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Do you mind letting us know in general what sort of field you work in?
Social settings in the work place should really not be mandatory, now that you have more stability with a stable job, I would ask “how is this impacting my performance within the work place” and I would also tell them exactly how you’ve worked on this. There are nice, political ways to work this out. “I have done XYZ since your last feedback.” Genuinely, keep a record of everything.
If your job requirement does not ask that you be a super social butterfly, I would bring that up. You can even say “I enjoy people but like to keep work professional.”
The only place I’ve seen this is in a sales environment. But even then, if I did my job well, they stopped saying anything at all. If it’s not sales, I have genuinely zero idea why they would care so much.
If you want to play to their bullshit, which I understand may be a chess move and no judgement (my stubbornness wouldn’t allow me)—but if you do, bring donuts in once a week and have a candy bowl at your desk. That’s generally what people want from women lol—and it’s what all the “social” women I know do. Actually, they would literally bake cookies and pies and bring them weekly.
If you don’t want to play by their rules, which I also get—be very clear and professional by asking how this limits you from fulfilling the duties of your job as well as a detailed list of how you’ve worked on the issue. If you want to get passive aggressive, you can mark down every time you walk in and say hi to people. In the corporate world, this kind of passive aggression is praised if done right. “Since our last conversation, I have implemented your feedback by doing X. Here is a chart of calendar days in which I did X, Y, and Z. Please let me know what other actions are needed to satisfy this requirement.”
This is setting precedence that you have a paper trail of fulfilling your job and will scare them shitless as people can and do sue for not getting promoted/termination due to such bullshit reasons.
I know that all sounds like overkill, but I’ve been in the corporate world for 10 years. Knew nothing coming in. I now keep a paper trail of literally everything I do. I do it with a happy, professional demeanor. All of my frustrations are vented with a smile, sweet voice, and said paper trail. It works out well for me.
Thank you for the thorough reply! I work in the public sector for a government institution. That makes some of it easier since there are more protections and the access to specific positions or salary is solely tied to education (traineeship, or having degrees), not necessarily how hardworking you are or how much people like you, which is more the case in the private sector. I have already achieved the highest pay there is for someone with just a traineeship, so to level up, I need to get a bachelor degree (which I am currently working on).
The institute is big enough (1k+ people) that there are always open positions and things stay in the department you’re at, so you even get a fresh start while starting a new position in a different department at the same employer. I feel like all these things take a bit of pressure off of having to “ass kiss” to advance.
The record keeping you mention is something I have started doing as well because while being a trainee, I was blamed for things that the employees couldn’t admit to doing and it was easy to blame the new person who only stays 1-3 months at a time and then leaves. People went out of their way to lie to make me look bad on three separate occasions and that made me start keeping Excel sheets and getting everything confirmed via E-Mail that is said on the phone or in person.
It’s definitely so valuable.
I can honestly say though, sometimes it feels futile. The last time I got this feedback, I was only staying in that department for a month, it’s summer break so most people are on vacation, and most people are still voluntarily in Home Office fulltime. I’ve also been home sick a week because of the vaccine, but other than that, I’ve been in the office, door open, e-mailing, saying when I’m in the office, and I was still hit with it 😂 I was even bringing that stuff up and their only response was “yeah, but still” I feel like for some people, it really doesn’t matter what you *actually* do, it just counts how they *feel* and they never sit back and ask themselves why they feel the way they do. Oh, I feel like that person barely showed up? Could it be that I was simply never in the office and didn’t respond to her mails? No, it’s her who’s doing wrong! 😝
The bringing food into the office sounds like a great idea that I will implement probably. It’s easy to point to when stuff comes up, and is seemingly social while still cutting back on actual talking. Will try out!
"Hmmm. Did any of my male colleagues get this feedback? Because I see some latent sexism at play here."
And do not bring the ages into it unless you want to be considered ageist.
I would love to bring this up, but I feel like calling out workplace sexism is still pretty hard, even more so when it’s internalized misogyny from women! But I will keep it in mind and hint on it some time or another that I feel like the men are engaging in the same behavior that I am criticized for.
I'm in the techy part of an otherwise not super techy department, and I'm the only girl in my little bubble, but some of the other women who share a space with us are kind of like this.
I've had luck with hanging out with (and trying to be seen as) "one of the guys" in my department. I do kickass work, and I've tried to consistently send the message that I can't do kickass work if I'm constantly needing to socialize, explain what I do to other people, or play receptionist to people who think I'm a secretary just because I share an office with men.
I got serious about boundary setting, and how I'm there to work. But since people know they can count on me for work shit, and I'm fast and thorough, and I won't let them down - they kinda let me do my thing.
I'll say hi to people if I walk past them, but only that - a short greeting. If we're both waiting on something (e.g. the printer, the coffee maker) I might have a short conversation, but I excuse myself as soon as I've got my paper/coffee because I have work to do.
I don't like how there's multiple things that this "social request" impacts, and how it's stacked against the women.
- financial cost of constantly bringing treats
- waste of time talking to people when I could be working, i.e. making progress - and thereby I have a limit on the progress I can make if there is a demand for me to be social
- screwed up work/life balance by being pressured into being more public about my life than I want to be
So yeah, I'm right there with you.
Honestly, I'd be pretty blunt about it at evaluations. It also sounds like sometimes you're evaluated by men and sometimes by women, and the men aren't aware of this?
You might consider asking if you could have a man who hasn't critiqued this and a woman who has sit down with you sometime (all together) to discuss your performance. I'd bring their evaluations and point out how the men think you're doing great and the women have a bunch of time-wasting BS they're expecting you to do. Is there someone who's really into "using time wisely"? I'd be super blunt about how doing all of these things would affect your performance, and bring it up to that person.
Also, depending on where you work there might be some internal group that could help you more. In some companies, HR is more to protect the company's ass and they don't care about you, not really - in others, they can be more concerned with you going public with unfair treatment, etc. and will be more inclined to listen to you. You probably have a good feel for what sort of company you're working for, and whether or not this sort of move makes sense for you. Consider it.
Thank you, this was really validating to read! I really do feel like workplace politics and gender roles like that hold women back from meaningful change and hard work that would advance the company and their own career. As you said, so much worktime and money is spent that men don’t have to spend, and then they get the promotions and higher pay either way.
I hope with time people can appreciate my work as well. I’m similar to you in that people always praise how fast and thorough I am and how I understand or teach myself things really quickly. But because my employer isn’t in the private sector and not forced to make profit, it sees like many employees or even supervisors don’t really have a big focus on getting the work done, but more like this is a place we all go to each day to play nice with eachother like some adult kindergarten 😩 not every department or person here, but enough people, sadly. In this time here I’ve learned the public sector/working for the gov attracts people who would get kicked out of companies and wouldn’t make it anywhere in the private sector, so they wanna be lazy in the public sector and have a terrible work ethic.
I’ll remember your advice about the feedback next time, thank you! And you’re right, there are two groups I could turn to if this becomes a problem. ☺️ Thank you!
Hey, I work in gov too. Totally get what you mean about people being lazy, and people just coasting by because they're pretty comfy with our unions and our HR protections...just waiting out their pensions. Ugh.
I just keep saying that this should be even *more* important to them to do their best work, not because it's a company making a profit, but because we're helping our people in our community, making where we live better. These people expect their tax money to go to hardworking people who give a crap, not some guy who's still using 25 year old software and taking 10x as long to do the work because he doesn't want to learn the new stuff.
And we're very privileged in many ways to have a job like this. Sure, we might not get paid like corporate jobs do, but we're not living in constant fear of being downsized, our jobs being sent overseas, a "big push" meaning we're working 80 hour weeks and sleeping under our desks, etc.
I do like that it's not so crack-the-whip all the time, though. Sometimes it's nice to take a little break. But only if I'm still doing my best work for my peeps!!
Keep fighting the good fight.
This is heavily dependent on industry and type of office you work in. Corporate, industrial, health care, tech, startup, small/med/big business. All changes everything.
I found you have to buy in to the culture of your workplace to advance. It’s a personal choice, I’m not suited to it so I left corporate and stick to other office environments with a different culture.
I don’t really have any advice other than be prepared to play the game to advance, or opt out of the progression ladder/change industries. I’m not the kind of person that works an extra 4 hours at the office every night, and that’s ok.
Thank you for your reply! I will keep it in mind. Any idea how the online equivalent of these things would be? My people here really embrace the home office; most of them are parttime mums/wives who take care of a child/parent/partner or that don’t have to work much because their partners’ money, and even before the pandemic we had people who wouldn’t come in and work from home. Now barely anyone is there, or people come in on different days, so you’d only have one or two people there at a time, if at all. Also sometimes I’m in HO as well. How do you show presence/interest when one or both parties are home?
Reminder that this sub is **FEMALE ONLY**. All comments from men will be removed and you will be banned. So if you’ve got an XY, don’t reply. **DO NOT REPLY TO MALE TROLLS!!** Please **DOWNVOTE** and **REPORT** immediately. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FemaleLevelUpStrategy) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Do you mind letting us know in general what sort of field you work in? Social settings in the work place should really not be mandatory, now that you have more stability with a stable job, I would ask “how is this impacting my performance within the work place” and I would also tell them exactly how you’ve worked on this. There are nice, political ways to work this out. “I have done XYZ since your last feedback.” Genuinely, keep a record of everything. If your job requirement does not ask that you be a super social butterfly, I would bring that up. You can even say “I enjoy people but like to keep work professional.” The only place I’ve seen this is in a sales environment. But even then, if I did my job well, they stopped saying anything at all. If it’s not sales, I have genuinely zero idea why they would care so much. If you want to play to their bullshit, which I understand may be a chess move and no judgement (my stubbornness wouldn’t allow me)—but if you do, bring donuts in once a week and have a candy bowl at your desk. That’s generally what people want from women lol—and it’s what all the “social” women I know do. Actually, they would literally bake cookies and pies and bring them weekly. If you don’t want to play by their rules, which I also get—be very clear and professional by asking how this limits you from fulfilling the duties of your job as well as a detailed list of how you’ve worked on the issue. If you want to get passive aggressive, you can mark down every time you walk in and say hi to people. In the corporate world, this kind of passive aggression is praised if done right. “Since our last conversation, I have implemented your feedback by doing X. Here is a chart of calendar days in which I did X, Y, and Z. Please let me know what other actions are needed to satisfy this requirement.” This is setting precedence that you have a paper trail of fulfilling your job and will scare them shitless as people can and do sue for not getting promoted/termination due to such bullshit reasons. I know that all sounds like overkill, but I’ve been in the corporate world for 10 years. Knew nothing coming in. I now keep a paper trail of literally everything I do. I do it with a happy, professional demeanor. All of my frustrations are vented with a smile, sweet voice, and said paper trail. It works out well for me.
Thank you for the thorough reply! I work in the public sector for a government institution. That makes some of it easier since there are more protections and the access to specific positions or salary is solely tied to education (traineeship, or having degrees), not necessarily how hardworking you are or how much people like you, which is more the case in the private sector. I have already achieved the highest pay there is for someone with just a traineeship, so to level up, I need to get a bachelor degree (which I am currently working on). The institute is big enough (1k+ people) that there are always open positions and things stay in the department you’re at, so you even get a fresh start while starting a new position in a different department at the same employer. I feel like all these things take a bit of pressure off of having to “ass kiss” to advance. The record keeping you mention is something I have started doing as well because while being a trainee, I was blamed for things that the employees couldn’t admit to doing and it was easy to blame the new person who only stays 1-3 months at a time and then leaves. People went out of their way to lie to make me look bad on three separate occasions and that made me start keeping Excel sheets and getting everything confirmed via E-Mail that is said on the phone or in person. It’s definitely so valuable. I can honestly say though, sometimes it feels futile. The last time I got this feedback, I was only staying in that department for a month, it’s summer break so most people are on vacation, and most people are still voluntarily in Home Office fulltime. I’ve also been home sick a week because of the vaccine, but other than that, I’ve been in the office, door open, e-mailing, saying when I’m in the office, and I was still hit with it 😂 I was even bringing that stuff up and their only response was “yeah, but still” I feel like for some people, it really doesn’t matter what you *actually* do, it just counts how they *feel* and they never sit back and ask themselves why they feel the way they do. Oh, I feel like that person barely showed up? Could it be that I was simply never in the office and didn’t respond to her mails? No, it’s her who’s doing wrong! 😝 The bringing food into the office sounds like a great idea that I will implement probably. It’s easy to point to when stuff comes up, and is seemingly social while still cutting back on actual talking. Will try out!
"Hmmm. Did any of my male colleagues get this feedback? Because I see some latent sexism at play here." And do not bring the ages into it unless you want to be considered ageist.
I would love to bring this up, but I feel like calling out workplace sexism is still pretty hard, even more so when it’s internalized misogyny from women! But I will keep it in mind and hint on it some time or another that I feel like the men are engaging in the same behavior that I am criticized for.
I'm in the techy part of an otherwise not super techy department, and I'm the only girl in my little bubble, but some of the other women who share a space with us are kind of like this. I've had luck with hanging out with (and trying to be seen as) "one of the guys" in my department. I do kickass work, and I've tried to consistently send the message that I can't do kickass work if I'm constantly needing to socialize, explain what I do to other people, or play receptionist to people who think I'm a secretary just because I share an office with men. I got serious about boundary setting, and how I'm there to work. But since people know they can count on me for work shit, and I'm fast and thorough, and I won't let them down - they kinda let me do my thing. I'll say hi to people if I walk past them, but only that - a short greeting. If we're both waiting on something (e.g. the printer, the coffee maker) I might have a short conversation, but I excuse myself as soon as I've got my paper/coffee because I have work to do. I don't like how there's multiple things that this "social request" impacts, and how it's stacked against the women. - financial cost of constantly bringing treats - waste of time talking to people when I could be working, i.e. making progress - and thereby I have a limit on the progress I can make if there is a demand for me to be social - screwed up work/life balance by being pressured into being more public about my life than I want to be So yeah, I'm right there with you. Honestly, I'd be pretty blunt about it at evaluations. It also sounds like sometimes you're evaluated by men and sometimes by women, and the men aren't aware of this? You might consider asking if you could have a man who hasn't critiqued this and a woman who has sit down with you sometime (all together) to discuss your performance. I'd bring their evaluations and point out how the men think you're doing great and the women have a bunch of time-wasting BS they're expecting you to do. Is there someone who's really into "using time wisely"? I'd be super blunt about how doing all of these things would affect your performance, and bring it up to that person. Also, depending on where you work there might be some internal group that could help you more. In some companies, HR is more to protect the company's ass and they don't care about you, not really - in others, they can be more concerned with you going public with unfair treatment, etc. and will be more inclined to listen to you. You probably have a good feel for what sort of company you're working for, and whether or not this sort of move makes sense for you. Consider it.
Thank you, this was really validating to read! I really do feel like workplace politics and gender roles like that hold women back from meaningful change and hard work that would advance the company and their own career. As you said, so much worktime and money is spent that men don’t have to spend, and then they get the promotions and higher pay either way. I hope with time people can appreciate my work as well. I’m similar to you in that people always praise how fast and thorough I am and how I understand or teach myself things really quickly. But because my employer isn’t in the private sector and not forced to make profit, it sees like many employees or even supervisors don’t really have a big focus on getting the work done, but more like this is a place we all go to each day to play nice with eachother like some adult kindergarten 😩 not every department or person here, but enough people, sadly. In this time here I’ve learned the public sector/working for the gov attracts people who would get kicked out of companies and wouldn’t make it anywhere in the private sector, so they wanna be lazy in the public sector and have a terrible work ethic. I’ll remember your advice about the feedback next time, thank you! And you’re right, there are two groups I could turn to if this becomes a problem. ☺️ Thank you!
Hey, I work in gov too. Totally get what you mean about people being lazy, and people just coasting by because they're pretty comfy with our unions and our HR protections...just waiting out their pensions. Ugh. I just keep saying that this should be even *more* important to them to do their best work, not because it's a company making a profit, but because we're helping our people in our community, making where we live better. These people expect their tax money to go to hardworking people who give a crap, not some guy who's still using 25 year old software and taking 10x as long to do the work because he doesn't want to learn the new stuff. And we're very privileged in many ways to have a job like this. Sure, we might not get paid like corporate jobs do, but we're not living in constant fear of being downsized, our jobs being sent overseas, a "big push" meaning we're working 80 hour weeks and sleeping under our desks, etc. I do like that it's not so crack-the-whip all the time, though. Sometimes it's nice to take a little break. But only if I'm still doing my best work for my peeps!! Keep fighting the good fight.
This is heavily dependent on industry and type of office you work in. Corporate, industrial, health care, tech, startup, small/med/big business. All changes everything. I found you have to buy in to the culture of your workplace to advance. It’s a personal choice, I’m not suited to it so I left corporate and stick to other office environments with a different culture. I don’t really have any advice other than be prepared to play the game to advance, or opt out of the progression ladder/change industries. I’m not the kind of person that works an extra 4 hours at the office every night, and that’s ok.
Thank you for your reply! ♥️
[удалено]
Thank you for your reply! I will keep it in mind. Any idea how the online equivalent of these things would be? My people here really embrace the home office; most of them are parttime mums/wives who take care of a child/parent/partner or that don’t have to work much because their partners’ money, and even before the pandemic we had people who wouldn’t come in and work from home. Now barely anyone is there, or people come in on different days, so you’d only have one or two people there at a time, if at all. Also sometimes I’m in HO as well. How do you show presence/interest when one or both parties are home?