Diversity

Today my entire department was signed up for a diversity training class. This could be considered a good thing, but regular readers may recall that in my department there is some tension between the males and the females. I tried to make the point to my boss that having us all in the same class wouldn’t be that helpful because how could you talk about situations openly when the person you may be talking about is sitting right next to you. But my boss would have no part of it, I think his exact words were: I am aware of the situation, other people have complained and given me examples, but at least after diversity training theoretically they should know how to behave and I can speak to them if they continue to act badly. What a crock of shit! My boss gets credit for the % of people on his staff that go to the training. That is why he set up a special class just for us to ensure we all went. The horrifying thing is (and you could see this coming a mile away) that since we are so close to launch, the most egregious offenders would say they were too busy to go. This is exactly what happened. Also, the guys in my department have been mocking the class ever since it was announced.. they will tell, for example, an ethnic joke and then laugh and say.. hahaha we need to go to diversity training. hahaha.

So I was pissed even before the class began.

Let me just give you a sampling of some of things that were said in the class (because I really do want to get fired - ha!).
- The first exercise was to determine the top 3 characteristics that you felt defined yourself (i.e. male/female, parent, married/single, Caucasian, etc. etc.), rank them and then we used stickers to put them up on a board to see where the clusters were. Only one person chose Heterosexual as a way of identifying himself. As we are looking at the results he raises his hand and says: I put myself as heterosexual and no one put homosexual, should I assume that the rest of you don’t have any sexuality?

There were two facilitators, a man and a woman. The woman was going through the different elements we would talk about that day. One being gender. She asked which gender is considered dominant and which subordinate. Many of the men in the room started saying women were in charge (or dominant). The facilitator was so taken aback that she completely lost control of the group. She asked why they thought that and they would say things like: who is deciding what I’m eating for dinner tonight? The women in the room just sat there with their mouths open. While I do think women have more influence in the world than they are given credit for, I really felt they were just mocking the class or attempting to look progressive, which they are not. It was really bad because they wouldn’t let this facilitator get a word in. Later, when the male facilitator was talking we brought up how no one interrupted him and there were no comments from the peanut gallery. By the way, 100% of women chose female as one of their characteristics, while only 67% of men chose male as one of theirs (meaning that they just don’t think as much about being male as something that shapes them).

Then we did an exercise where the women has to pretend they were men and say what they would like about being men (at work) and not like about being men and vice versa for the guys… The women came up with lists like:
pros: getting respect, not be second guessed, having their opinions matter, equal pay and promotions, having self confidence
cons: lack of bathroom privacy, having to be aggressive
The mens list:
pros: mood swings are understandable, get to leave early to take care of children, womens support network, more attention
cons: too many clothing options/we won’t know how to dress appropriately, having to act “lady like”
When asked to define “lady like” all they could say was proper… and not swearing or being aggressive. One woman said: so not being a bitch? It was classic! Then I asked what “more attention” meant and they said people pay more attention to women, what they wear, etc. So you mean in a sexual way, they are checking them out? yes. There was this girl who is about 25 from a different group there and she said: yes! That is really an advantage for women! And she meant it. She is too stupid to realize that they aren’t thinking you are qualified because you are attractive, it has no bearing on your work, promotions or pay. Another women made the point that men are only checking out the women that are young and attractive, if you’re older or not attractive, this isn’t really an advantage, is it?
Then we actually had a guy say that when he was in business school his professor had thrown out an idea (and he’s not saying he agrees with it, but….). The idea: that statistically because women go on maternity leave and do have to miss work for children’s events, that they provide less value (or they cost the company more in benefits) to the company and that should be factored into their pay. The facilitators didn’t even want to go there, so we didn’t even get to go into that one.
What I noticed was that the guys seemed to think that because women were the primary caregivers of children, that automatically made them less interested in their careers (note to guys: false!) and this was somehow a justification for taking women less seriously at work. I don’t think that is what it is because they don’t take any women seriously, it doesn’t matter if they have children or not.
Then the guys questioned how having self confidence was a pro, but aggressiveness was a con. To them it was the same thing. I had to explain that you can be self confident without being overly aggressive and stepping on everyone to get your way. They all looked at me with their mouths open, the women all nodded.

Towards the end of the day we reached the sexual orientation part of the class, where one of my co-workers was pretty much called a bigot by the facilitator. The exercise was: if you were heterosexual and worked at a company that was 95% non-heterosexual and you weren’t “in” to your co-workers - how would you handle the office holiday party. Would you bring your significant other, go alone … would you worry about this? The facilitator asked what other things people would worry about and this guy raises his hand and says: if I went alone, I would be afraid that all the guys would hit on me. So I raised my hand and said: that could happen at any holiday party, it just might not be guys. So the facilitator said: at your holiday party, do you have to fend off many unwanted advances from women? He says: ah.. no. The facilitator says: so why do you think that all the gay people are going to be hitting you? The 25 year old girl says: so you think all these guys would be checking you out at the party just because their gay? I don’t think when I go to a holiday party that the heterosexual guys are checking me out. I swiveled around in my seat to stare at her in amazement. What planet has she been living on? Of course one guy in my department says to her: well, you should. I did have to laugh at that one. Of course this was followed by a women in the group saying she would be concerned about whether the party would be at a strip club. The facilitator said that there were obviously some stereotype issues in the room that are below the surface and need to be worked on.

these are just examples of what I deal with every day… tommorrow I will go in and listen to the guys make fun of the class all day and whisper and giggle amongst themselves about what the women said. Ok, not every guy is like this, I know. Just most of the ones I work with.

Project status update conference call quote of the day:

business person to project manager: so you are asking me to not consider this showstopping issue a showstopper so we can launch?

120%

We just got this email from the project manager on my project saying how everyone has been doing so great, and we’ve all given 120%, aren’t we all wonderful… blah, blah, blah. Supposedly moral boosting, but in reality just produces eye rolling. So someone replies: I have to disagree, I think Phillip only gave 108%. I have been laughing for 10 min. I can’t stop. I think I’m going over the edge. I think I’ll put my head down on my desk for awhile.

yeah, the home stretch of any project is always a nightmare.

** update: and then Phillip replied and said: well I think Amy only gave 99.91%
waaaa!!

Get your butt over here and fix my hard drive!

About a week an a half ago I received this thrilling email:
Please be advised that [random technology group acronym] has identified a potential problem with your desktop computer that requires your assistance. Your Compaq desktop contains a hard drive, which has been recalled by the manufacturer and is in need of replacement or proactive repair. This recall affects only those model desktops that have been identified to contain one of the following three types of hard drives.
� Fujitsu 10gig
� Maxtor Rigel 10gig
� Seagate Vail 10gig
The hard drive has been recalled or is in need of repair due to a higher than normal reported failure rate. Therefore, we are taking proactive measures to replace and repair these hard drives prior to failure.

So I copy of everything of value on my hard drive to the network.

Email received today (from person in same technical group with bizarre acronym):
You have exceeded your disk storage limits on the [whatever] network. Please move the following files [big list of large files] to your c:\ drive by Fri. They will be deleted for you on Fri. if you do not comply.

sincerely, the network nazi*

What the fuck? I think I’m entirely justified in replying: then get your butt over here and fix my hard drive!

* not his real name. This is not our first run in as I have tried to make him understand in the past that making people keep most information on their hard drives makes no sense as hard drives aren’t backed up, but the network is… but he won’t have any part of it.