The story prompted other women to share their own experiences in customer harassment.
Same thing happened to me and they just said to me ”what would you like us to do?” It’s ridiculous!!
— lucilluminati ♚ (@LucyOfficial_) January 15, 2018
Happened to me before with a pizza delivery guy about 10 years ago! And the guy who collected me and my car once when I broke down!
— Abigail Rose Glover (@abigailrose_g) January 15, 2018
This happened to me in 2008 when a Greenpeace street recruiter used my information to ask me for drinks and message me in the mornings to ask how my day was going.
To their credit, Greenpeace fired him.— attacus (@attacus_au) January 15, 2018
I had a furniture guy that came to the house find me on Facebook (was 16 at the time) he started asking me a bunch of very weird sexual questions. Ended up blocking him. Had my name address number and managed to find my social media
— The 1930's (@SaindSyd) January 16, 2018
It soon became apparent that this issue is all-too-real for women everywhere, and that Michelle’s experience was, unfortunately, somewhat de rigueur.
Heartened by the public response she’d received for her initial tweet, Michelle crafted a press release about the experience in an attempt to alert people to the fact that this sort of behavior is not only inappropriate but is also a violation of “privacy and data protection laws.”
Apparently, Just Eat changed their tune considerably after Michelle publicly took them to task, and eventually agreed to shoulder the responsibility for the situation.
1/2 The Managing Director of Just Eat phoned me today and we had a very long chat about the situation. They are indeed accepting responsibility and are deeply apologetic about the way this was initially handled and it has “shaken them to the core.” We spoke about the big…
— Michelle Midwinter (@ShelbyTree) January 16, 2018
2/2 Changes there will be and how these will be implemented. I believe they are taking this extremely seriously and I hope this will pave the way for national changes to the way our data is protected, and more importantly how females are protected
— Michelle Midwinter (@ShelbyTree) January 16, 2018
The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office even released a statement about how the delivery man’s behavior could indeed be construed as a violation of the Data Protection Act.
Statement in response to reports of Just Eat story. @ShelbyTree pic.twitter.com/wFRqFiUXWS
— ICO (@ICOnews) January 16, 2018
While Just Eat will hopefully be more diligent about holding restaurants accountable for unprofessional (read: creepy) employee behavior, there’s only so much the company as a whole can do.
So, for all the men out there: please remember to periodically ask yourself if, perhaps, your behavior can be construed as creepy. And if so, then please stop doing that thing.
Also: if women are hungry, we are unlikely to have the necessary patience for dealing with your bullshit. Tread lightly.
That’s really the best advice I can offer at this point.