There are tough jobs with tight deadlines, cold colleagues, and overbearing bosses. Then there's the hell scape that 41-year-old Sarah Primmer called work.
Its name is 'Rendez-Vous Cafe,' a kebab shop in Plymouth. To Primmer, it was where she waited tables and endured constant teasing and lewd comments about her red hair. She recalled the details to the Daily Mail.
They asked me if my head hair was the same color as the rest of my body hair. They thought it was funny and liked to see me going red in the face with embarrassment.
- Sarah Primmer
"I was called Duracell and Copper Knob at school- you expect that from kids, but not when you are in your 40s."
Seeing red
Primmer hit rock bottom when she was fired while on medical leave. She was so scarred from the teasing she endured that she died her hair blonde in hopes of escaping further taunts.
"I am trying to go more blonde and my hair is going lighter and lighter," she said.
Primmer was down, but she wasn't out. In fact, she got up and fought back. Representing herself, she took her former bosses to the employment tribunal in Exeter. Not holding back, she aired out every awful detail of work-life at Rendez-Vous.
"They would make lewd and embarrassing comments about me and ask me intimate questions about my personal life," she said.
Primmer added that being a woman definitely made her a bigger target.
I believe these amounted to sex discrimination and intimidation and cannot believe I would have been subjected to these incidents if I wasn't a woman.
- Sarah Primmer
"I was brought up to respect my colleagues but they made comments about my hair and sex life," she added.
Justice served
When the smoke cleared, the courts sided with Primmer.
Tribunal chairperson Christa Christensen had some harsh words for her former bosses, calling their behavior "denigrating, highly personal and demeaning."
Then came the judgment: Rendez-Vous was ordered to pay Primmer £17,618 (Almost $24,000 USD) in damages. It covered lost wages and injury to feelings, which included £9,000 for the sexual harassment.
Primmer told BBC that while she's 'staggered' by the size of the award, she'll continue dying her hair blonde.
"I am going to try and get it lighter and lighter, it is not nice to be ginger," she said after the hearing.
Stand up for yourself
Healing takes time, and hopefully, Primmer will once again flaunt her beautiful red hair.
One thing's for sure: She's an inspiration to anyone who's being bullied and someone you'll think twice before messing with. That's because there's nothing stronger than fighting back with your own voice.
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