Teenager, Emily Houser, says her co-workers threw a party to shame her after she reported their boss for sexual harassment.
Emily Houser started her work at the US restaurant chain Chili’s when she was 16, claims she was sexually harassed by her manager Josh Davidson for two years.
Davidson became the new manager of the restaurant just few days after Emily began her work there. Davidson who was 24 at the time, forced Emily to go on dates, showed up at her house in the middle of the night and was verbally and physically abusive at work, Houser told BuzzFeed.
This is Emily Houser, an 18-year-old from Pennsylvania.
Houser explained her situation more thoroughly to reporters at Buzzfeed News:
“[The] new manager found particular interest in me and began forcing me to go on dates with him,” she says. “He would just show up to my house uninvited and say he was outside and I had to come with him.
“Over a two-year period, it just kind of escalated into him providing me with gifts of significance and money and flowers and cards and things that I wasn’t really accepting of, things that made me extremely uncomfortable because I was not sure what he expected of me from these gifts,” she said.
Things only got worse when she turned 18 on April 26 last year, Houser said.
“On my 18th birthday, he showed up to my high school in the parking lot and just kind of rampaged me with gifts and asked me to officially be his girlfriend in front of a bunch of people,” she said. “I said no, and he replied in a very pompous way, saying he didn’t care if he got fired if we were together, and he didn’t care if he lost his job because he just wanted to be with me.”
After this, Houser said, Davidson started “being verbally and even physically weird and abusive towards me at work.” She brushed it off and didn’t take any action right away.
After some time, enough was enough and Houser reported Davidson to Chili’s corporate headquarters.
After her report, the company did an investigation and rather than firing Davidson, they transferred him to a location in Montgomery, Pennsylvania. Still, Davidson wasn’t done with his inappropriate behavior. On his last day at the Whitehall location, someone at the restaurant made a cake that read *F*** Emily Houser,” which the entire staff ate together.
The photos were even posted on social media.
After seeing the cake, Houser says she was shocked and upset.
The teen, who lives in Pennsylvania, said: “I didn’t know how to feel, except I just didn’t really feel anything.
“And then I just started to cry, because I came to terms with the fact that I did call these people my friends and I did love them and care about them, and I have no idea why they were doing this to me.”
Houser then followed up with the area director to report what had happened, emphasizing that what happened between her and Davidson was supposed to remain private and confidential. After much time, Chili’s decided to let Davidson go—along with all the people who participated in the party.
The chain said: “Chili’s encourages a warm and welcoming workplace to provide our guests with the service they expect.
“We do not condone and are disappointed by the actions that took place. When this issue surfaced, our franchise partner with Clarity Voice conducted a thorough investigation.”
Without doubt, what Davidson did to Houser was inappropriate and unacceptable.
Houser had the right to report what had happened and continued to do so as she was wronged. Still, our instinct in these situations is to blame someone who was treated badly for seeking redress through the right channels. How do you think Houser and the Chili’s employees handled this situation? Let us know in the comments below.
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