"Hey, baby..."

I have finally figured out why my new office makes me so uncomfortable. (Yay! Discovering words to describe my thoughts!)

One of the downsides of being a young woman around here is that there are a lot of older men who live here who never quite learned their manners when it comes to interacting with women. Standing too close, calling me "Baby," making inappropriate comments about my body or marrying me, staring inappropriately, asking me up to their rooms, etc.

In the social services office, there is always at least one person around other than myself. Cecilia, our secretary, is always at here desk, which sits about twenty feet away from my old office door. So somebody was always nearbyfor when I needed to get out of a tight spot or felt uncomfortable. I used to make up an excuse about needing to go check a file or something and walk out of the room toward Cecilia, who could witness anything shady that might happen. And thankfully, nothing ever happened as soon as I walked into a room with a third party.

But in this new office, nobody else is around. I work in a tiny room situated within our community center. It had windows facing in all directions with no shades. Men stand in the window and stare all the time. They wait by my door for when I step out to use the bathroom. Half the time I worry that they'll follow me home. (Hasn't happened yet, thankfully. I ask everyone to leave the community room so that I can lock it up, and normally wait a while before leaving. Any lurkers will have left by the time I walk out the door.) I keep my door locked because I wouldn't be able to get away if anyone came in, but rest assured that some of these guys are persistant.

I do not anticipate anything particularly traumatic to happen to me or anything like that-- I just hate being stared at like a piece of ass. I hate being cat-called. I hate being treated like I'm here for the men's amusement, like a stripper, rather than someone who is here to serve. And feeling that way every single moment that I sit at my own desk gets tiresome.