CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – A woman told the state Human Rights Commission on Tuesday that her supervisors did not act when she complained that her co-workers at a Cracker Barrel restaurant sexually harassed her by using offensive language, singing suggestive songs and groping her.

Managers told Bonnie Usher, 38, of Manchester, that they would look into her complaints, but nothing was resolved. “It got worse,” she said. Usher testified she spoke to managers locally, a district manager and called a company help number, but that nothing changed for the better.

Usher, who was working as a grill cook at the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store in Londonderry, alleges that from 2001 to the fall of 2002 she repeatedly was subjected to the abusive behavior by several co-workers.

She said two of the workers would play loud, hard-rock music on the radio and substitute the song lyrics with their own, sexually suggestive, sometimes vulgar language. Usher, who is gay, testified that one of the workers made crude references to her sexuality. On another day, she found a photo taken of her in the break room; it showed one of the workers appearing to touch her from behind, with his tongue hanging out. Another worker drew what looked like two women in a sexual act on a blackboard usually reserved for information on the day’s specials.

The workers also deliberately bumped into her and one groped her several times, she said.

One day in June 2001, she tried quitting. “I walked off the line,” she said. “I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Usher said a manager went after her and asked her to come back to work. He said he’d talk to one of the workers and would reprimand him, she testified.

That manager, Peter Lootens, later testified that while he remembered persuading Usher to come back to work, he couldn’t remember what had happened that made her want to quit.

“I just don’t remember what the incident was,” said Lootens, who now works for Cracker Barrel in Davenport, Iowa. He said he did not file any report about what happened that day but mentioned that the company has an “open-door” policy form for employees if they have complaints.

Usher first joined the Londonderry restaurant in 2000 under a different manager. In 2001, several managers were fired and a new team, including Lootens, was brought in.

Lootens testified that while Usher was a competent grill cook, she was difficult to manage.

“She wanted things her way,” he said. “She wanted them to be the way before any of us ever got there. … Bonnie was not open to change.”

Lootens noted that on her evaluations, Usher was told she needed improvement in cooperating with her co-workers and working as part of a team. On some those evaluations, she scored below the minimum amount of points she needed to take a test for a higher-paying position, a goal that Usher said she sought.

Usher claims that she lost wages and that men were promoted over her during the time she complained about the way she was treated. She eventually filed her complaint in 2003 and no longer was with Cracker Barrel in 2004.

Usher said she couldn’t leave Cracker Barrel because she had difficulty finding other work, and eventually was fired. Cracker Barrel says she was not fired.

The company, a subsidiary of CBRL Group Inc., is based in Lebanon, Tenn. It says it was unaware of Usher’s complaints, but disputes the accusations. Lee MacPhee, a Cracker Barrel lawyer, asked Usher why she never put her complaints in writing or addressed them during her evaluations. She said she thought talking to managers in person and over the phone at company headquarters was enough; she also said the evaluations only addressed her performance.

Usher’s hearing before the commission is expected to continue at a date to be scheduled.