The Harvey Weinstein verdict is in, with guilty attached to two of the charges.

Most of those mentioned in the following story have since passed away, but it’s time to tell what happened. I want my sons to know. And their wives and children.

You don’t look the other way.

It was the 1980s and I had my dream job. Working in a theater.

My position, as business manager, included an array of duties. One was to secure minors and complete needed paperwork so that they could appear in the summer production. Because under-age children needed a parent or guardian on site to protect the child.

But parents and guardians don’t see everything. They don’t hear everything.

It was near the end of the summer season and I scheduled a photo shoot for after one evening’s performance. There was never a convenient time for this, but after a show we’d already have the cast in costume and makeup. Hopefully they’d be relaxed.

Still, I felt guilty for keeping them an extra hour. I ordered a dozen pizzas and paid for them personally. We made it a party.

Toward the end of the shoot, one of the young actors – a local girl – asked a crew member to radio up to the booth. Since school was starting back up soon, she’d need to be an hour late the next day. Was that okay?

The response, which carried on my two-way, too, changed my life.

“Tell her it’s okay as long as she comes up here and sits on my face.”

What? What?! My first reaction was denial – I must have heard it wrong. How could an adult be so crude? And so stupid?

But I knew I’d heard him correctly. I got on the radio. “That is not appropriate. Stop now.”

Thing is, though, I had no authority over him. He worked for the producers. I worked for the third-party management company. But I knew that girl. She was 14. I knew her parents. And moral authority counts for something, right?

We finished up the photo shoot, cleaned up the pizza boxes and went home. I knew I’d speak with my boss about the situation the next day.

Following a meeting the next morning, which included officials from the three parties involved in the theater, an adult actress approached me in my office.

“Do you know what’s going on?” she asked me.

She sat down and filled me in, nervous about repercussions. The same person who’d been so vulgar the night before had increasingly harassed the female actors that summer. Most acts had been shrugged off as part and parcel of what goes on behind the scenes in theater. But the evening before, an actress had called in sick and he’d stormed over to her rental cottage and demanded to examine her – in her sickbed – for proof that she was telling the truth.

The cast was outraged, but concerned that if they spoke up, they’d be blackballed from summer theater. But this strong woman had had enough. I thanked her and promised to report the actions of her “superior.”

Moments later, the head of the agency responsible for the theater dropped by my office. We’d known each other for years and he noticed I was upset. Although I’d planned to only speak to my boss about the situation, I trusted this man, too, and knew he would be furious.

He was. That evening, he had dinner with the president of the organization that acted as the theater’s production company. He trusted me enough to pass on what I’d witnessed and what I’d been told.

Meanwhile, I met with my boss. He promised to talk to the other parties and put an end to the harassment.

Bottom line, I lost my job. But so did he.

The production company sent up an investigator (the person who’d hired the offender in the first place), who interviewed members of the cast and crew. I insisted on being included in the interviews as a witness.

He later admitted he’d forgotten to wear his hearing aids, and didn’t catch everything the parties told him. He also told me he was hesitant to fire the man, for fear he’d go home and beat up his wife and kids.

The production company then demanded that I be fired. I was in my boss’s office when that phone call took place. I remember exactly what my boss said all those years ago:

“If you don’t want Paula, you don’t want me. She acted on my behalf. She is not the problem.”

These memories still make my heart race.

Thirty-some years later, I don’t regret speaking up. I learned there’s no such thing as a dream job.

I learned there are good people and bad people. Whether the result is justice or karma, doing the right thing and protecting the innocent is never the wrong decision.

I hope the courage of the women who came forward to face the powerful Harvey Weinstein inspires others to step outside of the shadows of painful memories and make their voices heard.

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