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Thanks Cyst for your suggestions --- all very sound/sensible.

And,no,im not going to mention it(even tho' its been bothering me on & off all day today).
I'll be my usual smiling self and just hope to God,he doesn't start anything!

If he does,i'll say something to him and to my Boss.
Will keep you posted........

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And a red mist descended…

The sisters of mercy weren’t exactly (re)strained, were they?

i don’t usually revisit a point i thought I had previously made, but it seems i didn’t make it as well as i could have done.

i asked at which point sexual innuendo became too much and thus equalled harassment?

Why? Because the OP has her boundary, she knows it has been crossed, and is unable to tell this customer that he has crossed the boundary. If someone cannot deal with that situation immediately it occurs then the only safe option is to set the boundary at zero. There are more forms of light-hearted fun than those expressed through sexual innuendo.

i mentioned the behaviour we exhibit in banks and bakeries.

Why? Because i wanted the OP to consider what she deemed suitable behaviour. i didn’t ask, but should have, what her reaction would have been if she was the customer and a male barkeep came on to her in the manner of this customer. What we demand of others should be what we do ourselves, surely.

i wrote about the OP’s “encouragement” of these sexually-laden remarks having read her statement that previously she has “laughed them off”. Note, not laughed at them. Laughed them off. That to me indicated a degree of uncomfortableness from the start. No-one in their professional capacity, no matter what their occupation, should allow themselves to be made to feel uncomfortable by a customer.

The remark i made about the customer’s confusion was not to indicate pity for him, it was a sarcastic comment, but also to point out that confused signals to a person do not allow them to see where your boundary is. As it has also been remarked, if there is no boundary, then the customer could well feel he has been given carte-blanche to proceed all the way. That is a dangerous place to be.

As the OP was admitting in her post that she was not sure how to deal with this customer i by implication and by statement indicated that she should turn to her Boss. The reason i suggested an apology to him / her was because the OP should not have got into the situation in the first place. i find an apology for my need of assistance when i ask someone to come to my rescue after I have been careless makes the process so much easier.

i finished with two comments.

Firstly, as the OP cannot deal with a customer who crosses her boundary at that point of transgression, then she should not get into any customer transaction that relies on sexual innuendo, from the very outset.

Secondly, if she cannot deal with that “crossing the boundary” at all, then i gave a reminder that she has the means to deal with physical threats if the situation occurs outside the workplace and the OP needs to defend herself.

What i didn't say:

Sometimes we women can be our own worst enemy. We set ourselves to be taken advantage of in a manner that wouldn't happen in either the reverse situation or between two males or two females.

We cry "Equality" but forget to show it in our own behaviour.

i have every sympathy with the situation the OP is in, and not a little empathy (residual from many years ago), but we must know ourselves and live true to that self. If we believe we have any worth as a person and not just as a sexual object, then allowing a man to treat us as that object is a betrayal of that belief.

Of course, if any woman is comfortable treating a man as a sexual object in return and is happy initiatng such sexual conversations, then all power to her and well done! But the prime thing is being true to our self, not what we think society wants us to be.

In my opinion:

The OP hasn't been happy with any of this customer's conversations. The OP needs to regain her sense of who and what she is. And in her OP she told us she didn't know how to get back that position of personal (not moral, i make no judgements) integrity. i hoped in my post to lay down some pointers to that route back.

i am sorry if what i wrote didn't come over as clearly as i had hoped, i trust that i have now made my point clear - and acceptable.

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Belinda,while i appreciate your well thought out response,i must ask ....have you ever worked in a pub?
They're places where men(and women) congregate for idle chat with their mates and the alcohol flows.

because the OP should not have got into the situation in the first place

Its my place of work.
Im NOT responsible for anyone elses' behaviour.
I did NOT encourage him.
But thanks for your 'concern'.

Yes Belinda & women get raped because they dress sexy!

We cry "Equality" but forget to show it in our own behaviour.

i have every sympathy for the situation the OP is in, and not a little empathy (residual from many years ago), but we must know ourselves and live true to that self. If we believe we have any worth as a person and not just as a sexual object, then allowing a man to treat us as that object is a betrayal of that
belief.

Some of us don't cry equality and DO show it in our own behaviour. Everywhere we can.
I had been a server/servant in public restaurants and pubs for more than 15 years.
I also ran a small business as a commercial photographer at the same time.
The standards I was able to maintain and expect of my customers were entirely different for each.

In the pubs and bars, as Roxy has stated, it's a unique environment, as alcohol is consumed, excessively
in many cases and that is an acceptable(more profitable) but problematic practise. Consumption of alcohol
as the main activity and common denominator is not found in ANY other business as an accepted practise,
that I know of. This makes for an entirely different dynamic that can, at times be very difficult to navigate,
for the person whose living depends on their successful negotiation and containment of the behaviours of those
who are essential to the business being financially viable.

If one simply "sets a standard that is acceptable in other businesses" and sticks to it, as I did many years ago, only once,
one can find they are immediately unemployed and facing a significant crowd of equally qualified people to take their place
at a moment's notice.

Get a different job? Not always possible for many reasons those who are academically accomplished, technically at least, do not grasp.

It's a strenuous ever changing dance that most people want no part of and yet there are many rewards that are invisible to the general public, so I understand your struggle Roxy and I think your current plan is an appropriate one.
I wish you the best of luck in overcoming this situation with this particular "client" lol, and any that are likely to put you through something similar in the future.

I never thought I'd work in a bar ever. When hubby died and real estate took a dump, my friend offered me a job at his bar at night until things get better. At his bar the customers are young and they treated me maternally. Soon I was moved to the big bar where the older more sophisticated crowd gathers. About a half a dozen or so of the customers there are dirty old men.

These guys don't care who is working, what she looks like, what she is wearing, or what she says, they are constantly talking about sex. They have wives at home, but would rather spend all day in a bar berating the help. It's not a case of flirtation gone amiss. It's more like they have the right and privilege to harass the employees because they are spending their money at this business. They act like they are entitled. To make matters worse, they never talk that way in front of the owner.

Some of the younger girls at work are afraid to speak up and tell these guys to stop. So they say she must like it. Then they get physical. It's hard for them because they want the customers to have good service, and they don't want to get in trouble with the boss. The girls have never been in this situation before and they need to be taught how to handle it.

I am so grateful we live in a place where we girls have rights.

dotcom wrote:Yes Belinda & women get raped because they dress sexy!

i take that is a sarcastic remark because you think that what i was saying leads to that conclusion, and that it isn't a statement of truth? i'm just establishing my reading of that remark so that if i have got it wrong you can ignore what i say next.

Take out of the equation the perverted type of rapist who can only get his sexual kicks from violent assault, which cannot be covered by any meaningful statements, and consider the "date rape" scenario.

Please understand too that i am (maybe dangerously) generalising from some personal experience here... And it's my personal opinion from too many years of watching people...

A girl who dresses sexy and gets raped doesn't get raped because of the way she dresses but because of her inability to retain control of the situation she is in.

Rohypnol (?) is a way of taking away that control. A girl getting drunk cedes that control. A girl who doesn't know what to control or how to control it has no control of her situation. Those make for dangerous situations for a girl, however she is dressed.

Experiments have shown (Dan Ariely, reported in "Predictably Irrational") that even "true gentlemen" who say they would not force themself onto a woman will, in the throes of sexual excitement, agree that they would rape a woman. They say that a parachutist always packs their own parachute. Thay need to remain in control of what will protect them when they leap out at x thousand feet.

It therefore is necessary for her own safety that a woman retains control of her situation.

If a person knows their boundary - the boundary is "where do i stop feeling comfortable with what is going on around me" - then they should not cede control to another person "because it is bad for business". Ask a prostitute who has street smarts. They will not do "the uncomfortable thing". They know how to keep themselves safe even if it means losing business.

To say that to work in a bar means you have to put up with ceding control to others and making your working life uncomfortable is just tosh. (Brit word for "rubbish".) Harrassment is unacceptable in any workplace, how it is dealt with varies according to that workplace. In a bar it is the barmaid who deals with it. i have seen barmaids who can keep the sexual innuendo to their acceptable limit without losing patrons. They know how to control the conversation, how to convey with a look or a cutting remark that the line has been crossed and should not be crossed again.

Verbal assault by sexual innuendo is as unacceptable as physical assault from a fist. Men learn to deflect aggression so they don't end up with a fist in the face. Women have to learn how to deflect harrassment so they don't end up with a mind battered by a man who thinks he can say what he likes just because he is talking to a woman.

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sexual innuendo can soon become sexual harrassment....
this man needs to know he's crossed the line....

not just for yourself, but for other servers out there, pub or elsewhere,
it sounds like you're the one the universe is asking to remind this man what's ok and what isn't.

so it's great to hear you're going to do just that!

so it's great to hear you're going to do just that!

Thanks Willow.....
I meant to post here last night that i saw Damo again and he apologized.
So,im really glad about that coz as i said,he's a regular customer and things could've gotten very ,very awkward.
I basically told him i didnt appreciate it and i didnt have to say much more than that.
He knew.

Good job! Here's a cookie.