Careful what you wish for.

[panthera]

I don't think

that most women felt they had any choice but to be unmentionable-busters to be taken seriously.

That was and is the role which most "successful" male managers in the mid to late 20th century played and it was expected.

Personally, I've worked for some very nice women who were easy to get along with and I've worked for a few nasty ones. Same as with men.

There is still an enormous amount of nastiness and resentment towards women in the workplace, it's no wonder many are often emotionally scared.

I see the tea-baggers as the boomer pendant to the unmentionable-breaking female manager. Just look at the make-up of them and you'll see what women have had to contend with the escape from even the lowest levels of the professional glass ceiling.

 

[toggleswitch]

One mst be careful what energy they put out in the unverse.

Better to say "Whatever energy you send me I send back to you ten-fold." Followed by "I take all negativity in me and around me and disburse it harmlessly into the unverse." AMEN

 

[mixfinder]

Queen for a Day!!

Being a closeted male until I was 52 allowed me to stack up a load of hurt, accusations and lies. I felt I only had one option and that was hetro sexual monogamy. It only takes one look or 2 syllables to know I am gay regardless of my overt actions. A crummy childhood, chronic illness, financial setbacks, denying myself an opportunity for happiness made me an over achieving, insufferable, judgemental, caustic one act play. I wanted to attend a church that "cussed in tongues" because no words I knew sufficiently expressed my rage. I regaled every new audience with the trevails of being me. Want to wager a bet on how popular I was at work? It was difficult to step out from the safety of my stories which fully justified who and what I was. It took some therapy and a healing community to let go of the "story" In the beginning I felt undressed and vulnerable. Walking away from story allowed me to heal. I could just as easily become the bitter person who left an empty funeral parlor. Free to be and free to be me is indeed a Pearl of Great Price. We can not relive or change the past but we can always begin again.

 

[toggleswitch]

Bitter in aisle one..........

If only a little bit of carpet-munching could fix the females that are nasty around me.

 

[rapunzel]

If only a little bit of carpet-munching could fix the female

A good helping of hot sauce will make any carpet taste better.

 

[toggleswitch]

LOL ROFL

There is a hot-sauce brand here (I think it is "Franks's")

An old lady comes on for a radio commeircal advertisement saying:

"I love Frank's red hot-sauce" pregnant pause
"I put that sh-- (partial bleep) on everything!"

 

[rll70sman]

I know all too well about how Boomer- and early Gen-X-aged women act in the workplace. Hunter and Rapunzel hit the proverbial nail on the head. Many mothers had to dig and claw their way up the ladder to land jobs customarily held by men, let alone get paid the same wages. The women's rights movement set the stage for a whole new "underground" world of discrimination that men only dare to expose.

I was "laid off" from my job a year ago last Friday. My supervisor was a 46-year-old woman, who I believe, had it out for me from day one. She wanted everyone in the company, including management, to believe that she was this agreeable, soft-spoken manager that "shot from the hips." Wrong! Behind closed doors and in my annual reviews, she was cold, judgmental, and downright evil. Even her eyes and facial expressions were dark and distant. She had her favorites within the department; let's say I and a few others weren't part of her "clutch," so to speak.

If there's anything I hate worse in the workplace, it's women managers who go on power trips and play favorites. They're notorious for it, but whoa to any man who has the balls to speak up! I see my former boss in town occasionally on her lunch break as I'm on my way to do whatever work I can find. She's so pathetically into herself that she won't make eye contact with people as she walks stoicly down the sidewalk or aisle of a store. Luckily, I've never run into her in public because I'm afraid my meekness would leave me in a rush and everyone around would know my opinion of this woman....

 

[volvoguy87]

Death and beloved memories.

I find it interesting that when someone dies, their status is often elevated far above the esteem in which they had been held in life.

When I was growing up, there was a woman at my synagogue who many people loved. To those of us who were still on the younger side at the time (children and adolescents) she was a self-centered materialistic b***h. She died a horrible death of cancer in her early 40s.

After her funeral someone asked me if I was saddened by her passing. I replied in a deadpan tone: "When she was alive she was a b***h. Now she's dead. That doesn't make her a saint, that makes her a dead b***h." Granted, my response lacked any tact, but I felt her memory deserved a blunt, tact-free address.

I'll normally cut people lots of slack (unless they're violating historic preservation ethics, in which case I'm a real hard-ass, but that's another matter). In order for me to loose respect for someone and then develop a hatred takes a great deal of effort on their part over a very long time.

Fortunately, I really despise very few people. I feel fortunate that I have more friends than enemies and I hope it stays that way.

Don't go out of your way to make life miserable for others, it's not worth it,
Dave

 

[volvoguy87]

People on power-trips at work.

I once worked in an office that featured an archival storage building. On my first day, my immediate boss took me into the archives to show me how things were organized and explain procedures. Upon leaving the archives, a woman came up to me and tore me a new one, ending with "NOBODY goes into the archives unless I SAY SO!" At that point, the department manager overheard her, came out and told her that I had a degree in historic preservation (I do) and that I was more qualified to be in the archives than she was. Afterward, all the other folks in the office congratulated me for finally beating this woman. It was only my 1st day, but she had apparently been terrorizing the other folks in the office as long as she had been employed there.

On another occasion, this woman was standing in a group discussing a project. At one point, one of the 2 secretaries asked her a question and she replied "oh, it doesn't concern you, you're just support staff." The rest of us cringed because the secretaries were two of the nicest, most efficient, and helpful people in the department. Needless to say, the woman in question found her productivity slashed. To this day, I have no idea how the secretaries put up with her abuse.

Without the secretaries, the office grinds to an immediate halt,
Dave

 

[toggleswitch]

You got that right.

Our secretary lubes up the cogs and gears in here and keeps everything moving when the boss is out.

Brings to mind the Penguin in one of the Batman movies....

"What this place needs is a good enema!"

 

[panthera]

Never, ever be rude to those "below" you.

I was taught this at a very young age and it is soooo true.

In our office, we have two assistants. We work great together. Anything I need, I get. Without them, I could not continue to teach and take care of my parents.

Of course, I also:
Put paper in the photocopier when I use it.
If I walk past a ringing phone in our main office and everybody is busy, I answer it.
Put my coffee cups in the dishwasher and run it when it's full, empty it when I walk into the faculty lounge and see it's done.

Say thanks and please and "would it be possible". I bake a cake or three for the end of semester sale every semester and make sure the secretaries get one, too.

Never, ever make special requests without making up for it...which includes coming in on a Saturday and doing a 5,000+ mailing which they couldn't do that week because they were processing ten diagnostics for my students which I forgot to turn in on time.

Without them, I just might be able to find my ass with both hands and that's about the level my teaching would be at, too.

Now, the weird thing of it is, my colleague who fails 75%+ of all freshmen can't get a thing out of the copy center. The server never seems to find his account, his password has always timed out at the worst possible time and his mailbox seems to always get his mail last. Whereas I get 17th and 18th century lecture halls, he gets concrete slab constructions from the 1970's with windows that don't open and funky air-conditioning. If any, at all.

What goes around, comes around. He treats the secretaries like not-too-bright children, stares down their blouses and snarls at them in front of students and other faculty.

He treats the rest of us like, dirt, too...but we are very careful to never be nasty back. He takes it out on our students and the support staff.

I've never had the pleasure, but other professors who have stood next to him in the men's room say he has a lot to compensate for...

 

[hunter]

too true

Panthera said:

>I've never had the pleasure, but other professors who have stood next to him in the men's room say he has a lot to compensate for...

My observation is that men who haven't got much of one try to be the biggest one.

Think about that next time you deal with a richard cranium police officer. [In several years on the job I never ONCE even had someone take a swing at me. Other guys were getting in fights all the time. Yet I had enforcement stats as good or better. Go figure.]

Of course, in that case, a courteous but no nonsense allowed attitude goes a long way - not the 'i dare ya' that so many have.

 

[panthera]

Oh, Hunter

How naughty of you.
I'm going to open my graduate seminar with that one next week.[this post was last edited: 5/1/2010-06:03]

 

[hunter]

By all means!

By all means Panthera! Enjoy!