Forgery Seasoned With Off-Color Humor

When a man is second in command he has both the title of AOIC and a significant amount of influence over me. He has the ability to shape my annual formal evaluation by his whim. If I behave he will assign me interesting work and if I don't care to feed his ego the tasks could be miserable. So when I drive him around in the cab of a pick-up, and he decides to fill the silence with crude jokes about women that don't make me laugh (Q: What do you say to a woman with two black eyes? A: Nothing, she obviously didn't listen the first two times. Q: How do you know if a woman has an orgasm? A: Who the fuck cares), I feel like I'm living on the inside of a low budget sexual harassment video.

I complained, at a very low level to avoid a big splash, through the appropriate channels and several hours later someone let him know that I didn't enjoy his behavior. I didn't use a mediator because I lacked the courage to confront him myself, but because I wanted a witness. If he persists in making my life uncomfortable I want someone to know that he has worked his mismagic before.

This morning the AOIC called me into his office, the same office where two weeks ago I refused his request to forge the XO's signature on official documents, to apologize. I told him that I take enough shit from men all over this base and I'm not going to take it from someone that I work for. He apologized again and he was sincere, but I know he's only sorry that he exercised poor judgment in telling me the jokes. He's not sorry that in his brain it's funny to think of a woman as subordinates incapable of shaping their own lives.