I laced my braid with thumbtacks as a self defense tactic

I (25F) was 24 years old at the time, and worked in this independent kitchen with no HR department as a cook for several years. There was a brief period of time where a coworker was pulled aside and told to stop grabbing my ass, but that didn’t stop him. He was in his 30s, and was a sous at the time. One day he was absolutely furious with me because I ran out of a sauce that he had asked for. Later that day as I was walking out of the kitchen to go outside and have a smoke, he grabbed my ass again and I kind of jerked my head towards him and said “what the fuck is wrong with you?” And he said “fuck you, I’ll do what I want” and then he stabbed me in the side with his thumbtack that he uses to keep his tickets up on the rail. <br><br>I was absolutely terrified. I didn’t know what to do so I started carrying around a pocket knife at work, and I also braided thumbtacks into my hair at work so that if I ever got grabbed again I could just pull my head all the way back and hopefully impale him with the thumbtacks. It was such a strange feeling knowing that the only way to keep myself safe at work was to arm myself and be willing to do harm to someone else if they ever tried to do something like that to me again.