I started to work as a cashier for the first time this summer. I am seventeen years old and had never had a paying job -- besides doing my friend’s homework for a couple of bucks and making copies at my mom’s work for some cash. I thought cashiering was going to be easy: just scan and they pay. I worked retail for the first couple of months, then switched jobs to a store closer to my house. The environment changed, the pay did too, but the same type of creepy old guys followed.

I worked at a retail store that a lot of older people tend to go to. I had to sell credit cards to keep my hours, which was one of the reasons I also left. I worked late night shifts in the summer and at the beginning of my senior year of high school. It happened first one late night on a Thursday, when I was starting to close the registers. He came up with his stuff and it was just a normal transaction, then he asked my age and I said 17, and he said I looked 18 and then he smiled cheekily and tried to hit on me. I was horrified. He looked about 60 and I felt gross. I’ve joked with my friends about sugar daddies but I don’t actually want one.

I told my best friend about this, and she told me that her boss once told her to go help a group of guys at a register just because they liked “pretty, young blondes.” She worked at a different place than me, but she dealt with the same thing I did. She told me she felt extremely uncomfortable and wanted to go home.

This happened a couple of other times. A 35-year-old looking guy asked for my number and other incidents happened with my friend and I.

I started this new job two months ago and nothing had happened. It’s a grocery store and it goes by a lot quicker. I liked it there, I still do, and it’s a lot closer to my house. Then, a guy who also looked around 60 hit on me again. I told him my age when he asked, and he said it “didn’t matter” and then started talking to a woman and her son. I thought they were together because he seemed to act like he knew her. Then, he asked her what her son’s name was, his age, he even bagged their groceries, and then asked where they lived and asked him where he went to school. She gave vague answers and left and he stayed, bagging even though that’s not his job. He stared at me, trying to ask questions about my life, with a crooked smile with dirty, stained teeth. He asked what time I got to work, and I lied. He then asked what time do I get out, and I also lied about that.

I am a 17-year-old girl who is just getting out into the real world, slowly, soon on my own. I am just a 17-year-old girl and I don’t understand why guys who are three to four times my age feel the necessity to hit on me. I don’t know how to handle these situations, so I just smile uncomfortably and hope they go away. I knew he couldn’t do anything in front of all these people, and when I’d look at customers with a terrified look, they just stood there, bystanders to the creepy man who clearly did not work here. It just reminded me that 1 in 3 women will be sexually harassed between ages 18-34. I’m one of the three, not from work experiences but from before, and I promised myself to never allow this to happen again.

Women should be able to feel safe. Women should be able to walk down the streets at night, to go to work, to be around other males without feeling scared something might happen. A lot of people, not just men, feel superior to teenagers, as we are younger and immature. I believe that, but we are not stupid, and we know when something is wrong. Old, creepy men should not be hitting on minors, even if we do look a year or two older. We are not your sugar babies, we are not your property, and you cannot grab us by the whatever as another creepy 70-year-old has said. I’m 17 years old and I am 1 of 3. Do not hit on guys and girls who are obviously uncomfortable. Be friendly, not creepy.

Thank you.