Posted Saturday, January 20, 2018 7:00 pm

GREAT BARRINGTON — In a little downtown ice cream shop, the problem isn't the boss or the co-workers.

It's the customers.

It was during summer 2016 when it appeared to Bessey that what "seemed like part of the job" had escalated, and that's when she and another staff member went to CEO Erik Bruun and other upper management with the problem.

The shop made a bold move: Staff put up a sign saying harassment wouldn't be tolerated. The company also held training to give staff tools to deal with rattling remarks.

With the sign and some strategies, it has gotten better.

But the growing national awareness of sexual harassment has also helped, Bessey said, as high-profile women, and some men, have taken their sexual harassment stories public, toppling the careers of one powerful man after another. The list of cases in what is now known as the #MeToo revolution went viral on social media, and is still stacking up, stoking widespread cultural debate, and giving women the courage to say that it happened to "me too."

But bringing a male cultural habit to its knees, in every little corner of the country, is a long game, said Bessey, 21.

"There's still a mild flirting," she said, "but I think [the sign] takes people off guard."

Inappropriate commentary

Bessey grew up in Otis and said she has been thinking about all this since she was 16, when she began busing tables at a restaurant there.

"I left a job in Otis because the dishwasher grabbed my [rear] three times. It was a family business, and I didn't know what to do about it — he was one of the brothers."

She once had a customer find her on Facebook and tell her, "Your [rear] looked great."

She worked as a ski rental technician at Otis Ridge — a job that was trouble-free.

But restaurants are notorious.

"Food service is really bad, for some reason," she said.

According to one industry watchdog and advocacy group for higher wages, the problem is, in part, linked to economic desperation among the women who make up more than 70 percent of restaurant servers. Most U.S. servers are tipped but not paid full minimum wage.

But harassment is also fueled by the power differential in a unique setting.

"Diners are not necessarily famous or even powerful in their everyday lives, yet at a restaurant, where the staff relies on customers to supply the vast majority of their salary, they feel like the boss," Tove Danovich wrote in an article about the problem for Eater, an online food magazine.

A 2014 report by Restaurant Opportunities Center United, titled "The Glass Floor," found the restaurant industry to be the "single-largest source of sexual harassment charges filed by women with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission."

The study also said that 78 percent of female restaurant staff were sexually harassed by customers and that harassment rates were halved in the seven states and one territory that pay tipped servers a full minimum wage.

Bessey has been at SoCo for three years and said the comments are sometimes shocking.

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"There are older gentlemen telling girls how beautiful they are and asking the ages of some who are 15 and 16," she said. "As a coping strategy, there was a lot of humor about it, but everyone was a little shaken up."

Once, a man made a comment on Yelp about Bessey, "the cute blonde" who served him. While scooping ice cream, she has been told she is "sexy."

The worst, she said, was a man in his late 40s, a regular customer who often would come in with his family. But when the man came in alone, things got uncomfortable fast for the teenage boy who was working.

"Every time, he would make inappropriate jokes about hot fudge to the boy," she said.

There have been young men waiting outside the store late for girls who are closing up shop, men leaving "weird notes," and men who learn a girl's work schedule and park themselves in the shop until eventually being asked to leave.

Bessey said a combination of what appeared to be an escalation that summer, when she was shift manager, with an approachable upper management, helped turn it around.

"That summer was tough, and everyone was willing to talk about it," she said, "and we were actually able to make a group effort to make it stop."

A telling sign

Midway through summer 2016, the shop hung a sign that read, "Harassment of our hard-working staff will not be tolerated."

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Customer reactions were varied: many were offended, and found it "harsh and aggressive" — usually older men, but even women.

"A lot of people still tell us, `You work in an ice cream store — that's the problem,'" Bessey said.

Others tell staff they wished a similar sign could go up where they worked, and say the sign is "incredible and amazing."

"It's always an interesting moment when someone is stating a clear boundary," said Ananda Timpane, a sexual harassment and abuse prevention specialist who trained SoCo staff.

Bessey and staff are still using strategies learned from Timpane, who is executive director of Railroad Street Youth Project. For instance, staff now have their own code for diplomacy with customers who make them uncomfortable.

"We'll say, `I need to grab something from the back,' or `I need you to finish serving this person.' It throws [the customer] completely off. It's impressive — even if they are the same age and gender, they'll stop."

The training also helped Bessey learn how to talk to staff about the problem.

Timpane said training can prevent an escalation that leads to "tip-of-the-iceberg" abuse incidents, but also looks into the "deeply embedded cultural, day-to-day" behavior underlying the prevalence of such incidents.

She pointed to the Elizabeth Freeman Center as a good resource for any businesses or groups that need training. One of the center's domestic violence and sexual assault counselors said the organization has a range of services, including a prevention team.

"We deal with all levels of intervention," said Jennifer Goewey, who is also the center's South County site supervisor.

Yet, Bessey said she doesn't think there's any harm intended by customers.

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"I don't even know if people realize they're doing it," she said. "I think it's supposed to be nice. I think it's just a huge lack of understanding, like you are part of the storefront to them, and they don't see you as an actual person."

And Bessey said there are a lot of factors driving the problem at SoCo. One is that it is carried in from the attitude on local streets.

"You think you're in a small town, there's safety, then you work in town and hear the comments, you get cat-called at night — it's an incredible problem in Great Barrington," she said. "I'm not sure why, but you can't walk down Main Street at night, or down Railroad Street or that parking lot without getting cat-called, especially when you walk past the bars."

Bessey said because SoCo closes at 9 p.m. on weeknights, and later on weekends, new company policy means there is always more than one staff member working at night, and this also helps staff have a partner for the walk to their cars.

"At night, SoCo is the only thing open besides the bars," she said.

Bessey said the problem isn't confined to either locals or visitors.

"We have problems with everyone," she said.

Not always right

Bruun said that when staff came to him, he took it seriously.

"I would take it seriously anyway, but it is something that has also affected my family," he said.

Bruun said he had also learned from his mother, who had owned a store in Lenox, to be a "fierce protector of the staff who work on the front line of the store."

"They put themselves out there on behalf of the product, the store, and they work hard, and the customer is always right — not really always, necessarily. It's important that there be a line. What's so hard in this #MeToo movement is, `Where is this line?' One person's inoffensive compliment is another person's harassment."

But Bruun said he "leans toward how the recipient hears it."

"We don't want to go around the world afraid of everything we say," he said, "but we also have to have a sense of how what we say or do is received."

Bruun and Bessey, referring to the #MeToo movement, said that, perhaps if the offenders had been checked early on, lives and careers might not have been decimated.

Bessey said she hoped the new line that has been drawn at SoCo, and young people finding new ways to get some customers to back off, might help nip the problem where it starts.

"It starts with the fathers and the grandfathers saying these things to retail staff and their kids getting the sense that you don't have to respect them," she said.

Bruun said that staying attuned to and airing the issue is ultimately a service to anyone who might start meandering into inappropriate territory.

"When we're silent," he said, "it kicks the can down the road."

Heather Bellow can be reached at hbellow@berkshireeagle.com or on Twitter at @BE_hbellow and 413-329-6871.