It is very hard to imagine what motivates one person to abuse, physically or mentally, another person. There has to be something very wrong if the person finds thrill in making others’ life miserable. In my book, a kid who finds kicking a street dog for fun amusing, is a stone’s throw away from finding the next target in another human being.
You allow a person to abuse you once, even if it is for a very trivial act, you can be sure that the person will do that again. But the problem is people let it happen because they think they are helpless. Things get further complicated when this happens at your workplace. A place where everyone is expected to be professional, a place that is supposed to be secure and safe.
Spitting on Hans’ Tosti is a tale of enduring relentless sexual harassment at workplace. The author chronicles the events leading to the abusive situation and narrates it through to conclusion in great detail and with some insightful observations.
Spitting on Hans’ tosti: How it feels to be groped and preyed upon by your boss
Author: Karin Bosman
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: cb-logistics; 1. edition (July 5, 2015)
ISBN: 909029001X, 978-9090290010
Most big organizations have mechanisms in place to handle sexual harassment situations. But what do you do if you work for a private business where the boss can fire you the next day with no explanations required.Where most people around you know this and dearly hold on to their jobs. What makes workplace abuse worse is that you have spend hours everyday and live through stressful hours. Meet, talk to, and work for the same people who abuse you. But when this abusive situation comes to your home, life gets invariably difficult.
As much difficult as this is, it is often the pain and resistance to bring the sexual harassment out in the open that keeps the victim from coming forward and stop the injustice. If that kid who finds amusement in kicking a dog is a potential abuser, the person who flinches at this sight is a potential victim.
The abuser will find various ways to ensure that the actual victim feels guilty and ends up feeling responsible for what’s happening. It is a trap that is difficult to get out of, and the author gives an inside look of what possibly goes through the mind of similar victims. The reasons for enduring abuse could be many. It could be debt that requires you to stay in your job or it could be a manipulative boss who convinces the victim of bad consequences for the entire workforce.
Spitting on Hans’ Tosti narrates the roles of all the different sides and people involved in this horrendous episode and urges you to stand up to the perpetrators and help those you think are enduring unjust behavior of a person in a position of authority. It paints the difficult course that the victim must endure and relive the horrors again and again as the case drags in the courts. The end of abuse is unfortunately not the end of suffering and the victim needs to travel a long road to recovery.