just the title is enough. That’s assault and he needs to be arrested.
call the police i hope you have a video he should be fired , please go to hr an deal with this .
I also doubt that it was a reflex. More likely he saw an opportunity to hurt you and took it. It was unacceptable for your manager to hit you and for your boss to brush it off. The manager not getting any actual repercussions for assaulting you will embolden him to do more stuff like that. I’d look for another job and quit as soon as you find one, or quit immediately if you can afford it, just get out of that shithole.
I don’t know where you live, but is a lawsuit an option? If so, get a lawyer and start taking action.
Definitely go to HR AND corporate, if that’s an option! Report that he has been harassing you, trying to push for a sexual relationship, and that he physically assaulted you.
Waitresses are in short supply. You are in an abusive relationship. Protect yourself. Ghost and block this POS.