Hello,
I just started a part time job over the weekend at a movie theater. All the employees share a locker room (men/women) and the breakroom is right next door. As I was looking for an empty locker to place my belongins, there right on top of a locker that was opened, was a used condom. It was disgusting. I almost threw up. I left the locker room and went to find the manager and brought this to his attention. All he said was, "Oh, these people" or something to that effect. Is this particular situation considered a hostile work environment? I told one of my other co-workers about what I had found and she told me that she had found one too in one of the theaters that she had cleaned. Can I use this as as reason to quit? Most of the workers there are teenagers, I'm in my mid 30's.

No, a single instance of finding an admittably disgusting object that someone forgot to throw away is not sufficient to support a claim of an HWE.

You are free to quit whenever you want to. You don't have to have a reason. But you won't get unemployment if you quit for this reason.

CBG,
Thank you for your response. Thankfully and luckily for me, I do have a full time day job and I will be able to quit this other job so there wont be a necessity for unemployment. :)

work environment. the manager was pretty stupid to respond the way he/she did.

work environment. the manager was pretty stupid to respond the way he/she did.

While you are correct that a pattern must be established to show a true hostile work environment, the term has a specific meaning under the law.

I am not sure that this incident, while disgusting, necessarily breaks that threshold.