Sitting across from the plant manager, I starred at him with disbelief. There had to be something wrong, perhaps he did not understand what had really transpired. That was it; he did not understand why I had hit a male coworker. There could be no other explanation as to why he had just informed me that if I reported this incident to Human Resources I would also be terminated.

This made no sense to me. Watching my look quickly change from disbelief to anger, he calmly explained. Our company had a zero tolerance policy for fighting. It did not matter what the circumstances were, hitting another co-worker meant automatic termination. Since I had slapped the man who touched me, I was in violation of the company policy.

I admitted to the slap. It was an instant reaction; someone had touched me without my consent. I was furious and very much humiliated. Everyone in the break room had witnessed this humiliating act.

For me, this was the last straw. Prior to this incident, my line supervisor had denied my request to change into a different white work coat. It did not matter that on the back of the coat someone had taken a black marker and drew a huge marijuana plant. On the front of this very same coat was a picture of a penis and testicles.

I was running late and hurriedly slipped into the coat that was handed to me from the coat room attendant. Of course, as I raced to the line, I wondered why other employees were pointing and laughing as I raced past them. Actually, I thought it was just because of the funny way that I ran.

Eventually, a co-worker across from me on the line told me to look and pointed to the front of my coat. To my horror, I now understood what all the sly looks and laughter was about. My supervisor even snickered when I called him over to where I worked. I requested permission to exchange this coat for one without so much creativity and explained that I was not at all amused with these drawings. Struggling to keep a straight face, he said that I should wait until break, (two hours away) and then get a different coat if I still wanted one.

I worked in that coat for what seemed like eternity. By this time more employees from within the department came by to see this coat that everyone was tickled about. A sort of sixth sense told me to hang on to that coat. I put it in my locker and later smuggled it into my car.

And yet, this was not my first incident of sexual harassment. Another incident also

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