Aug 25 2007
Good girls never win
The idea of discriminating on anything other than performance infuriates me. My saintly twin has written about the virtues of the “no asshole rule.” A simple idea: that a nice way to get a team to function at maximum efficiency is to remove all the assholes. That’s a tough cookie to swallow because asshole is very difficult to define. It’s a hole after all, dependent on the fleshy gluteus maximums for its existence. All one has to do is walk into a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods to see the benefit of the no asshole rule. What odd corporations they are. They remind me of a bizarro world New York stock exchange, selling tangible life sustaining things with a smile, but still somehow mechanically inhuman.
I’ve never been a team leader but I imagine that having an optimal team is about how the individuals interact with each other relative to the objective. There must be an asshole quotient, therefore if the mean is high, perhaps it would be a detriment to have an outsider on board, an antiass. I’m sure it’s dependent on the purpose of the team. Think tanks probably work better with assholes; synchronized swimmers less so. While being an overass may be grounds for dismissal, I don’t think it’s a good basis for determining wage. I suppose the logic behind the assrule is that having one in the midst of the office could cause the nice folk to seek other employment or hurt the others performance by over activating the mental hate centers. It seems odd to me to even consider “who” a person is as relevant to their job. Cult of personality has it’s place, I just think it makes more sense in Hollywood.
I’ve listened to the arguments against sexual discrimination in the work place. The statistics reveal that males tend to make more money than females doing the same job. I except a naturally existing variance in wage, depending on the job, because males and females generally exhibit much different behavior in youth, which lends to being raised differently, thus excelling in different areas of skill. I would expect that there are jobs that females average higher wages than males, jobs that require keen communications skills for instance, and vice versa. Statistics are a funny beast. Mark Twain said it best, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” I imagine people of resent African decent average more money in basketball. It’s not that light skinned people are being unjustly discriminated against, it’s just genetically there are more 7 foot dark skinned people. Hopefully humans realize that Mind is not genetic and that legitimate height discrimination for B-ball doesn’t get carried over to the office. This is were the complex issue of sexual discrimination comes into play, men and women do have physically different brains. Natural discrepancies in performance are bound to surface.
A feminist activist friend of mine came to the same conclusion as I, wage should be based souly on individual performance. Anything else violates the principle of equality. I know that there are unjust biases in the minds of many and that will be a problem that humankind will probably always struggle with. No one is or ever will be perfect. However the problem is much larger than I had realized. A friend of mine in the corporate world told me of an experience she had with her boss. He hired a male for a secretarial position and started him at a much higher rate than the female that formally held the position. As this is obviously unconstitutional, my friend confronted the sexist bastards prejudice. He said, “Yeah, but he’s a man. Men have families to take care of.” My asshole opened up and I almost lost my shit. I knew that people discriminate unconsciously but to say it out loud and not be able to recognize it, boggled my mind.
At first I couldn’t understand how my friend could keep working for him. Though, she concluded that he is just stupid, not really sexist. When she opened his eyes, he realized that he could get in trouble for what he did and started the trainee at a sexually equal rate. If I were a woman I would have a difficult time looking at him, lest working for his company. I’m the kind of person who has to believe 100% in what I do and who I do it for. I’d rather be poor than be you’re hired by Donald Trump. I walk the walk too, I mean I walk so much my shoes wear fast. I began to think of ways women could fight back against this manly family man bullshit. My first thought was that the market could dent it. There are a limited amount of workers for any job, and generally half of them will be women. If women put the anti-ass principle above money, they will hurt the asshole business owners passively by reducing their available talent base. This would increase the success of equal minded business owners. Good girls never win, but they can help fight.
Robert, you are funny. I mean that in a good way.
My 27 years of working experience has been in a very male dominated industry. The boyz are the salesmen; the gurlz are the support staff. We did have a female salesperson for a few years, but they put her in a no-win market and the boys would literally whine if she happened to call on one of their suppliers. It was pathetic. And no she didn’t get the same breaks as the boys as far as compensation. I never understood it, but a man could lose money year after year for this company and they’d still pay the idiot a sizeable bonus. Must be a frat boy thing.
The women of my company were walked on like doormats, though we were always assured that we were very well paid doormats. You get used to a place. That was the name of a book that I read as a teen about an insane asylum. You become comfortable with the known, no matter how painful it may be to feel like shit every day.
From the movie, Working Girl (Katherine’s advice to Tess), “Never burn bridges. Today’s junior prick, tomorrow’s senior partner”. I shudda paid close attention to that one. Old bosses that believe the sun sets in your ass have a way of dying, leaving the junior prick to take over.
I made a powerful enemy standing up for the women of my old company. I’ve learned the hard way the only way to survive is to keep my head down and only look up to smile.
ACK! I’m a little horrified by the “keep your head down” mentality. Especially, since it seems to be the general mentality of so many of the oppressed (yes, women are still oppressed) people in this county.
How is any of this supposed to change if no one is willing to take a few knocks to change it? Granted everyone has rent to pay, but there has to be a job somewhere where one can be respected, male or female, and still make enough money to live.
If you’re swallowing your pain every day at work are you really living? I don’t care how much money you make, putting up with that kind of thing on a daily basis takes a toll on you that no amount of money can replace.
Discrimination exists on many levels. My first real job out of college was a real eye opener for a 22 year old self proclaimed liberal and feminist. I was hired as Staff Accountant for an environmental remediation company that had recently been purchased by a publicly traded company. I was working under a woman who was about 25 years older than me and did not have a college degree. Carolyn immediately resented me. The president of our division was the hold over president from the old company; Jim Latioalis. Jim was a crusty old sexist asshole and when he was not treating me like a sexual object he mocked my college degree saying that a degree did not make me worth shit in his mind.
The corporate office was in Portland, Or and basically they let Jim and Carolyn have full reign over the Gulf South Region as long as the money was rolling in. The corporate office did not give a crap about the improprieties; it was all about the bottom line.
I remember one Christmas party where JL (which is weird because I currently work for a guy with the initials JL) took a champagne bottle and started to stick in an inappropriate place on his secretary. Being rather naïve about the protocol of keeping ones mouth shut unless it is happening to you I spoke up and told him that he was being an offensive pig.
From that moment on Jim and Carolyn’s shared goal was to try and get me to quit. I was really upset that as a woman she took sides with Jim and had an active part in setting me up to fail. Carolyn instructed me to go in to a meeting with all the senior Project Managers for our EPA Superfund sights and tell them off about sloppy paperwork and just general crap that they were doing that was not appropriate with regards to governmental accounting standards. I did what she said. The response was literally: “Fuck you; fucking upstart we are not going to sit and listen to this shit from a little girl who does not know her ass from a hole in the wall.” They then all got up and left the meeting. Needless to say I embarrassed myself by starting to cry. My boss, who told me to do it then stabbed me in the back in front of Jim by saying – “Well what did you expect to happen you silly girl?”
So I stayed with the company for 3 more years and never bothered to keep my mouth shut because I figured they could not humiliate me any more than they had already. Interestingly enough this made the younger professionals that they hired respect me and my resolve to try and make things change for the better. I could list endless things that were completely illegal that they did to try and get me to leave. I contacted the ACLU a number of times but in the 80’s sexual discrimination was just being to find its place in the court system; so even with documentation it did not seem worth perusing. Not to mention that a law suit of this sort would make me a virtual piranha for getting hired at another company.
I spent 3 years as Financial Director at Planned Parenthood. You would think that would be pretty safe on the discrimination end – but all jobs have their own problems associated with them. I must say I could not have made a bigger change in environment than if I had planned it all myself; which I guess I did on a subconscious level.
2 years after I quit Jim and Carolyn finally were fired by the corporate office of yet another company that purchased the former company, the friends that I made by not holding back, recommended me to the new company for Carolyn’s job. So I went back to the company feeling pretty good about what comes around goes around.
Now I hate to make this an epic comment, but I am not finished
The environmental remediation company lost its contract with the EPA 4 years later and closed the office in New Orleans. So I accepted a position as Plant Controller for a Halliburton Shaw Group joint venture in the pipe coating business.
OMG and I thought Carolyn and Jim were bad – nothing in world could prepare me for this. I passed a juried interview of 12 top executives of Halliburton and The Shaw Group. It was not lost on me that I was probably the only interviewee that was stupid or brave enough to take the job. Basically I was being hired to oversee the plant’s financial operations for a $50 million pipe coating job. My prime objective was to rat out the Plant Manager, Marc, if I thought he was not doing something correctly.
I was supposed to be reporting into the Calgary and Houston offices and be working directly for their Controllers. I found to my dismay that the Houston Office had a woman, named Katie, who worked under the Controller. She did not have a college degree and was not willing to support the 6 million dollar custom computer system that Halliburton and Shaw put in. She also hated my guts because I was making more money than her. At every opportunity she would under mind my authority and made it her daily habit to send emails to me cc’n all the top management on how she thought I was doing a bad job. Ha she finally got fired for having a bad attitude which made me happy.
On the other side was the plant manager, Marc. Marc also had a big problem with me. Even though I was not supposed to report to him he tended to ignore that and put me through a relentless hazing process. He made me come in at 5:30 in the morning and go out into the pipe yard (hard hat, steel boots and uniform) so that I could get to know the “guys” and the business.
The guys were primarily composed of parolees, as we got a large tax break for hiring them, and the business was certainly one that if you did not pay attention could kill you. I spent 6 weeks in the yard until I thought I was going to have to quit. But part of me said I am not going to quit I can do this. So I called up my real bosses and told them what was going on. They called Marc and said that he had to take me out of the field. This just made him even madder at me.
One evening when I was leaving, after being there for 12 hours he pulls over in the yard and says “Umm we fucked up so you are going to have to help us fix it. Be back here at Midnight.” I said I am not going to come back at midnight. He said” Well you will be back or you’r fired” so I said “I don’t work for you. Let me call Houston or Calgary and see what they say.” He said, “I fucking said you will be here at midnight.”
I walked over to his truck pushed my finger into his chest and said “What the fuck do you not understand about me not working for you? I am not fucking coming in at midnight so you are going to have to fix your own fucking mistake.”
He did not say a word.
When I came in on Monday I brought him a little makeup present, a tee shirt that said “Jesus loves you, but everyone else thinks you’re an asshole.”
There was a moment of silence and he started to laugh and then apologized for everything and said: The moment you told me to fuck myself you passed the test. I look forward to working with you. His family and I still exchange Christmas cards 10 years later.
The point of this run on is that no matter where you work or what you do: Don’t let people walk over you. If you do, you will simply be miserable and wonder why you did not make a stand. If the worst thing that ever happens to you is losing your job based on a principal, count yourself lucky.
Grey_Winter, I don’t think any wage earner can take enough knocks to change a rich employer. The money will win every single time.
Raspootin, I was a staff accountant for the last 16 years. No college degree…that was the biggest mistake of my life. I am not exaggerating to say that I did all the work and my CFO surfed Al Gore’s Internet all day long. I made a 1/3 of his salary. My CFO was no dummy, don’t get me wrong and to be honest I preferred to work this way. I didn’t have the patience to wait for someone else to do their part, so I’d take over. Tell me what you want and I’ll do it; but don’t even try to tell me how to do it when you can barely turn your pc on. That used to piss me off the most, watching those fukin salesmen lord it over their assistants when they couldn’t operate our computer system to save their life. Oh that and turn in a 3$ Starbuck’s tag for reimbursement cause the fuck couldn’t buy his own coffee. Phew! Is it hot in here?
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I was always told that I had a bad attitude by slimy men who were the biggest crooks you’d never want to meet. The women always came to me with their work problems; I felt protective and needed. There were a couple of women, I can really think of only 2 (throughout the years) who didn’t like me much; but they didn’t hold a college degree.
I always hated it when women would turn on each other, but you see it all the time.
My first real boss was a father figure to me. A self-made, multi-millionaire, he claimed to only have an 8th grade education. I was young and had never been impressed by those with money. I think he liked me because I didn’t suck up; in fact he encouraged me to argue with him. He always told me to perform my job as if I had to present my case in court. I never forgot that. He gave me a chance to learn on the job. He was so rich that he could summon his “friend” an accounting professor to come tutor me. Oh I had taken some college classes, I knew a debit from a credit, but my real education was a baptism by fire. I can still remember setting up general ledgers for his limited partnerships, my accounting book to my left and the “books” to my right. This was before the pc revolution. I was too naïve to realize this form of education would really hurt me in the end.
Later I would be given an opportunity to work for a larger company (my last) and hang on for dear life as they reduced accounting staff from 6 to 1 (me)…then eliminate the receptionist and shove those duties onto the remaining 6 females in the company. The men got richer and richer; the women sicker and sicker. These guys were vampires for a woman’s self-esteem. One thing 5 out of 6 women shared in common: we were the main breadwinner for our families, the word “trapped” comes to mind. That’s a story for another time, but I do tend to look for patterns.
3 out of the 4 employer’s of my life have been crooked. Usually screwing the government or a bank. The public thinks a bank robber is the poor sod who walks in and hands the teller a note. Bullshit. The real bank robbers wear expensive suits and stick um up with a creative spreadsheet. The sad thing is they get away with it. Auditors are either too dumb to see it or they purposely look the other way. I was on the front lines with the auditors; my CFO always seemed to be absent during those visits.
Cathy:
Auditors are a nightmare because they are usually lazy and not quite seasoned. (That makes us able to get over on them pretty good though
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I am not saying I did know shit for shinola when I first started out in accounting. I knew nothing. All the college degree was give me a step in the door.
I applied myself and kept changing jobs until I found one that I liked. I then decided as to avoid the inevitable “downsizing” to start my own accounting business on the side of my “real job”. Too bad you do not live here or we could go into business together!
I have worked for so many stuffy computer illiterate assholes that have taken the credit for my efforts and never seen fit to even see me enumerate me for the work that I could choke on it.
My CFO was always absent during the audit too. I figured it was because he lacked the poker face required to pass them. Much easier just to do things correctly and creatively with a legal emphasis. That is why I will no longer work for publicly traded companies. I have always been encouraged in public firms to do accounting that I am sure the share holders would not appreciate.
I’m a freakin’ digichick magnet. My ex-wife is an accountant and she eats feminists for breakfast. I’ll see if I can coax her here to
Yes, it is I, the accountant ex-wife. I wasn’t in the work force in the 80’s, so I can’t comment on the average work place sexual discrimination that went on then, but what I can say is what I have learned and that is if you let them do it to you, then shame on you. I have my share of horror stories working with sexist ass holes and all I can say is I never once put up with it. I have called several employers on their shit and it has always been the best policy. It’s not easy and it’s not fair, but the only way to get change is to demand it. These pricks need an education and I’m gonna give it to them. More often than not, this has opened their eyes and granted me the respect I deserve. If you act like a door mat, you will be treated like one. I think the way you are treated is totally dependent on the way you present yourself. Yes, there are the retarded assholes that will never learn, so move on and leave them to wallow in their own shit. If you stay at a job for several years putting up with shitty treatment, shame on you and stop fucking whinning about it, fix it, it is in YOUR own hands.
Bravo Cyn-Tax: what a great name
hehe
Okay, this is my take on sexual discrimination and while it will never go away.
Dare I say it, and be the Devil’s Advocate but yes men do deserve a higher salary than woman, probably more than they are currently recieving.
The fact is many men do in fact have more bills than women. Families, alimony payments, child support. Men on average pay more than women and are usually ruled against as they are percieved as having greater earning potential.
Men also have a tendency to work through their entire adult wives while many may work until they have a family to raise or need substantial time off because they became pregnant. Men are not afforded such luxuries regardless of their roles in the marriage.
For a woman to have a long gap in her resume would not be unusual, women may have become pregnant or raised a family. Men on the other hand, that same gap would be translated into being a deviant individual or possibily being incarcerated.
Men by default also get stuck with any menial task in most jobs. I remeber every job I had in high school or college the men were expected to unload trucks, clean toilets, and move heavy equipment or supplies while the women sat around and gossiped.
More women attend college then men but they often major in the humanities like english, art, or music. While men tend to major in hard sciences or engineering.
Men by and large serve more in the military while women are restricted from many jobs within the military due to biological differences. A woman can’t lay down in elephant grass for weeks due to inherent biological differences. A woman is unable to go without a shower for three months as I, and countless other men, in the military are expected to do. Hence more combat deaths are attributed to men.
Men also get the short end of the stick in nearly all arguments with women. Regardless of what happens, the man is usually always found guitly of domestic violence and are ruled against harshly due to their percieved “maniless”.
Men are expected to withhold emotions and “act like a man”, this often results in men either
A. drinking to excess
B. becoming a social deviant and rejecting conformist society
C. being a servant of women are pretending not to be a real man in order to gain exceptance and appear “civilized”
within my profession I have had both male and female workers, I can simply instruct the male what to do and walk away. With females I usually had to stroke their ego and politely ask them to perform some task. I also recieved regular complaints from females about other females or some other easily correctable nuance. The time and effort spent on human resources and equal opportunity training simply wasn’t worth it. If i could have just said, “I want an all male workforce” and been done with it, I would have saved millions of dollars but then that wouldn’t be fair.
What is fair is to waste everyone’s time and clog the system with reports, filings, and take time out of an already busy schedule so the female members can recieve counseling, prenatal suport, or have to take care of some personal buisness that wasn’t subject to inspection.
Instead of continually battling this idiocy I transfered to a predomaitely male unit and had none of these problems. We had two women in the unit and none of them dragged up the “gender card”.
If i ran a cost-benefit analysis of hiring men over women, I’m sure it would show in the long run paying a man twice as much as a woman is STILL CHEAPER in the long run as one free’s themselves from a lot of liability, missed work, or mis-investments in training when the individual “leaves” for “personal reasons”.
shore-leave, I now see why you must carry 2 knives.