Five years ago, I started working for a small ad agency. I was fresh out of college and elated to have been offered a full-time copywriting job with the agency where I had interned before.
Among my colleagues was my boss’ son. He was many years older than me and very friendly too. We hit it off right away and soon, he became a big brother to me, guiding me through the exciting but bewildering world of advertising.
However, it turned into something else.
After he’d moved on to another agency, he sent me an email “confessing” that he had developed feelings for me. I was quick to shut it down, saying I never thought of him that way. Besides, I was already in a relationship.
What followed was the most harrowing period of my professional life. I was bombarded with emails and texts, sometimes up to a hundred mails and as many texts in a day. He would call me relentlessly, I never picked up.
He knew where I worked, where I lived. He threatened to come to my house and “see to it” that I changed my mind. Once, he showed up at the office and said he’d be waiting for me outside. I was terrified.
When I gathered the courage to approach my boss about it, he told me that he was aware of the issue, and that his son had a mental illness. He took medication and saw a psychiatrist regularly, and tended to become obsessed.
Nobody had ever mentioned this to me.
Soon after, I quit my job. I changed my number and email address for good measure. I was told that he had “made his peace with it” and wouldn’t bother me again.
But by that point, I’d had enough.