Interaction I heard in the shop

[Jammy67]

I nipped into Herons earlier for a drink. The shop employs young people. I overheard one say 'That's just creepy, no it's not a joke, it's not funny.' 'You don't have to be subject to being objectified by men' I realised she was speaking to a much older, male colleague, looked to be the manager. Aibu to think this is inappropriate, I have no idea what he said but the young girl was obviously uncomfortable.

Was she talking about his behaviour or a customer's? What happened next? It's hard to know how to comment with this snippet of dialogue. If you are concerned about the employee, reach out to the store or, in moments like that, be an active bystander and ask if they are okay or if they need your support.

It was about his behaviour I think as she was moving further back and was looking at him weird, like he'd said something inappropriate. I'm just not sure what he'd said but she kept saying 'no that's not a joke'. He saw me come past and he knew I had overheard that part of the conversation and he looked a bit like sheepish/embarrassed and he just walked off to somewhere else in the shop

It's inappropriate if he made her feel uncomfortable. It's not inappropriate for her to dare to call it out loudly enough for someone to hear the exchange and hopefully make him think twice.

That actually sounds worrying. Can you contact the company tomorrow and describe what you saw and heard? https://heronfoods.com/customer-service/

There's no context to this at all. So she said, 'you don't have to be objected by a man', to another man? So she was relaying a conversation she had had with someone else?

Agree there’s not enough context to know whether this was inappropriate. It sounds more like she was talking about something someone else had said/done, though him walking off looking embarrassed does seem a little suspicious. I’d have taken the opportunity to ask her if she was ok while he was in another part of the shop.

I would take it as her meaning he didn't have to suffer the way women do at being objectified - it was puzzling me for a bit, but this way makes sense

You quite literally have only half the story. You have no idea who said what or to who. What is the point of the thread? Do you want to complain? You have no details to confirm that anything actually happened.

Honestly you haven't a clue what they were talking about, it could have been a hypothetical debate.

Is she saying she's being objectified by this male manager? You don't have a clue.
If she said 'stop doing xyz' while looking at him and he responded then it would look bad. But otherwise it's not clear really. You could've asked her if she was Ok I guess.