Category: Pool

Red — Sexual Harassment

On By ZephyrIn Diabetic Lifestyle, gender discrimination, hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, Liberation, Pool, racism, sexism, and other isms, sexual harassment, Type 1 DiabetesLeave a comment

Red and I did not speak about the text he had sent me on that Sunday morning after the work Christmas party. I figured it was a moot point. I assumed we would never talk about it and go about our lives as if the incident had never occurred. At least, that was my hope. A few days after the first text, Red sent me an innocuous text informing me that he would not be attending some social gathering a group of people from work had planned. I did not respond for the simple reason that I did not want to engage with Red on any level. He had been keeping his distance at work as well, and I felt safe believing his attraction would wither and die out in time.

A few days later, though, I received another text from Red:

Have you thought about inviting me over? I can make you feel real good. I know how to treat you like a real man should.

I remember this text because, immediately after I read it, I decided to get stars tattooed on my hands. It was an impulsive decision, but I desperately felt the need to do something that celebrated my independence from expectations placed upon me from external sources. The guy in the tattoo shop was initially reticent about tattooing me in such an exposed area. His comment, “hand tattoos can kill jobs,” was met with my own quip, “what jobs?” He laughed, shrugged, and commenced to design the stars that are forevermore prominent whenever I reach out into my external world.

The text Red sent me was again in the early morning and I sat at the library, waiting for the tattoo shop to open, while composing my response to him. This time, I was not willing to let the incident go without challenge because I wanted it to STOP. I do not remember my exact words, but I do remember bluntly informing Red that I did not appreciate his disrespect for me by not accepting my previous answer of NO when he asked me if I was willing to be more than friends. I told him in no uncertain terms that I was angry with him for reducing our friendship to sex, and that I was absolutely NOT interested in him. I graciously informed him I would not tell anyone at work about his pressuring me, but that I did not want to be friends anymore. I told him to please stop texting me, that I was willing to work peacefully with him, but I wanted this situation to be dropped. His reply was simple: “Sorry. I misunderstood.”

It was at this point when I began to realize how I might have misled him by answering “yes” to his question about feeling the attraction when he had trapped me in the back office. From my experiences over the years since this moment in time, I can now easily recognize how mindlessly I had internalized my perceived role of what it meant to be ‘feminine’ and ‘polite’ and ‘nice.’ Even as I began to realize my mistake, I felt guilty for having caused the “misunderstanding.” I honestly believed I was partly at fault for what was happening to me. I knew Red was acting like an asshole, but I did not find the fault to be entirely his. Instead, based on my social conditioning, I believed his divorce was to blame, or his drinking, or his pain and distress, or conversely it was my lack of maturity, or my inability to respond effectively to his comments, or my inadequacy in how to handle a situation where a man shows more interest in me than I am comfortable with.

****Please notice how each one of those excuses above focuses either upon Red, as a man, being influenced by negative circumstances, or upon me, as a woman, who is in some way defective or inferior. THIS IS THE RESULT OF BEING BORN AND RAISED WITHIN A CULTURE THAT ASSIGNS MORE VALUE TO A MAN THEN TO A WOMAN. These cultural beliefs hurt women and I am sharing my understanding of how it hurt me.****

At the time, I only told two people at the pool about what had happened. A year or so later, I also ended up telling Bill Kuzmer and Luke, one of the younger lifeguards who worked with Red, because they both asked me why I was no longer friends with Red. Luke eventually ended up taking sides with Red and I lost my friendship with him as well, but he was the young lifeguard who Red had been selling weed to during the early mornings while upstairs in the staff breakroom. The early morning Building Supervisor had told Fryer her concerns about Red and Luke, but Fryer never did anything about the situation. At least, to give him the benefit of the doubt, he never did anything that anyone else on staff could easily recognize as being an action taken against the possibility of drugs being sold on the Park District’s premises.

Luke eventually lost his job as the early morning Building Supervisor a year or so later, after he was arrested for possession of cocaine, but I do believe it was because he quit. He was rehired again some time later, but he quit that time, too. I do not believe he was ever threatened with the loss of his employment, but I do not know. This may seem like an unfounded rumor, but it was only last summer while working with a younger lifeguard, who had been a swimmer on the high school team and was now in college, when the old story came up again in our conversation. He told me during an early morning Saturday shift about Red selling marijuana illegally to someone at the pool years ago. I asked him how he knew about it and he told me that his mom, who had heard it from Bill Kuzmer, had told him. This is exactly how information at the pool is officially shared and communicated: Gossip and Rumormongering.

Bill Kuzmer, on the other hand, simply agreed with me that what Red had said was disturbing, but he never provided me with any advice on how to proceed dealing with the situation. When Fryer finally got around to investigating what had occurred and asked Bill if he knew anything about me and Red, Bill replied, “he asked Sam out on a date and she said no.” At the time, though, when Bill agreed with me that Red’s behavior had been inappropriate, I took this to be validation for being justified in my anger towards Red, and my choice to avoid him at all cost.

My mom would tell me that I needed to tell Fryer about the texts, but I had erased all of the texts. I honestly expected if given enough time, then the situation would resolve itself by simply going away. I was not capable of recognizing what had happened to me as being Sexual Harassment. I had always been taught that Sexual Harassment happened when a boss told you to do something sexual and you were fired for saying NO. I thought Sexual Harassment was nudie pictures on the wall, being called “babe” at work, having my ass grabbed or my tits pinched. I did not understand how being stared at could be a form of Sexual Harassment, and was illegal.

For the next three years, I worked six days a week with Red, and I performed my shifts with an ever-increasing knot of dread, disgust, anger, and frustration growing more solidly within my heart whenever I would catch Red looking at me with his glassy eyes. Every time Red was in the water teaching a lesson, he would find a way to be underneath the guard stand and he would stare up at me. Every single day. Every time I was in the water teaching a swim lesson, I would look up and see Red standing above me on the deck and discussing my teaching techniques with someone else, many times he would be speaking with Fryer. I became so incredibly distressed and uncomfortable wearing my bathing suit at work, that I felt to be blessed with a miracle when I finally switched from syringe therapy to a pump, and could no longer spend time in the water being disconnected from my insulin. The extreme discomfort I felt every time I caught Red staring up at me taught me how to conduct my lifeguard scan while effectively managing to NOT make eye contact with anyone in the pool. It was during these three years when I lost my ability to smile, and show joy and gratitude with the people in my life, and at my job. Three years of being gripped by the detrimental effects of such negative emotions are the basis for my claim of having suffered through undiagnosed PTSD.

During those three years I tried to work through my emotions without professional help. I had been required to speak to therapists while growing up and I came away from those experiences feeling as if the specialists were only good at making me feel worse about myself then I felt before even walking in the door. I struggled with the volatile combination of anger, disgust, and resentment and tried to find a way of simply going to work and not being consumed by my emotional turmoil.

There was one day when Red decided to confront me in the back office to demand that I stop ignoring him. I can still distinctly feel the intense acrimony and rancor I felt as I tried to maintain my dignity and simply told him to leave me alone. I used to teach a classroom full of seventh graders, so I know how to be a broken record repeating the exact same instructions over and over and over again until something finally manages to penetrate the thickest skull. Red intensified his demands to the point of scaring the other staff away, but all I could do was stand in place and tell him over and over and over again, “NO means NO!” until he finally walked away.

This period in time was also the beginning of the severe and pervasive harassment I have received from the administration of the Park District. It began with Fryer ambushing me in the back office, much in the same way Red had done earlier, to tell me about some new complaint he had received about my attitude. I was never given the exact nature of the complaint, a name of who was complaining, or any kind of description as to what I was actually doing wrong. So, not only was I trying to deal with the destructive emotional leftover from my experience with Sexual Harassment, but now I had paranoia being incorporated into my daily perspective of life, and of myself. I lost the chance to develop stronger friendships at work because I was perpetually terrified that anytime I spoke with someone I may be offending them, and I would get another reprimand from Fryer. During this time, I simply stayed away from the people who could have helped me. Hindsight is always 20/20, and it is only with hindsight I can truly appreciate the extent to which I allowed myself to be isolated and ‘cut off from the herd,’ as to become easier prey.

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The only other time in my life I have had such adverse repercussions for my ‘attitude’ was while I was living and working in Las Vegas before my diagnosis. I was angry all the time. The slightest incident would send me reeling into a fit of vitriol. Cognitively, I was able to recognize the absurdity of my quick temper and intolerance, but that did nothing to alleviate the anguish of always feeling and being angry. One night, I even came home from work and grabbed the yellow pages to spend the evening looking up every therapist, psychologist, and psychiatrist I could find, in the hopes of learning what was wrong with me so I could fix it. Luckily (Ha! That’s a good pun), I was soon diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and I learned the anger came from severe and persistent hyperglycemia, which is curable with the administration of insulin.

Unfortunately, beginning regular injections of insulin does not cure the long-standing effects of hyperglycemia immediately. In fact, the very action of insulin dropping my blood sugars to more acceptable levels (or even lower into the hypoglycemic range) also became an instigator for foul-tempered mood swings. After the first year of trying to live with Diabetes, I finally made the choice to leave my job in Vegas and move back to Eugene. I wanted to work at the pool with the people who I trusted would support me through the transition into my new insulin-dependent life. My greatest hope was to have the opportunity to learn how to manage and control my formidable glucose-influenced emotional rollercoaster in a safe and friendly environment.

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During the three years after Red sent the texts, I would also receive complaints from patrons about my behavior and attitude. At the time, I did not necessarily take all of the patron complaints seriously because I recognized many of them as coming from individuals who were associated with Red, either from his role as a swim instructor or as one of the swim coaches. I know for a fact Red encouraged one of his private lessons to write a letter of complaint about me, and to drop it off at the main office, because the early morning Building Supervisor, who was a good friend of mine, overheard Red and told me about it.

Yet, I still did not consider telling any of this to Fryer. My years of association with Fryer had taught me that it is seldom worth the backlash of bringing a problem to Fryer that bothers him, because he will only take his frustration out on the messenger, and rarely do anything to solve the root problem. I believed there was no point in telling Fryer about what was happening unless I told him the whole story about the texts (which I had foolishly erased), and tried to explain how Red made me feel by looking at me. I simply was incapable of breaking past the wall of silence I had constructed, or the feelings of shame and embarrassment, to complain about something that seemed so minor—until I was conclusively pushed into action by the impetus of being verbally assaulted by Red at work.

Dale Weigandt, the Park District Superintendent, ultimately became involved the day I had to sit upstairs with him and Fryer and be told about a nasty letter that had been sent anonymously to the main office accusing me of shouting at and attacking patrons and coworkers. I remember feeling horrified—and being absolutely positive that the letter had been written and sent by Red. Dale told me that he did not put much faith or credibility into anything said by someone anonymously, that he believed such people to be cowards, but that the problem of my behavior and attitude was becoming unacceptable.

If I were to be ambushed by this particular meeting again, as the person I am today and after having learned all that I have in the past three years, I would say to Dale and Fryer, “Why are you bringing this letter to my attention at all? If you give no credence to the cowardly rantings of a person not willing to share their name, then WHY are you sharing it with me?!? How can you possibly sit there trying to convince me that you have no assurances of the validity of an anonymous claim, yet you use it as a way to blame me for the very accusations that the anonymous letter is describing?!” But, as we all know, I was not smart enough, or brave enough, to stand up and speak out for my rights at that point in time. NOW, however, is a much different story!

I did not share my suspicions about the nascency of the anonymous letter to Dale or Fryer. It felt, at the time, as if it would simply turn into a session of ‘he said/she said’ and that is a particular game I have never had any interest in playing, with anyone, for any reason. I was smart enough, at the time, to instinctually know I would never have a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning that game. I may not have been able to articulate my instinct at the time, but I do believe the intervening years have since given me the ability to critically analyze and better understand the social construction of Sexism, which gradually became the dominant discrimination encasing my experiences at the pool concerning my invisible disability.

I can’t elucidate my reluctance to inform Fryer and Dale about my experiences with Red any further. Mostly what I remember is just wanting it to all go away. I didn’t want to talk about it, to think about it, to describe what had happened, or to somehow exasperate the situation even more. I did not believe that divulging my problem to Fryer would somehow help me. At the time I was worried that telling would simply make the situation worse. I did not want to confront Red. I just wanted him to leave me alone!

Life’s Unexpected Absurdities

On By ZephyrIn diabetes, Diabetic Complications, Diabetic Lifestyle, hospital visit, hypoglycemia, hypoglycemic event, insulin-dependence, invisible disability, Pool, Type 1 Diabetes, Type 1.5 Diabetes, Type LADA2 Comments

A few years ago, we had a lap simmer at the pool who wound up floating face down in the water and not moving. It was my responsibility to blow my whistle and alert everyone to the emergency and jump into the water and rescue her. I remember rolling her over onto her back and noticing how grey her face was. We pulled her out of the water and commenced to perform CPR.

I had a bitch of a time trying to open her airway enough to actually accomplish blowing air into her lungs. As my coworkers performed compressions on her chest and attached the AED pads, I struggled to lift her neck high enough and pull her head back to get some air into her lungs. I think at one point I managed to blow air into her stomach, but I am still doubtful to this day that I ever managed to get air into her lungs. We later learned that the emergency doctors at the hospital had diagnosed her as being “morbidly obese” and this was the reason for my inability to effectively administer oxygen.

Fryer was the scheduled Building Supervisor, but he was busy performing his ‘daily hot tub inspection’ in the sauna outside. He never heard my whistle. He had no idea we were in the middle of a medical crisis and needed all hands- on deck. Those of us who were working hard to try and save this woman’s life in a timely manner had to send one of the water exercise instructors outside to fetch Fryer.

Fryer later recalled what his first thoughts were when the woman we sent to get him stood in the doorway of the sauna; he almost said to her, “either get in, or close the door,” but she finally managed to tell him there was an emergency inside. According to Fryer’s recollection, he sighed and made his way into the building he was being paid to supervise. The first thing he saw was every one of his employee’s being paid to work down on the opposite end of the pool performing CPR upon a patron. Fryer finally began helping the team after the AED administered a shock, after 911 had been called, and after the pool deck was cleared of patrons. Essentially, Fryer was able to make his way over and help me try to pry open her airway in the hope of providing her with the optimal chance of survival by providing her system with oxygen. Even with his help the attempt was unsuccessful.

Fryer did participate in a round of compressions, but without wearing personal protective equipment, which can be viewed as superfluous, but anyone with experience providing healthcare in a First Responder’s role knows how much emphasis is put on the need to protect one’s self as paramount in any situation. I felt offended at the time watching Fryer, and another long-time employee, performing compressions without wearing gloves. Particularly after this other employee had pushed me aside in order to perform the compressions. I mentioned his lack of gloves, but he ignored me as all of his concentration was upon the task of performing the compressions.

We were busy wiping liquids and flecks of what were later identified as tapioca pudding from the patron’s mouth as we tried to open it wide enough to accept receiving oxygen. After all the years of feeling anxious being tested by Fryer for my skills of performing CPR, First Aid and rescue techniques, and the way he would hammer home the need to always wear gloves, I felt almost betrayed by noticing what was missing, but being ignored when I tried to point it out to my ‘superiors.’

Our patron lived. The paramedics arrived and took over and eventually escorted her to the hospital. I remember feeling embarrassed watching my boss, who loves to tout the necessity of looking “professional” to all the new lifeguards every summer, standing in his bathing suit and talking to the paramedics. My belief in the merits of professionalism has never been in accordance with Fryer’s application of the concept. A few months later the woman was back and swimming laps in the pool again, this time with a continuous glucose monitor stuck to the back of her arm. But, with all being said and done, we did our job and we did it well. Fryer included. I do, after all, believe he did everything he could to the best of his ability.

My story does not end there, though.

My story continues with the next day finding me coming home after work and curling up in my chair to take a short nap. That short nap turned into a nightmare ending with me being in the emergency room until two in the morning.

My housemate came home a few hours after I sat in the chair to find me incoherent and mumbling. My memory is of having woken up hours later than I expected freezing in my chair and not being able to get up and grab my blanket. I remember my housemate walking in the room and asking me what was wrong. All I could manage was to try and tell him that I was cold and wanted the comforter from my bed (I remember trying to lift my arm to point towards my bedroom and failing). But he couldn’t understand me. He was smart enough to call the paramedics and I sat in my chair watching the blue and red flashing lights stop outside the window. It is the only time in my life (to this point) that I have had to have the paramedics called on me.

One of the paramedics rampaged my kitchen looking for carbohydrates they could feed me to help raise my blood sugar. To this day, I have no idea why he went into the cupboard and found the one hamburger bun someone had left behind from a barbeque the summer before. I cannot understand, for the life of me, why he did not hand me one of the three different kinds of granola bars I keep in the cupboard, or any of the dried fruit sitting next to the granola bars. Instead, the paramedic took the hamburger bun, an egg and a slice of cheese from the fridge, and then took the time to cook me a sandwich!

By this time, I had contacted a friend from work to give me a ride to the ER, and to alert someone I would not be going into work the next day. When she walked in through my kitchen door and saw the paramedic cooking an egg on my stove, she immediately recognized him and asked, “Hey! Want some bacon with that?”

That morning (yes, the morning of this exact same day), my friend had decided to cook some bacon for breakfast in her pajamas. Unfortunately, the smoke from her breakfast caused the smoke alarm to go off. Normally this is not a problem, and it wouldn’t have been this day also, but my friend failed to hear her cell phone ring when the alarm company called to check if the alarm was authentic or not. When the alarm company couldn’t reach my friend, they started calling her list of emergency contacts. The first two contacts didn’t answer for one reason or another. By the time the third person on the list was contacted, the alarm company had also dispatched the fire department.

My friend, having finished cooking the bacon and clearing most of the smoke out of her house, finally heard her phone ring. The third person on her emergency contact list had left work and was rushing to my friend’s home and calling with the desperate hope that it was all somehow a horrible mistake. Luckily the third contact was able to turn around and head back to work, but, as my friend laughed on the phone while standing in her smoky kitchen in her pajamas, she realized the sirens she heard in the distance coming closer were coming for her.

She managed to throw on her robe and meet the first responders at her front door. After she apologized for causing such a fuss by taking the time to cook bacon for breakfast, my friend offered the firemen some of her bacon. She went back inside to her kitchen only to confront both of her cats on the counter eating the last of the bacon.

We sat in my living room laughing about the absurdity of life as we all waited for my blood sugars to rise and stabilize. My friend finally took me to the hospital and stayed with me until the doctor cleared me. A simple hypoglycemic event such as mine (even though anything so serious should not be hallmarked as simple) should not have kept me in the ER for more than a couple of hours, but this trip was accompanied by an irregular heart rhythm that needed to be monitored. All I really remember from the night was having my friend continuously bring me new blankets from the dryer down the hall because I was so incredibly fricking cold!

Diabetes affects me in very unpredictable ways. It is only recently I have even begun to comprehend how strongly stress can affect my ability to manage my disease. The stress of saving a woman’s life the day before was enough to send me into a cascade event culminating in the need for paramedics to intervene. I am becoming better at learning how to manage my diabetes and maintain my health as much as possible, despite the stressful curve balls life enjoys hurling at me. It is a relief to know that a monumental element within my life, which used to contribute to my increased levels of stress, has finally been eradicated. I am quite positive that walking away from the pool has increased my expected lifespan by a couple of years. I am extremely grateful to be in a position where my health and well-being are the driving force behind my days, from the moment I wake up to the moment I close my eyes in exhaustion.

Discrimination is a ‘Bitch’

On By ZephyrIn diabetes, Diabetic Lifestyle, disability discrimination, gender discrimination, invisible disability, Liberation, Pool, sexual harassment, Type 1 Diabetes, Type 1.5 Diabetes, Type LADALeave a comment

Every three months I see my doctor concerning my diabetes. During my visits we talk about any questions or concerns I may have, we try to analyze the data downloaded from my pump, we determine new strategies to be incorporated in my management techniques, and we end up chatting about my job at the pool. The other morning, I told her I quit my job and her face lit up with pleasure. Most of our meeting was spent talking about the issue of discrimination and how it tends to infiltrate our daily experiences without challenge.  Over the past year, my doctor and I have had many conversations regarding my attempts to inform Fryer and the Park District about my emotional and behavioral disability, while still having to mitigate the effects of simply being female and labeled as a ‘bitch.’

But first I want to share my good news — my A1c was 7.6, which is amazing!

Back in May, my A1c was 7.6, but that was after a hard year of dragging it down from a 9.2, and my intention was to bring it down even lower. By August I had succeeded in dropping to a 7.2, and I was anticipating a 6.8 today because of the incredibly stable glucose levels I have sustained for the past three months. My first reaction to seeing the 7.6 was to groan and feel slightly dejected, but I have learned in the past ten years to not take a number seriously. After all, it is only a number. A basic lesson I have cultivated while living my diabetic experience is that numbers are capricious, with the only constant being that the good numbers will come, and then go with no explanation.

After analyzing the data retrieved from my pump, listing all the blood sugar levels that have been entered for the past month, my doctor was able to determine that my debilitating early morning and afternoon lows seem to have finally disappeared. The rest of my numbers were in a steady range between 100-200. My A1c had increased because I was actually healthier than I had been when my A1c was lower three months ago! Tricky, tricky Diabetes!

When I explained what had happened at the pool leading to my decision to walk out, and how my diabetes had been a core factor in the incident, my doctor and I discussed the ways in which women are expected to behave in public. We talked about how easy it is for men to be disagreeable, unpleasant, or even straight up rude, and not be held accountable. Yet, as women, we are immediately labeled as ‘bitchy,’ ‘up-tight,’ or ‘unreasonable’ simply for behaving in a manner analogous to men. The ability, and willingness, to proscribe different values upon the exact same behavioral traits being expressed depending upon the sexual organs of a person’s physical body is GENDER DISCRIMINATION.

I suffered gender discrimination at the pool. Before this last summer started, I wrote a letter to Fryer explaining one of my ‘reasonable requests’ under the Americans with Disabilities Act was to begin my shifts at the exact same time every morning. This one action has been huge in helping me to manage my glucose levels and is directly relevant to my lower A1c. I informed Fryer of the letter in advance, and that I would be including a letter from my doctor as confirmation of my disability. I asked him if there was any specific information he would appreciate being included in my doctor’s letter, and his answer was to tell me that he simply didn’t want to receive a letter that gave me “carte blanche to act like a bitch.” HIS COMMENT WAS GENDER DISCRIMINATION. 

Back when I first began to understand how many of the ‘problems’ Fryer was blaming me for, in terms of my ‘attitude,’ were actually caused by fluctuations in my blood sugar that were detrimentally affecting my personality, I attempted to educate Fryer and Dale about this new insight into my disease, and how it affected me. I tried to make an analogy to Fryer’s well-known bad-tempered moods, which have culminated in full-blown tantrums where Fryer has had to be avoided at work because of the backlash. When I pointed out Fryer’s own personally disruptive and troublesome moods (that are not the result of a dysfunctional endocrine system) his immediate response was to label his moods as being a result of times when he is “focused.” THIS DISTINCTION IN LABELS IS GENDER DISCRIMINATION.

It is unfair, and illegal, for the pool to hold me accountable for displaying behavioral traits that are exhibited by other members of the workforce (especially by my male boss), but to only hold me accountable, and to consistently reprimand me for not changing my ‘attitude’ — especially considering that my unacceptable behavioral traits are a direct result of the stress and anxiety I have been experiencing at work because of being sexually harassed, and retaliated against, during the past six years. My ‘attitude’ has been a direct consequence of my disability created by diabetes and the hostile work environment Fryer helped to create by marginalizing me. The Park District’s continued unwillingness to change their ‘attitude’ towards me, and for continuing to blame me for being diabetic is DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION mixed with GENDER DISCRIMINATION.

This is why I quit the pool. I had enough. I was no longer willing to participate in my own suffering by allowing them the opportunity to continue discriminating against me because I am a diabetic female.

The Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines state that it is “illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.” During my meeting with Fryer and Dale at the end of the summer in 2017, I was given an ultimatum to either quit my job (and receive a good reference from Fryer) or remain employed at the pool under the condition that one more complaint would result in immediate termination of my employment. I chose to remain because I was not prepared to be unemployed, but I wanted to make sure that my bosses were aware of the difficult relations I was having with one of the water exercise instructors at the time, so if she were to make a complaint, at least it wouldn’t be coming out of the dark. When I told Fryer about my difficulty getting along with Jakki, Fryer simply replied, “Well, if she has a problem then she can pull up her big girl pants and deal with it.” That statement, in those circumstances, was extremely offensive to me as a woman. Especially considering the fact that the complaint made against me, resulting in the ultimatum, had come from a man at work who wasn’t even in the same department as me. I wanted to demand why John in Maintenance was not told to “pull up [his big boy] pants and deal with it.” Instead, I was still under the belief that I was required to respect the authority my bosses held over me, so I let the offensive comment go without challenge.

Research shows that service-based industries, in which employees rely on customer approval, can breed an environment of harassment, but 73% of sexually harassed women never report incidences because:

“If you do come forward, you’ll be labeled a ‘troublemaker’ or a ‘bitch.’ More importantly, you won’t be believed.”

—Gretchen Carlson, former Fox News Channel host filing a sexual harassment suit against Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes in 2016

Men most often have the power to determine if an organization will prevent and treat sexual harassment—or allow it to spread. I believe the same statement is true concerning gender discrimination. After all, sexual harassment is nothing more than the recognizable face of discrimination against a woman for being a woman in a man’s world. Women who deviate from the gender norms attributed to them by exhibiting traditionally masculine personality traits, or who simply are employed in supervisory roles, are especially likely to experience harassment in their work environment. This was true in my case, at least.

When men are competent they are perceived as being forceful. Women who display the same traits of competence are conversely seen as being aggressive. I was a victim of this particular brand of discrimination based upon my gender. My prominent personality traits, which include my tendency to be assertive and refuse the arbitrary roles expected of me by society in general, allowed my coworkers and bosses to label me as being ‘bitchy.’ I was given less latitude in being able to ‘get away with’ similar types of rude behavior that Fryer, and other men I worked with, were commonly known for exhibiting.

This is where the intersection of racial discrimination joins in making a rather special case out of my experiences. Despite the Civil Rights’ Movement, and educational gains within the black community, many black women still struggle to overcome stereotypes that paint them as ‘aggressive’ or ‘difficult to work with.’ Many black women who are immersed within a mostly white, male-dominated setting (such as my employment status at the Park District) will find themselves assigned with the stereotype of being the ‘angry black woman’ simply because of our intelligence, our out-spoken-ness, and the confidence we have in our skills and capacities.

My experiences, and struggles, at the pool have taught me to recognize how my diabetes affects me. I am now capable of explaining these traits to my next employer. I wish my previous employer had felt enough respect for me to listen more and learn with me over the years. I wish I didn’t have to walk out on my friends. I wish the world was a fair place to live in. I wish women didn’t have to struggle with being called a ‘bitch.’

But wishes are like farts. At worst, they stink and then dissipate. At best, they simply go unnoticed.

Thoughtful Reflections

On By ZephyrIn diabetes, Diabetic Lifestyle, disability discrimination, invisible disability, Pool, sexual harassment, Type 1 Diabetes, Type LADA, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I had an entirely different post written and edited ready to be published. I was going to make some final touches this morning when I went out for coffee, but I forgot my flash drive.  When I finally got around to grabbing a beer with my dinner and publish, I forgot my flash drive. Again.

So. This is what I started writing this morning and what I am finishing right now with the last of my beer (a bitter at Falling Sky, in case you’re interested).

Spending my time writing instead of working has been cathartic. I know my writing pretty much sucks at this point. I also know it is only my mother, and two or so random friends (with a couple of strangers added to the mix), who are the only people reading this crap. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to say Thank You! Even if this is the only post you have ever begun to read, and you have absolutely no intention of reading to the end, I still would like to Thank You!

I need this time to process and untangle the knot that has been residing in my heart for the past six years. Many of the friends I left behind at the pool never had the opportunity to know me without the influence of the knot of dread that has been harboring in my breast since I lost my friendship with Red. I wish I could have had more time to experience being the person I am, without the stress from harassment and the high blood sugars it causes, while working at the pool, but I know it would be of no use. The people working there believe they know who I am. They believe that the crabby, grumpy and unpredictable Sam is the real Sam I am. How can they possibly understand how much of my personality is hijacked when I am stressed, or hyperglycemic, or tired from managing my diabetes all night instead of sleeping, when I have only begun to understand how diabetes affects me for myself?

The stress derived from my encounter with sexual harassment resulted in my strenuous struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was never officially diagnosed because I never told anyone about what happened. I suffered in silence for years. I feel free now knowing I will no longer suffer, nor be silent, but that knowledge does nothing to erase the emotional knot I have been living with since I refused to have sex with Red. This knot has become an entity within myself. It can, at times, be a puppet master pulling at my emotional strings and causing me to behave in obstinate and cantankerous ways that are misperceived by those who don’t know me as being ‘bitchy.’ But, I am not a bitch.

I repeat, I am not a bitch. I am a strong-headed, loud mouthed, sarcastic, and fundamentally independent woman. I speak in a manner that is blunt and direct with no flowering or sugaring of words (after all, I am diabetic and don’t need any more unnecessary sugar in my life). My manner can be abrasive, offensive, and judgmental, but I never speak with the intention of causing harm. I may not be very nice most of the time, but I am always kind.

The problem is that my kindness is easily disguised, or hidden, by the puppet master crawling around in the dank safety of my heart’s infernal knot. This damn knot has been an insufferable curse I have never been able to truly escape, but, over the years, I have learned how to begin releasing the negativity infecting my heart’s true purpose born from the traumatic experience of harassment. I no longer blame Red. There is no need. I accepted long ago that blaming anyone is useless and more harmful to myself then to them. I was lucky enough to not leave the pool before I had the experience of knowing that I had healed from my trauma caused by Red’s actions.

On the same morning when I had my encounter with Amanda (which became the crucible of my decision to quit) I finally had an encounter with Red that was as calm, peaceful, and uneventful as the days before his solicitations for sex. Being able to speak with Red, to have him speak back respectfully, and feeling safe enough to hand him a pen to write with, proved to me beyond a doubt that whatever problems Amanda believed she had with me were of her own making, and existed within her own mind. What I had ‘done’ to upset her so much was more a consequence of her own emotional immaturity and past behavior. The maturity that evolved from my personal suffering over the years had already made its mark. My diabetes, however, that is an entirely different story, and the foundation upon which the Park District has been capable of marginalizing both me and the issues I brought to their attention.

Red — the Text

On By ZephyrIn Pool, sexual harassment2 Comments

On a normal work day at the pool six years ago, while sitting in the back office waiting for my turn to rotate, Red came over and sat in the chair next to me while wearing his street clothes before heading home. He was struggling with his second divorce and had been dealing with his situation in unhealthy ways. Several other employees believed he was spending a majority of his time inebriated and worried about his safety while riding his motorcycle at night. On a different day, while we were working a shift together, Red told me about getting drunk over the weekend and taking a sledgehammer to a wall in his house he had tiled into a mosaic for his wife. They were still married at the time of this incident, but Red was living in his trailer. It was during this time when one of the Building Supervisors also suspected Red of selling weed to a younger male lifeguard on staff.

“I am strongly attracted to you and I was wondering if you would like to be more than friends.”

After he spoke, I immediately felt trapped by Red’s body position, which effectively put me in the corner between the wall, the counter, and Red himself. I felt distinctly perturbed knowing that if I were to try and move away, I would not be able to pass Red without touching him. Wearing my uniform exposed my thighs and cleavage more than I am comfortable exposing in public when I wear my own clothes. The extreme vulnerability I experienced while feeling exposed and trapped became instantly entangled with the combined emotions of disgust, resentment, and anger, which consequently became devastating for my psyche and emotional well-being over the next six years. The closest Red had even come to asking me out on a date was a month earlier when he had casually mentioned taking me out to lunch one day, then never mentioned it again.

I looked into Red’s eyes. They were glassy, but they were also the eyes of a friend I had trusted and confided in for the past three years. I had sought this man’s counsel and advice concerning my own recent trauma from an emotionally abusive relationship I had remained too long involved with because of the love I felt for the man’s three-year-old daughter. Red was a friend I had been grateful to share many personal issues with over the past few years.

My fist instinct was to use a response that would not cause further harm to Red’s feelings. I knew he was in pain. I knew he was suffering from his divorce, and I believed his pain was affecting his judgement. I believed Red was reaching out blindly for comfort and not truly aware of the line he was crossing with his behavior. I wanted to spare him the embarrassment I was sure he would feel as soon as he sobered up enough to realize what he had said.

“Thank you, but I only want to be friends. I appreciate you telling me how you feel. It means a lot to me.”

I felt relieved when he seemed to accept my answer, but then he turned to me and asked, “do you feel the attraction?” Unfortunately, I interpreted his question to be asking me if I had felt his attraction to me. I told him “yes,” but it was a couple weeks later before I finally realized he had been asking if I felt attracted to him. A few days before this moment, I had hosted a potluck for a group of coworkers at my house and ended up feeling profoundly uncomfortable around Red because of the way he intensely stared at me with his glassy eyes. I consciously spent that evening, in my own kitchen, doing what I could to persistently keep someone else between us.

Again, Red seemed to accept my answer and I was relieved to think the situation was over, but, a few weeks later, we had the work Christmas party at a bowling alley, and I had to leave early because of the acute discomfort I felt in Red’s presence that night. I remember the intensity of his stare, the way he would focus on me in the crowded room. I wanted to play air hockey at one point, but Red was the only person who would play. I had fun, because it was air hockey, but I felt so remarkably awkward because of his undeterred attention. After the game ended, my friend Paige asked me why Red had been acting weird while we played. I told her what had happened in the back office and how it made me feel. Paige asked me what my plan was for responding to the situation. We talked about Red’s obvious drinking, and all the other various manifestations of his emotional turmoil, and Paige agreed that my idea to simply stay away from Red, and give him the time and space necessary to pull his life back together, was sufficient.

Paige agreed to leave the party and drive me home early because of Red’s proximity and increasingly erratic behavior at the bowling alley. During the drive home, Paige and I discussed how inappropriate the situation was, not only because of Red still technically being married, but because he is old enough to be my father. I am, in fact, closer to the age of his children then I am to him. This was the only time in my life when a man who is distinctly my elder has ever made such a strong pass at me. I did not know how to politely tell him to leave me alone. The worst he had done at this point was to look at me and tell me how he felt. I believed, at the time, that he was doing nothing wrong, but that I was simply having a hard time dealing with his affection. I can recognize now how I had internalized my role as a passive female who is intent on not hurting a man’s feelings. Especially a man who is in a position of authority, such as Red was, by his age and his role as a Building Supervisor at work.

The next morning, I received a text from Red. At first, I was simply angry he had sent me a text and woken me up at 6:30 in the morning on the one morning of the week when I didn’t have to get up to go to work. Then, I read the text:

Invite me over. I want to show you how a real man pleases a beautiful woman. I want to please you the way you deserve. Let me show you how good I can be. I do bite.

From the instant I read his words I was consumed by a wave of stifling anger and deep disgust, not only for the implication I would be so easily interested in having sex with him, but for the absolute sense of betrayal and disrespect I suffered in the process of reading his text. I immediately erased the text before going back to sleep. I absolutely believed Red had gotten so stinking drunk after the work party that he sent the text unaware of what he was even doing. I wanted no evidence to the fact the text ever existed! It never remotely occurred to me that I might need to save the text, or that the situation would escalate. I believed the best thing to do was ignore the text, pretend like it never happened, and allow Red the opportunity to recover his dignity without further embarrassment for either of us.

*Pause*Breathe*Reflect*

On By ZephyrIn diabetes, Education, Pool1 Comment

Day 7

I feel no doubt. I am not sad. The guilt is minimal and underwhelming. The anger no longer bubbles to the surface with ease. I regret not seeing my friends, and the awkward position my actions may have put them in.

But, I do not regret walking out of my job one week ago. It was the right choice. It was healthy, self-serving, liberating, and the most ethical choice I could make at the time. I conducted myself with dignity and integrity. Even though I knew my actions would cause harm I was never, at any moment, intent on hurting anyone. I don’t know if that makes a difference for anyone else, but I feel comfortable with my belief that it makes all the difference for me.

This blog has become my full-time job in the past seven days. I wake up in the morning, putz around the house or watch a movie, and then I go out into the world to sit among the public and write the post to be published for that day. I’m actually quite sick of this routine already. My posts this week have become erratic and rather pedantic for my taste. Each post has been a reaction to my action of walking away from the pool. I either sit at Townshend’s, Falling Sky, or The Wandering Goat typing my post for the day and publishing it immediately. This technique was helpful at first. It allowed me to spend the daylight hours of my first week being unemployed feeling as if I were accomplishing something significant. But, let’s be honest, that’s bullsh*t.

Being able to purge my thoughts and feelings into a post written and edited thirty seconds before publication was constructive because it helped to organize my thoughts into a narrative. I now have an idea of how my story should be told. I realized with my post last night that I want to put more thought and time into telling my story. I want to have more reflection upon all the interconnected elements of my experience as I write about them. I want to decrease the amount of reactive emotion being incorporated in my writing, and instead learn to focus my storytelling on the issues of disability discrimination, gender, race, sexual harassment, hostile work environments, obsolete administrative structures, effective communication, retaliation, rampant rumormongering, and the harmful damage caused by the process of labeling others as ‘different.’ These are the issues that I struggled to learn how to recognize within my experiences at the pool, but they are not the only issues I am concerned with in our society.

A decade of living with diabetes, instead of building a career in education, has given me the unprecedented ability to step back from everything I know about our society, and truly begin to understand what it is I want to educate our young about how to survive within our society. Survival for the human species, and planet Earth, will depend upon a shift in global attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. If we continue to live the way we are currently, then we will kill all life as we know to exist. I want to teach kids how to change their world by modeling for them how I change my world everyday. They will need to deeply understand the concepts of community resilience, local government, sustainability, reduction of consumption, a renewable energy-based economy, collaberation and cooperation, as well as conflict resolution skills, which are all woefully neglected within the pedagogy and currriculum of our nation’s public education system. I want to use public education as a vehicle for helping students to create a global community built upon the values of self-sacrifice, stewardship, and civic duty.

These ideas are too big for me to write about while drinking a pint, or three, of beer at the deli. So, this is my last post to be written in public and published immediately. I had an image in my mind of writing everyday and telling my story in pieces, but the strain of keeping my thoughts flowing in a linear stream to make each post directly connect to the next is not working for me. Instead, my story is simply going to come out in random chunks. Each day will still be met with a published post, but each post will no longer be an attempt to tell my narrative in a linear fashion. I will be jumping from chapter to chapter of my life, telling the stories I have accumulated over the years of experience I have lived through.

My plan (for now) is to label each relevant story under the category of either Education, Diabetes, or Pool. That way, those interested in reading my stories can choose which narrative to follow. I think this may work. I have high hopes. *shrug*

Otherwise, my daily posts are going to be random stories from over the years that may actually have nothing to do with my disease, my time at the pool, or my convictions about public education (I have climbing stories up the wazoo!). The only thing connecting all the various narratives will be the simple fact they all happened to me at some point in my life. That is, after all, what this blog is ultimately about: me. 

Thank you for taking the time to read my blatherings. I appreciate the support and love your action of reading provides me!