I work in a supermarket in the deli (super busy this time of year).
For over a year, I’ve had this middle-aged woman come in with her husband and essentially hit on me every time I’ve served her. And he just quietly floats around in the background in the bakery while she flirtatiously talks to me.
She’s made no attempt at getting to know my other co-workers in my department during this time whenever they’ve served her (in fact she acts blasé). I’m not naive — I know why the flattery and over-familiarity are targeted at me. But until now I’ve never had to confront it…
Last week, I ended up serving her as her husband went away. And she immediately asked me what I was doing for Christmas (I lied). Maybe I’m weird, but I don’t really like strangers knowing my business…
So I told her my family is interstate so I won’t be seeing them this year. Half of my family is interstate, but I figure this vagueness would keep her from asking too many questions. But it backfired. And she invited me to her Christmas instead…
Mind you, this is all happening amidst absolute chaos and insanity — hoards of angry customers staring at me and wondering why I’m giving this lady so much of my time when I could be serving them instead. So needless to say, I’m very flustered and like a deer in the headlight by this invitation…
She can see I’m hesitant to give a response as I keep looking at all the customers and back at her (as I attempt to think of a diplomatic way to knock her back).
So she grabbed some paper and a pen and wrote her number down for me to call her and said she’d let me attend to the other customers and walked away.
Half an hour later, the department had a brief respite and she returned to assure me that she was *’dead serious’* about the invitation and that there was no need for me to be *’embarrassed.’* And that if she can’t fill her seats this year, she might just invite the homeless off the street!
But if this were really the case, I’m sure she’d have invited all of my co-workers too (which she didn’t). And my main concern is that if I text her to say that I can’t come (to be polite) she will then know my number and potentially use it to contact me in the future…
So my plan was to just not respond…
But then she came into my workplace again yesterday when I was busy serving customers. And it’s apparent she’s assumed I’m coming. *”We can’t wait to see you!!! We were just telling your store manager about how we invited you to Christmas!!!”*
Again, I was in a rush, but I managed to take the brief opportunity to ask her if she expects an RSVP if I can’t make it. And she said yes…
Guys, help. I don’t know how I found myself in this situation or how to handle it.
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