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O/T For Those Of You Ladies Who Have "Non-Traditional" Occupations (VENT)

thinkthrice's picture

Namely those dominated by males, do you often get talked down to or the person on the other end of the phone assumes you are the "secretary?"

Now I can understand this with older males and possibly older females, but I just talked to a most likely 40 something male who told me if I could "scope out someone geeky to help me."

As though I were a receptionist calling to make an inquiry about an IT equipment purchase.

I had to explain to him that I AM the "geeky" person who will be helping a town supervisor with their purchase which is used almost exclusively to print shit from "his" program.

He then snapped back at me and said "wait, I'm not finished!"

He did stop trying to "dumb it down" for me though, which I WAS grateful for.

I'm thinking of filing a complaint to his supervisor that women calling in aren't exclusively receptionists or administrative assistants!

Comments

Ninji's picture

I do get that a lot working with the military. Certain people will argue with me non stop trying to get their way. Even when I show them in black and white the regulations. My male co-worker doesn't get that as much.

In fact, just today, he had to tell one of our customers no about something. I told him to hold onto his seat because this guy complains about every thing. Nope, the guy simply asked for instructions on how to proceed a different way. He has never done that with me. It's always a fight. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

sunshinex's picture

I do marketing for people in a male dominated industry, and i'm quite a bit younger than a lot of my clients. For the most part, they respect me and my guidance because they're paying for it. I've had a few clients who seemed to have the idea that a young women couldn't possibly know what they need to do to better market their company, but I just push through and keep speaking with confidence until I get them results, then they stop doubting me lol.

There's been one or two that I had to straight up pass over to a male coworker because I just knew the reason it wasn't working was because they weren't comfortable taking direction from me.

notsobad's picture

Ugggg, I was just talking about this.

I work in accounting. At my last job when the receptionist took her 2 weeks vacation upper management wanted all the "girls" in the office to take a shift at the reception desk.
I was okay with it at first but got angry as I realized that it was only the women in the office being asked to do it.

There were 3 young men who were making less than me, working on less important time sensitive accounts who were not expected to take a turn at reception.

I went to my boss and said I would do it if I HAD to but, did they really want to pay me to sit out there and basically do nothing for an afternoon? I had some coding that could be done but I couldn't do any data entry or reconciliations away from my desk.
It would make way more sense to have one of the lower paid "boys" out there.

In the end, we forwarded the phones to our desks and put a bell on the reception desk in case anyone walked in. Seems the owner didn't think that anyone would take us seriously if a male voice answered the phone?!
I admit, I was kind of passive aggressive and if I was in the middle of something I let the phones go to the auto attendant.

notsobad's picture

The same thing when the kitchen gets messy or the fridge needs cleaning. They ask the "girls" to please tidy it up.
Oh hell no, I have a cleaning lady at home, I'm not about to start loading the dishwasher here!

I will clean up after myself but not after you.

LongTimeLurker's picture

Good on you for putting him in his place. I cant stand rude people who make stupid assumptions.

Most people assume from my title / name that I must be a man. When I was a younger I also got a bit of "age discrimination" from both older and younger people. These days I can't be bothered anymore. (Benefit of age and dealing with "repeat customers". Wink

Merry's picture

Mansplaining. Men getting (or taking) credit for a woman's idea. Getting talked over/ignored in a meeting.

This happens less to me as I've gotten older, but it still happens.

Recent experience though: I was leaving a meeting in an academic building, in a unit that is almost entirely male. A male student was looking for a particular faculty member. He stopped me in the hall and said he was looking for Dr. X because he had to give him some paperwork, and he held out the paperwork like I was going to take it. I had just come out of a meeting with Dr. X, so I knew where he was at that very moment, and I pointed the student in that direction. But not good enough. I was OBVIOUSLY the secretary, and I just needed to take his damn papers so he could be on his way. Not happening, dude. The guy was maybe 20 -- so I don't think a generational change will automatically take care of the gender/race/culture assumptions people make.

Several years ago I was buying a car. My car. My money. We were about to do the deal and the young, male salesman asked me if I had my husband's permission to buy the car. This was in a wildly liberal town. My jaw hit the floor. My feet also walked out the door.

notsobad's picture

I used to work at a car dealership and the sales guys always said that women were better negotiators than men.
They know what they want and how much they are willing to pay for it. They will usually walk away from a bad deal.

Men on the other hand will over pay if something is thrown in for free. You want the car for $1000 less than asking? Sorry, we can't do that but we'll throw in mats and a full tank of gas (worth under $150). Sold!

NoWireCoatHangarsEVER's picture

I work in Electric Engineering. In June my female coworker and I both got qualified for the "Win Dad a hooker contest." It was a fishing prize. We both were given a yeti tumbler when we didn't win the big fishing trip prize. One of our male coworkers takes out a five dollar bill and tries to imply we didn't win a prostitution contest

ESMOD's picture

First job I was the receptionist and my counterpart was the "mailroom guy". I was literally told that he got a bigger raise that year because he had a family and I didn't.

I am fairly certain at other times I didn't get promotions in the most timely manner or that my junior coworkers were perceived as my superiors.

I honestly can usually tell when it happens and I probably have my own passive aggressive ways of evening the score. lol.