Author: Marie Billiel Jou

Food please. Travel please. Language please. New things please.

What’s in a name?

On By Marie Billiel JouIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Last month I received a comment from someone named Tara Kroes, the writer of The Traveling Waitress, letting me know that I was unintentionally stepping on her toes with the name of my blog, Adventures of a World-Traveling Waitress.

In truth, I was defensive. How could I change the name of the blog in which I had poured myself so openly and explicitly? But as much as I tried to ignore it, something Tara pointed out nagged at me: Adventures of a World-Traveling Waitress doesn’t really describe the content of this blog anymore. It has been over year since I have traveled; it has been at least two since I have written about it.  It was a bitter pill to swallow, but I am no longer a world-traveling waitress. I am a cafe manager who writes brutally honest pieces as a form of unapologetic feminist activism. I am a 20-something woman trying to reconcile an unstable upbringing by smashing stigmas about mental illness.  The light-heartedness of “World-Traveling Waitress” doesn’t suit me any longer.

So, then. What does?

 

Help me decide!

He Loves You in his Own Way. (Part 1)

On By Marie Billiel JouIn absent fathers, death, family, fathers, grief, grieving, parents1 Comment

Scene:

Baystate Medical Center, July 2014

I am having trouble meeting the gaze of the doctors as they tell me what I already know: my father is as good as dead. I study my hands, hoping that I am adequately playing the part of Distraught Daughter.

The truth is that I had made my decision before I even found myself in that too-bright conference room. Still, I politely listen as these strangers in lab coats detail my father’s drunken fall, the neighbors finding him the next morning, and his helicopter flight to the hospital. Doctors detail his head injury and spew trivia and percentages to which I am numb. As they subtly urge me to end what’s left of my father’s now-robotic life, I feel certain that they can’t imagine the complexities this situation presents to an estranged daughter who has crossed an ocean solely to do so.

“He is gone,” they reassure me.

But he has always been gone.

The doctors take their leave and I find myself looking into my uncle’s fatigued face. He is worn from pacing the hospital corridors, waiting for a niece whom he does not know, and listening to the mechanical beat of his brother’s heart monitor.

“You know what my choice is, right?” I ask carefully.

“I should hope so!” he says a bit too quickly, before trying to console me, “This is just a tragic accident. I don’t believe that he was drunk. It doesn’t make sense. We all know your father had a drinking problem, but even if he was drinking the night before, he was fine! The coffee pot was on so he was probably running across the street to the store and he fell!”

When I don’t respond he again emphasizes, “This is just a really tragic accident.”

I let out a long sigh and turn away from my uncle’s ashen face. His voice, identical to my father’s in its cadence and tone, seeps through my skin and sits like a stone in my stomach.

More urgently now, “Your father was a good man. If he had nothing but a piece of bread for himself, he would have broken it in half and given it to a stranger.”

I turn to him and try to keep the bile from my words: “Oh yeah? And what did he give to his daughter?”

As I leave the hospital I glance into his room once more.
I do not know this man.

Jack and Amber

On By Marie Billiel JouIn abuse, child abuse, crowdsourcing, gofundme, helpLeave a comment

Hey everyone.

Maybe you’ve read my post from yesterday Jack about my friend’s 7 year old son who was admitted to the hospital after his father abused him to the point of falling into a coma. If you haven’t, please do. It is a very serious case and has made the local news.

I have set up a donation site to assist Amber with any costs relating to legal and medical expenses, as well as transportation and childcare for her daughter associated with driving nearly 2 1/2 hours to visit Jack on a daily basis. If you cannot give, please share.

Thank you.

Jack

On By Marie Billiel JouIn abuse, child abuse, content warning, trigger warning2 Comments

I have been dying for something to write lately. I’ve had posts slowly forming in my head, being forgotten and then rewritten before they ever make it to paper. Although I have ideas, nothing has yet compelled me to the point of settling in and writing it out. That is, until this week, when something has happened that is so devastating to me that I need to write so that I can attempt purge the sickness from my heart.

I knew a girl once. Her name was Amber. Her hair was short and she wore children’s barrettes to keep her ponytail in place. Her hair was dyed red and it clashed with the long sleeve button-down shirt that was the uniform of the restaurant where we worked.  She was visibly pregnant and entering her second trimester. She would become, for a time, one of my dearest friends.

We bonded quickly; I gave her a ride home one night and we stopped for snacks along the way. The same week we stayed up late together and visited my boyfriend on his overnight shift at the Whately Diner. We became regulars here; routinely monopolizing the jukeboxes, our laughter echoing off the steel walls.

But there was another routine too; this one less joyful and carefree than our gleeful late night rides. Randy, Amber’s boyfriend, took issue with our outings. Once, while we were driving to my apartment, he called and demanded to know where we were. Unsurprisingly, he did not believe that we were simply en route to Sunderland. Citing my radio in the background, he insisted that we must be in a nightclub and demanded to know where. When he and Amber got off the phone, he called her back. He continued to call her for the next ten minutes until she shut off her phone. Then he moved on to calling my phone until I was also forced to power it down. This happened multiple times.

I remember one morning, as I was waking up at my boyfriend’s house in Turners Falls, Amber called me, frantically crying and begging me to come get her from her apartment in Greenfield. I rushed over to find that she was trapped in her bedroom, Randy cursing at her on the other side of the door. I called the police, who told us that they had no power to make him leave the house, as they were both subletting and neither was on the lease. This happened at least twice more.

Although Amber officially ended her relationship with Randy, she had no choice but to let him continue living with her. When I went to her apartment I found poorly-written letters from him, promising her that he wanted to work it out and this wouldn’t happen again. When she was at work he would sit on the bench outside the restaurant, staring into the windows, waiting for her to get out.

In December, a month before her son was born, Amber left Greenfield and moved back in with her mother in Central Massachusetts. A few months later Randy contacted her, threatening to gain custody of his son, whom he called by the incorrect name.

My relationship with Amber has been spotty since she moved. We have reunited, we have fought, and we have lost touch. It had been nearly a year since we last spoke. But out of the blue, she messaged me: “I wish you were here.”

It has been a week since then, and in that time my heart has sunk deeper every day. On Wednesday she told me that her son was in the hospital. She told me that he has been in Randy’s custody, by her mother’s doing, and that she had been refused her visit the previous weekend. On Thursday she sent me a picture of him in the hospital, full of tubes, unconscious and unresponsive. On Friday I learned that his kidneys were failing when he was initially admitted to the hospital and we touched, though could not bear to address, that he may not make it.

I have not seen this boy since he was three years old, and I have not touched him since he was an infant, but my heart is broken. Today Amber’s story made the news, and the details have repeatedly made me tearful and nauseous.

According to court documents, doctors found the child was suffering from “starvation and dehydration” and had become unresponsive as a result. A state police report indicates the boy’s injuries are “life threatening.”

A police report states that the little boy also had suffered bruises to his forehead and jaw, which Mr. Lints allegedly said were caused by a fall from the child’s bed, something doctors determined wouldn’t have caused such injuries. The boy also had what are believed to be bleach burns on his hands and knees.

The police report indicates that the child was rarely out of his father’s sight and that there is a history of Randall Lints limiting “consumption of food and liquids,” which is an issue that had been addressed by a therapist in May.

—Worcester Telegram

I don’t know what to say. How do these things happen? DCF placed him in Randall Lints’s care; why doesn’t the system work?

I don’t have a point. I don’t have an empowering ending. I have only sadness right now. Send Amber your love and support. My god, she needs it.

Update 7/24: Jack Loiselle remains in a coma, but is subtly responding to stimuli. The media has picked up his story as well, demanding answers for DCF’s gross negligence. I have set up a donation site to assist Amber and her family with any accrued medical and legal costs:Please help if you can.

It Never Stops

On By Marie Billiel JouIn 86 your dumb jerk face, dickhead, feminism, healing, I know what I'm talking about, i need a new tag now that my love life is good, oh snap human nature, personal, Uncategorized, waitress rant, work2 Comments

Two things happened this month.

Two things happened  that reminded me that as much as I speak out, as much as I push back, as much as I try to stand my ground, my body does not belong to me. Indeed, my desires are often irrelevant and my pleasure decided for me. It seems I was created for consumption.

Unsurprisingly, one of these things happened at my job. The restaurant industry continues to be very successful in reminding women that we are mere objects to lust after and harass while breeding men to perpetuate this construct. The restaurant at which I work currently is one of the safest places I’ve been employed. Still, it has its flaws, and it is no exception to the standard Kitchen Culture, despite the owners’ best efforts.

I was confronted by one of the cooks in April. He glared at me out of the corner of his eye as he hunched his gaunt frame over itself to tie his shoe.

“So you’d really never go out with me?” he spat impatiently, as though this was a discussion we’d been having for hours.

“What?” I asked, taken aback.

Chris continued his rant bitterly, explaining that he had asked around regarding the state of my romantic life and found displeasure in the results. I stood by and mumbled an apology to his rhetoric.

This interaction marred our relationship, which had previously been friendly, if a bit superficial. As his vitriol refused to wane, so did my discomfort. I was frustrated, not only by being the recipient of such unwarranted venom simply for having a life and relationships outside of my workplace, but by Chris’s manner of ascertaining the details of my life. Never did he speak to me about my feelings or ideas or aspirations or experiences. To him, I was not a sentient being, but a plaything that belonged to someone else.

Over the course of the next few weeks his anger did not subside; it reared its head when I checked my phone for texts or mentioned Matthew near him. But as Chris’s resentment refused to wane, so too did his unwelcome advances. For every scowl there was a plea: “I’ll be good to you. Come on. I’ll treat you right.” The irony was lost on him.

Soon his words and glances no longer satisfied him. One day he came up behind me and begged in earnest for me to allow him to grab my hips. His hands pinched the air as I quickly moved away and gave him a sharp, impatient, “No!” Not long after this incident I found myself trapped by the ice machine as he rubbed his ass on my waitressing apron to the beat of the song playing in the cafe. My threats were immediate and fierce. Still, as he ran to the other side of the kitchen, I was left alone by that ice machine, overtaken by my sense of powerlessness to these situations.

 

*

 

Last week I woke up next to my boyfriend. In the dim morning light our still-sleepy hands found each other’s bodies as we kissed the night from our lips. Slowly, but not without certainty, Matthew worked his way from my mouth, to my neck, to my breasts, and continued downward.

“No, babe. Not now,” I whispered.

“Why?”

Annoyed: “I don’t need to give you a reason.”

He looked hurt. Still, it was too early to have an in depth discussion about consent. I relented:

“Because I haven’t showered, I need to shave, and I don’t feel sexy right now.”

“That’s the reason?” He was skeptical. But after a pause, “I just wanted you to communicate with me, Marie.”

“I don’t need to communicate that to you! I don’t have to fucking explain why I’m saying no!”

Matthew rolled over, taken aback by my sudden fury. I sat for a moment, aware that his questioning stemmed from a place of naivete and not one of dominance or ill will.  I knew his eagerness and commitment to my pleasure and that this situation, poorly handled as it may have been, was a result of that. I sighed, softening a bit, as my hand traced the the curve of his back.

“Babe, listen. Here is my typical day:

I go to work, where I get harassed. I am leered at all day by my some of my coworkers. Then, I walk down the street and get catcalled and harassed in Central Square in Cambridge. Isn’t this supposed to be some sort of fucking liberal bastion?

Next, I go home, and my own boyfriend doesn’t want to take no for an answer. Tell me: when do I get to have autonomy over my own body? When?!”

He turned to me, his brown eyes wide and intense, “You do!”

“Do I? Then why should your desires override my consent to my body?”

Pause.

Regret filled his eyes and his apologies were the heartfelt words of someone who has gained new understanding. He laced his fingers through mine as he voiced his last concern, “But babe, that stuff about work? I thought that had stopped.”

It wasn’t often that I spoke to him of the harassment I encountered at work and on the street. The days I came to him, sputtering stories of encounters I had, were the days that I had reached the end of my patience and could no longer ignore it.

“No, Matthew, it never stops.”

 

 

—

Apparently I’m writing a series on sexual harassment. Bummer.

Related:

Fea

Tales from the Diner

Kitchen Culture: Why I won’t Stop Talking about the Route 9 Diner

 

 

 

An Open Letter to Lindsey Stirling

On By Marie Billiel JouIn healing, health, I know what I'm talking about, melancholy, oh snap human nature13 Comments

Hey Lindsey-

I have a bone to pick with you.

Last week you came to Boston and I was fortunate enough to see you at the Blue Hills Pavilion. I have been listening to your music for the last few years and I have been hooked ever since the first song I heard. Your show was beautiful. Sharing your music with some of my closest friends and my very musically-inclined boyfriend satisfied me in a way that not much else can. But the truth is that you said some things that truly marred the evening for me and I haven’t yet let it go.

Towards the end of your set you put down your violin for a heart to heart with the audience. You spoke of how you are often complimented on staying so true to yourself and not being afraid to do so. You confided that you have not always been this way and that you suffered a bout of depression. I wish you had stopped there.

You see, when you continued on to say you were self-absorbed as a depressed person and that you simply had to change your mind, you stopped being helpful. I could no longer identify with you because I was instead disappointed and somewhat insulted. I believe you when you say that you practiced changing your frame of mind the same way you practiced your arpeggios worked for you, and I am truly glad for you. But please don’t make the mistake of thinking that it is that simple for everyone.

I have now been aware of my depression for over a decade, though I suspect it was present even in my childhood. I am as well-versed as anybody could be in the routines of self-care. I try to sleep well, eat well, hydrate, do things that make me feel good, enjoy the sunshine, etc. But the fact of the matter is that sometimes none of these things work and sometimes I am simply not capable of doing any of them. I promise you that if I could think my way out of depression I would have done so many years ago. Instead, I am left hoping to be functional at best and proud of myself when I go a full two weeks without randomly considering suicide. This is an illness; it cannot always be walked off.

Please know that I do not intend to one up any experiences you have had; depression doesn’t behave the same for everybody. But this is the point that I am trying to make: your experience is not universal. As you must be aware, there is a certain stigma that people who are mentally ill must battle. It is a kind of illness that is not widely understood and often gets brushed off in ways that are harmful – frequently by people who are close to us. We are often misunderstood as lazy or flaky or self-absorbed when we are simply not as able as an average person. It is not about choice; it is about capability. 

Your music has become my go-to writing music and I have written countless blog posts and letters while listening to it. II believe I understand very clearly the emotional messages conveyed in your music that you described to us last Saturday. I understand the deep somber beginnings and the crescendos of hope. You have helped me and inspired me with the beauty of the pieces you have composed more than you could fathom. You have, in your own way, already saved me.

This is why I am asking you, Lindsey, not to insinuate that your experience is the same as mine or anybody else’s. Please do not speak as though you are the authority on depression and the way out. You have such a large audience to hear you; please do not reaffirm the stereotype that people with mental illness need only to think their way out of it and to try harder. Please do not blanket all of us with your statements while neglecting that we do not all feel the same things, we are not capable of the same things, and we do not all have the same resources.

I believe fully that your intentions are only good. When you are next on stage and sharing your struggle with your fans, tell them this:

“Depression is terrible.”

“It gets better.”

“You are worth it.”

Yours,

Marie Billiel

Here are some of my very, very favorite resources for helping people understand depression and its stigmas:

Adventures in Depression By Allie Brosh

What if People Treated Physical Illness Like Mental Illness? via HuffPost

Depression Quest By Zoe Quinn – This is about as real as it gets, folks

Fea

On By Marie Billiel JouIn feminism, healing, I know what I'm talking about, personal, waitress rant, work4 Comments

My sister turned seventeen today. I cannot imagine this girl, nine years my junior, reaching an age of such autonomy. I remember the days I was able to hold her in my weak 11-year-old arms. I remember taking her on ice cream dates when I got my first job. And as we grew, those intimate days faded into ones of distance, heartache, and angst. And now we exist on opposite sides of the state and I don’t call enough. I am wary of the intricacies and pitfalls that exist in our family dynamic and from Boston I wonder, “Have I taught her enough?”

I have been back from Israel for six months. I have settled down, as much as I am capable, in an apartment, in a job, and with a boy whom I love. Behind the scenes, the consequences of outing the Route 9 Diner have continued to play out. For the first time in years, I feel satisfied and sure.

But something happened last week:

I had been saying for months that I disliked the leer of one of the cooks at my new job.

“He’s harmless,” my manager told me.

“He’s lecherous,” I always readily responded.

And for months my manager was right. Or at least, we were both right.

In the last month, he stopped eyeing me and began speaking to me.

“Fea,” he’d say as I dropped off dishes out back.

“Fea,” as I collected silverware to be polished.

“Fea,” as I exited the restroom.

Fea, Fea, Fea, Fea.

As much as I disliked these unsolicited comments on my appearance, I accepted them as harmless and allowed him the liberty to continue making this joke although it was at my expense. I told him he was rude, he laughed, I left the kitchen. For weeks this persisted as background noise. But last week, the tone changed:

“Fea, you have Facebook?”

“Yup,” I prayed he wouldn’t send me a friend request.

“I see your Facebook,” he tells me.

“Yeah, you saw pictures of me and my novio?” A warning.

“You novio es feo!” he spat before offering his reassurance, “but you look good.”

At first I didn’t realize that he openly admitted to snooping through my Facebook photos in his spare time. And the truth is that I may have missed this entirely, had I not had a second encounter with him that day.

“Fea, get me a coca,” he told me after coming into the dining room at the end of his shift.

Unbothered, I acquiesced and bent down to reach into the fridge for his soda.

As I handed it to him he sauntered towards me and gently swatted the back of my thigh with the rag in his hand. “Estoy mirando,” he said quietly, “you’re beautiful.”

Taken aback, I mumbled a quick thank you, hoping he would leave.

I stood in stunned silence, angry and ashamed. For a moment I had been brought back to working at the Diner and felt powerless to the cook’s blatant harassment. I contemplated brushing off the moment and ignoring my discomfort.  I considered the repercussions that would be dealt to me in retaliation.  I feared reporting it to my managers and being brushed off; what if my habit of being so outspoken about matters of sexual harassment has backfired and I am not taken seriously because of my willingness to cite any instance?

I have spent the last six months calling on women to speak openly of their experiences with sexual harassment and assault. I have advocated for an end to silence, yet I still find myself gagged with the fear of the consequences of my voice. Someone is bound to notice I’m the common denominator in all these instances, I tell myself. But this is not true: the common denominator is this pervasive culture that this sort of behavior is not only tolerated, but acceptable. This is why we must break our silence.

Have I taught my sister enough? I don’t know. Even I fall victim to my own apprehensions and reticence. But we are in this together.

Keep speaking.

Keep listening.

Kitchen Culture: Why I won’t stop talking about the Route 9 Diner.

On By Marie Billiel JouIn feminism, healing, I know what I'm talking about, oh snap human nature, personal, waitress rant4 Comments

It seems like I hit a nerve.

In the months that have followed my publishing of Tales from the Diner, I’ve received more attention than I ever anticipated. As a writer, I feel satisfied; I got my 15 minutes of fame and all of the views and shares I could hope for. As a writer, I am proud and I am content. But this is not about me as a writer; this is about me as a victim of sexual harassment and assault. This is about the many women who have shared this experience, which is one that is unfortunately not limited to the Route 9 Diner.

There were three main responses to my post:

The first was one of gratefulness. I cannot begin to count the number of responses I received, not only from readers local to the Hadley area, but internationally, who thanked me for sharing my experience. I was contacted by many young women who worked at the diner after I had moved to Boston, retelling their own stories and thanking me for sharing mine. I have heard more accounts of restaurant sexual harassment from women around the country than I know how to stomach. Both men and women have thanked me for pulling back the curtain on the severity of what goes on behind kitchen doors at their favorite cafes, diners, and late-night burger spots. Their gratefulness is matched by my own; knowing that people are unaware and eager to hear our experiences and to make choices based on the information relieves me and encourages me to keep speaking. The stories we have to tell are important. We cannot be silent.

The second response was one of anger and resentment. For the most part, this reaction came to us from current employees, many of whom we witnessed enduring incidents on par with our own. Out of the 13 accounts that were written, three were taken down or left unpublished due to the current staff’s aggressive response. I had screenshots of my facebook account posted with commentary and I was slandered in a variety of places by staff members I’ve never met nor interacted with. My friends received harassing texts and facebook messages in response to their own accounts. Some of our former co-workers were bullied into dissociating with us.  We were told that we asked for the harassment and assaults and that the men who did it were only acting like our older brothers. The weeks that followed my coming out about the horrendous environment of sexual harassment and misogyny at the Route 9 Diner were difficult, but the truth is that the rabidity of these responses only solidified my stance that it was time to talk about what happened to us. There was no more room for silence.

The last kind of response I read was one of acceptance and complacency. For me, this is more disturbing than the blatant aggression of the Route 9 Diner staff. More than once I read a comment on a blog post or a news article citing “kitchen culture” as the reason for the abuse; “that’s just the restaurant industry.” Even now, as I tell my new employers the horror stories of the walk-in cooler, they nod gravely and remain grim but unsurprised. It’s easy to pass off the anger of my former coworkers as misguided or deluded, but the widespread acceptance of rampant sexual harassment and assault of female restaurant workers is egregiously problematic and inexcusable. It is this acceptance, this unspoken green-light, this established and unquestioned kitchen culture that is most disturbing to me. This is why I will keep speaking. This is why I will not be silent. This is a conversation that we need to have.

Speak. We are listening.

Tales from the Diner

On By Marie Billiel JouIn 86 your dumb jerk face, feminism, healing, I know what I'm talking about, oh snap human nature, personal, waitress rant, work93 Comments

I have a secret. I have kept it for years. It is the kind of secret that you don’t dare tell, if not for fear of the possible consequences, for fear that no one will listen. Both outcomes are unwelcome and damaging in their own right.

My friends and I have shared this secret and all its grisly details over eager sips of coffee after long overnight shifts, our voices heightened in our rage and our exhaustion. I had hurriedly whispered conversations with my coworkers during hasty smoke breaks and bathroom trips. These were girls with whom I had nothing in common – save our employment and our secret. Sometimes we exploded. Sometimes we wept.

It is not that I am weary from this business of silence; I have not broken. But I realize now that I have no reason to let my anger lie dormant. The injustice has become unpalatable.

For five years I worked at a popular all-night diner in Hadley, Massachusetts. For five years I was sexually harassed on a near-daily basis.

My introduction to this behavior was almost immediate. Within my first month, I found myself being yanked to the back room of the kitchen, towards the walk-in cooler. After a week of my soft-spoken refusals, Emilio, a cook nearly twice my 18 years, intensified his efforts. Like a predator, he waited until the midpoint of my overnight shift, when everybody else had gone home and my manager’s attention was held rapt by the late night tv reruns.

He strode out from behind the line, blocking the narrow path between the dishwasher and the refrigerator, “C’mon, baby. Let me give you a kiss.” It was not a suggestion.

His hand, which he had reached out in some semblance of an invitation, closed around my wrist. His grip tightened with every step I dragged my feet. His fingers were snakes: coiled and unyielding. I tried hurriedly to regain my strength and my voice as we neared the walk-in cooler.

Finally, with the space between me and the cooler reduced to only two feet, I found myself: “Fuck off!” I pulled away and raced out the backdoor of the kitchen where I was met with the few lingering tables in the dining room. I searched their faces, wondering if they had heard my shout. Their expressions remained unconcerned as they giggled drunkenly over their milkshakes. I am not sure if I was relieved.

I crossed the dining room towards the front of the restaurant, my hands still shaking behind my back. I found my manager’s body draped across the counter, her unwavering stare focused on the years-old show that filled the unpopular 3 am television slot. Her laughter came out in harsh cigarette-stained breaths.

“Emilio’s such an asshole,” I tried to sound casual, “he just dragged me to the walk-in to try to kiss me.”

“What a pig,”  Jessi scowled before turning her attention back to the tv.

I was relieved to find that the incident was passed on to the senior manager, Nikos. When I came into work the next evening he sat me down in the furthest booth and asked me to recount what happened. His brown eyes wandered as I repeated my story. When I was finished, he looked back to me and said, “Well, I really do apologize for that.” It was the same practiced line he used with unhappy customers. Still, I was grateful for the acknowledgement.

The owners never spoke to me regarding this, although I presume they witnessed everything when they checked the cameras’ footage from that night. Emilio continued working his shifts.

The truth is that there was such consistent harassment from the cooks that in the next few months it became background noise. I grew accustomed to being greeted by a chorus of “mmmmmmmmm” when I entered the kitchen, complete with licked lips and hungry stares. There were days that it was more bothersome than others. Some days the cooks would be angry and tell me, “no tienes tetas,” when I asked for my tables’ food. My days were so commonly punctuated by stares and sexual comments that I wrote it off as part of my job; it was just another bad tip or difficult customer. I spent shifts coaching a coworker on the many reasons she should leave her abusive boyfriend. I told her to stand up for herself and that there was no reason for her to endure the things she had. Then I walked over to the window to pick up my food, narrowly avoiding having my hand licked. There wasn’t so much as a flicker of awareness of my hypocrisy.

After a year of working there, I found myself in another precarious situation. I had graduated to daytime shifts and worked with many of the diner’s veterans. Carlos, who was at least 40, had taken an instant liking to me. “Hey precious…” he cooed when I arrived in the morning. “For you? Oh yes, anything!” he simpered when I asked him a question. I told myself that if I regarded his flirting as being harmless, it could only be harmless. I was too new to the shift to realize that he was purposely doing this in front of the waitress he was sleeping with.

One day, Carlos followed me into the walk-in cooler and set his gaze firmly on my lips as he approached me. I could hear the prep cooks snickering outside as they turned the lights off.

Then on.

Then off.

Carlos stood between me and the door. “Can I bite your dimples? I love your dimples, Maria.”

I declined nervously, his pockmarked face only inches from me.

I didn’t tell anybody immediately. Part of my assimilation into life at the diner had been realizing and accepting that things like being trapped in the walk-in sometimes just happen. When I mentioned it to Jessi and Nikos they seemed unfazed. At the moment it seemed that anything regarding Carlos was deemed as part of his relationship drama, of which I had unwittingly become a part. Days later I was asked, “If you don’t like Carlos, why did you grab his dick?” I had no idea where that rumor started. No one was interested in what happened to me. Carlos was not punished.

Eventually in my tenure I became less complacent.

On my 21st birthday I reluctantly agreed to work the 6am shift for Yael, the head waitress and my neighbor. I was greeted warmly by Marcos, Yael’s husband, who was cooking that morning. He congratulated me as his arm found its way around my shoulder, pulling me in for a hug. I reciprocated unenthusiastically. As I tried to release the embrace he pulled me closer. He relinquished his hold only when his lips had found my neck, leaving a trace of saliva that I could not unfeel.

“Elias, can I talk to you?”

The owner looked up from his paperwork expectantly.

“It’s about Marcos.”

He furrowed his brow as he agreed to speak to me in the office – a rare occurrence for the waitresses.

After listening to what had happened, he sighed. “This isn’t the first complaint I’ve had about him.”

“I know.”

“What do you want me to do?”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. “Elias, that’s Yael’s husband. They have three children. Yael is my friend. Don’t ask me to make the decision about what happens to her family.”

He nodded gravely and agreed.

Nothing changed. Nothing, unless you count the small addition to the lightswitch by the walk-in cooler, that now prevented the light from being turned off. But when had anybody at the diner ever been afraid to harass us outside of the dark?

It has been nearly two years since I left that job, and there is hardly a week that has gone by that I did not consider writing this. As I became more serious in the endeavour, I began to consult friends and other former coworkers. Together, we unearthed a mountain of experiences that were both horrendous and routine:

“One time Nikos made a joke about raping me.”

“One time Carlos oinked at me for an entire eight hours.”

“The other manager, Bobby, used to constantly text me, ‘show me your tits.’ He even wrote it on my facebook wall. When I told him to stop he told me I probably had gross elephantitis tits.”

“The cooks used to refuse to give me my food unless I showed them my tongue.”

“Marcos used to massage Emma even though she told him to stop multiple times and one time he bit her neck.”

“Carlos kissed my neck.”

“One of the cooks cornered me in the walk-in and when Bobby found out he told me to get over it.”

“Both the owners, Elias and Andreas, used to laugh at the comments the cooks would make about the waitresses’ bodies after they left the kitchen.”

I have always known that this behavior was unacceptable. I have understood that it’s unfair that it happened and I have wished that something had been done about it. However, I was also a young adult with no support from my family, and I prided myself on my grit. I was grateful for my reasonably-lucrative job, where I had become a shift staple, in a difficult economy. I naively accepted the entire package.

Recently, though, I’ve realized that I don’t actually owe my previous employers anything. After five years of good, full time work, they were not doing me a favor by continuing to employ me; it was only a natural business relationship. I believed that because they liked me, I must not betray them. But now I ask myself: how much could they have really liked me if they allowed their staff to repeatedly sexually assault me?

I can aver that the environment at the diner is no different today than it was when I left. My silence will achieve nothing except to protect and perpetuate the things that are allowed to happen there. I refuse to participate any longer.

Some days I am ashamed that I did not stand up for myself. It is difficult to forgive that weakness. But I am doing my best to make up for it. I am shouting now that I have the strength to shout. I am encouraging everyone else to share their stories. I have a beautiful, impressionable 16 year old sister. And for god’s sake, the lesson I teach her is not going to be one of silence.

Note: all names have been changed as a super nice favor, but if you’re interested, I’d be happy to disclose the information privately.

UPDATE 10/29: My amazing friend Jaime Young has written an account of her own experiences, which I highly recommend you read. Check it out. This girl is my sounding board and plays a very central role in encouraging others to find their voice.

UPDATE 10/30: Another waitress has bravely shared her story.  Also, I find this one particularly hard-hitting, as she explores not only the sexual harassment, but the really awful way the owners treated the waitresses. Oh, and yet another waitress has spoken out.

UPDATE 10/31: Another account has come to light, this one also exploring the verbal abuse and poor food safety. 

UPDATE 11/1: For everybody following these updates, this is a must-read account by a former manager. And this one is an account of a waitress who started working there in 2007. This is not a new issue.

UPDATE 11/2: The accounts of the terrible working conditions just keep coming.

UPDATE 11/3: And yet one more  former coworker has added her voice.

UPDATE 11/4: After an article in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, another waitress has stepped forward.

UPDATE 11/6: Another former waitress has written her account, trying hard to emphasize that nothing ever changed.

Thank you to everyone for the support. It is so appreciated.

Scowls in far places

On By Marie Billiel JouIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

So, I finally decided to go ahead and make a separate blog for travel stuff, and keep this one for more of the personal subjects.

The new blog is still in its infancy, but already hilarious, if I do say so myself. I have learned well that traveling with depression is a tricky business. At some point, I decided to forgive myself for not enjoying the amazing things I was seeing as much as I “should” be, and to get a little satirical with it instead. First stop: Istanbul.

Check it: http://scowlsinfarplaces.wordpress.com