TBS sexual harassment: Manager claims it was ‘a misunderstanding’

BY MOHAMED SWELLAM

An alleged sexual harassment incident at The Bakery Shop (TBS) on AUC’s New Cairo Campus was reported to the Security Office and administration on May 8, leading to the closure of the pop­ular eatery pending an investigation.

According to Bassel Mashhour, one of the owners of the TBS chain, the incident occurred when a psychology professor went to the bakery to order her usual mini-pizza. While she was or­dering the pizza, one of the chefs in the back attempted to convince her to order another item, the Rix Milano.

This was because the Rix Milano was fresh out of the oven and better than the two-hour-old mini-pizzas. According to Mashhour, this was the beginning of what he calls a misunderstanding.

Mashhour said that TBS has a policy of promoting the freshest baked goods first in order to maintain their high standards of quality items.

“We as managers in TBS took a stra­tegic decision to sell the Rix Milano or mini pizzas fresh from the oven on the spot, because this is when it tastes best. This is what happens in the Maadi branch; if you go there you will find the Rix Milano served immediately to those present at the branch so that if they like it, they can consume it fresh,” Mash­hour said.

The manager then said that the pro­fessor refused the Rix Milano and said something in English to the chef, who speaks little other than Arabic.

The cashier, noticing that the chef was confused, laughed, reportedly.

The professor then interpreted the scenario to mean that the chef was im­plying that he wanted her to take the Rix Milano because it was shaped like a penis, Mashhour says.

Although he was present at the time of the incident, he did not intervene because he believed nothing wrong had happened.

Mashhour believed that the professor was mad because she couldn’t under­stand why the staff was laughing.

Nevertheless, he says that the staff behaved unprofessionally, and would be reprimanded.

“The chef and the cashier will be penalized because they were not pro­fessional enough while dealing with a customer. The chef was not supposed to talk to customers in the first place, and the cashier should not have laughed. This is the magnitude of the problem,” Mashhour said.

The professor’s friend posted de­tails of the entire incident on Face­book, which led to a community outcry against sexual harassment.

Jaylan ElHalawani, a student who saw the Facebook complaint but was not at TBS when the alleged harassment oc­curred, reported the incident to AUC administration.

“I saw the complaint on Facebook, took a screenshot and emailed it along with the link to Wafaa Sadek, Director of Food Services on campus, to Brian MacDougall, Executive Vice President for Planning and Administration, and CCed the Student Union,” ElHalawani said.

ElHalawani believes that what hap­pened to the professor is not acceptable.

“I can’t say that he [the chef] didn’t mean anything, and at the end of the day I cannot trust that the owner is not just trying to protect his business. He may as well have lied. I cannot trust him 100 percent because the [woman in question] is a psychology professor and is aware of how people think. She could analyze his body language,” ElHalawani said.

Following ElHalawani’s email to ad­ministration, TBS was closed down pending an investigation.

But Mashhour says posting the inci­dent online was irresponsible, particu­larly since there had yet been no inves­tigation into the matter.

He said people should “keep their mouth shut until they know the real case”.

Mashour says TBS does not hire peo­ple who are capable of such conduct unbecoming as alleged by the professor.

“The professor has been in Egypt for a year, maybe she has had bad experi­ences in Egypt regarding sexual ha­rassment, I don’t know. But Taher, the chef, and Ahmed, the cashier, maintain very good relations with all AUC stu­dents, and all the students who called me said that they knew both employees by name so they were surprised to hear such allegations,” Mashhour said.

The professor was contacted by The Caravan for a response, but she declined to comment.

On May 13, Mashhour met with a campus committee investigating the in­cident. The committee has yet to issue its findings.

Mashhour said that he is confident that the committee was completely con­vinced that this was not a sexual harass­ment case, but one of staff misconduct.

He also said that the university has the right to close the shop to avoid any kinds of problems on premises, but that this has negatively affected his brand’s reputation.

“The bad reputation that happened is on the brand level,” he said.

Mashhour pointed out that there was a survey ranking food services on campus and that TBS was ranked first not just because of their products, but because of experience and the staff’s friendliness.

“If the committee does not rule in TBS’s favor I will close the branch; to me I care more about the reputation of the brand,” Mashhour said.

Mashhour said that he wanted to launch a proactive awareness campaign in an attempt to “make sure that no such things happen again”.

But to some, it is the university ad­ministration that should be doing more to protect students, faculty, and staff on their own cam­pus.

“What I did is that I asked for an ex­amination and criteria that determine that people hired on campus are qual­ified. But they [Sadek and MacDougall] didn’t even bother replying to my email, they just CCed me in the thread that had the complaint,” ElHalawani said.

She says closure is not enough of a penalty for what she believes was truly a matter of sexual harassment.

She fears that following an earlier incident of possible sexual harassment at Cilantro, the administration may be holding back in taking action.

“Obviously they weren’t affected by the reaction to the first incident; the ac­tion should have been more serious but it wasn’t. In this case, don’t expect that a third or fourth incident [of sexual ha­rassment] won’t happen,” ElHalawani said.