So here we are in the 2018. Haven’t been here for a while and a lot has changed. Rather than a torrent of changes let’s just talk a little bit about The changes to my work situation. That’s pretty straightforward right?
Last time we talked I was a little bit sad about things but for 13 months I was able to work for a lovely little start up company. The CEO was a pretty typical demanding guy but the rest the staff was relatively amazing. After that I transitioned into another job that I’ve had the past six months. So ta da!
The start up company job wasn’t heavy work wise, but the CEO was a bit demanding. He treated me more like a personal assistant than a professional employee. He was one of those okay people, not stellar, like he was one of those guys who like to tell jokes about women during staff meetings and have me mail his weed to his house on company time and dime. The typ to make sure that he takes all the travel assignments even when it’s not applicable just because he likes to travel. For example instead of the salesman and marketing going to conferences he would, of course this resulted in no leads or sales but he did get to travel. That’s what was important.
He was the kind a guy that you had to constantly assure him that he was a nice person and that the ridiculous things he was asking of you were not ridiculous.
He was the kind of guy who assumed everything he asked you to do only took five minutes. Of course if he had to do it it would take more time and be more complex and obviously require more skill. It was never said outright of course, but it was implied in the way he would ask everything. And the way he would be surprised it took longer than five minutes to do. And then tell you not to do it and then complain that you didn’t do it. So you were forced to tell him everything only took five minutes and was easy. Just to make him feel better.
Did he expect this from the men? No not really. He generally treated the men who were most like him like equals. Even if it was pointed out to him he couldn’t see it because he didn’t have to. The amount of emotional labour I had to put into that job was stupendous. It left me exhausted and demoralized. Luckily it was only a 50% of my job And the other 50% was very rewarding. Yes, the senior women in the company knew what it was like to be a woman and work there, The women did all of the planning and all of the cleaning. This was stated out loud in meetings and after meetings and during meetings. The men would good-naturedly pick up a few things of coarse they were decent people. But at the end of the day the emotional labour expected of the women to plan and organize and execute then direct the help needed from the men of the men at the same seniority level was exhausting and ridiculous.
The amount of times that the CEO assumed a Hearty thank you would make up for all of this was beyond counting. So even though this was a good job with decent pay and relatively wonderful people the sexism was still there and extremely obvious. And not dealt with apart from being joked about.
