On Being An Abrasive Woman (In Tech)

in

It's story time, y'all! All the names have been changed.

One of my earlier jobs, I worked at a company that had the family vibe. Everyone hung out together, and we were all "friends." The company also really valued "niceness." I put that in quotes because the people who tended to get pinged for not being nice were women about 80-90% of the time. Heck, there was a guy who would regularly tell people they were "fucking stupid" and we'd laugh it off.   At this company, my team consisted of:

  • My manager (Peter)

  • A guy who had been on the team for a year (Keenan)

  • A guy who had been with the company for a long time but just joined the team (Erlich)

  • And me

For a while, I really liked my manager and my team. The one caveat was Erlich who, like his namesake, was a total creep. He could be funny, but he was distracting and disruptive and just generally skeeved me out. For about six months, Keenan, Erlich, and I shared an office. Then a new developer joined the team (Richard) and I moved into an office with him. It was a lot quieter, and I got so much done. After another six months, Richard was let go. I went to Peter and requested that I stay in an office with this other guy on a related team, instead of moving back into the office with Erlich. I told Peter that Erlich was distracting and he creeped me out, and I would be more comfortable not sharing an office with him for 6-8 hours every day.

I went on vacation a few days later, and while I was on vacation, Erlich was let go. I was a bit concerned about the timing, but he was also a shitty employee! So I didn't think it had anything to do with what I said. However, after I get back, Keenan starts treating me differently. I’m making a presentation to explain what we do to support, and I’m supposed to get feedback from him. I go back to Keenan at least five different times, and every time he tells me to make some other big change. Every time, I make the changes, but every time, it’s not enough.

Then Keenan reports me to Peter for being abrasive. I can't remember the exact content of the email I got from Peter (which had HR copied), but it made it sound like I had cussed out this other guy on our team (Nelson) and I had to wrack my brain for what I said. I kept wondering if I had blacked out and forgotten saying something horrible. When I finally remember, I realized all I said was a rather direct “no, you’re wrong.” I got reported to HR for telling a coworker they were wrong. I talked to Peter about it, and he apologized to me and said he should have spoken to me first, but at that point, I realized I would probably just have to switch jobs.

I've seen this double-standard exist in many places, but that was the most egregious. Maybe a month or so before this I had been eating lunch when Keenan decided to make the argument that "people with Down syndrome aren't people," and yet I was considered offensive for telling a man they were wrong.

I don't have a summary for this story. It's just one I need to tell in hopes that it will make others consider more carefully how they are treating their female colleagues.

Update: since I originally posted this, I have discovered that both Peter (my manager) and Keenan conspired out loud to get me to quit. Peter assigned me public speaking jobs thinking that would scare me off because he thought it was outside my comfort zone. Then have Keenan make sure to always find a problem with it. If I complained, then I didn’t take feedback well. I’m sure some of you are thinking “well, that’s how you get rid of bad performers if you don’t want to fire them.” Friends, I got a great review, a bonus, and a raise. I was not a poor performer. These assholes were just sexist as fuck.