Recently in Gripes About Women Category

I was just thinking, for no particular reason, because I am so random, about a few incidents at my old job from 2004. There was this woman consultant working there that gave a couple of training sessions. I was absolutely blown away by her sheer competence in technical knowledge and especially communication, her confidence and her pure professionalism. She could put most Toastmasters to shame. I wished that all consultants and other employees could be more like her, especially myself. I expressed this to a couple of coworkers. I would say, "Wow, what a professional." You could say that I had a professional crush on her.

This got back to a couple of other employees, who complained to my (female) boss about inappropriate comments about female coworkers. Possibly because the professional comments weren't the only ones I made. Once in a while I might remark on what someone was wearing, saying that it looked great and wondering where I might find something like that for Rose. If it was a guy, I'd do the same thing except I might wonder where I could find something for me, obviously. In any case, I was very respectful no matter who I was dealing with. Regardless, I received two formal warnings about my comments. When I asked for examples of my inappropriate comments, the "professional" thing came up. Why is calling a woman a real pro an insult? Is it like calling a black man articulate, as though it were so unexpected? Or is there an underlying hidden meaning that I wasn't aware of? Perhaps people took it as me calling her a professional whore. Maybe, but it was never explained to me. No one ever came to me to discuss what I said. I never got the chance to defend myself or explain myself. And they cherry-picked incidents instead and looking at the way I also treated everyone, which was fair and with respect. None of the men considered that I was sexually harassing them when I said that I really liked their new shirt.

Another complaint was that I would not praise other women (specifically women) for their professional behaviour. The truth was, I would occasionally say that I liked what they did, but generally speaking, nothing they did was all that spectacular. Darlene the professional was simply much better than just about all of the men and women that worked there. So I wouldn't praise their worksite virtues because there wasn't that much to praise. The ones that complained about me were marketing women, the very marketing women that inspired me to write this hate-filled entry. I can't dismiss the possibility that Darlene was as good or better-looking (in one case MUCH better looking) than these marketing women, and that this caused some kind of bitterness. Or, if I were a man that appealed to them sexually, I strongly doubt that there would have been complaints.

So the idea was that I was a sexist pig. I can see how getting the shaft like I did might turn someone into a sexist pig if they weren't one before. I have not been confronted with allegations like these since that day, and I treat all men and women with the same respect.

Just an open question to women. It's in the Gripes about Women category, although I am not really griping.

Winterbush

Blork had an interesting post about men and their keys. It's like we have some kind of satisfaction about knowing that we have keys, and that they can be used just in case street vendors or Christians come harassing them. I am SURE that there must have been studies on this. Here's another one: maybe it's me, or do women just assume that men will open the door? Why don't they even bother? Anytime there's a choice between whether I open the door, or they do, I end up opening the door except when I am far behind, my hands are full, or she's pissed at me, whomever she may be. And my mom? She'll wait five minutes for everyone to load everything out of the car and haul it to the door than actually use her key and open the door herself.

But why is that? I can accept that it may partly be a response to the guy needing to be useful bit, I guess, but I don't think that's the whole answer. If it is, maybe it means that they are going through the motions to make us feel like men, like faking orgasms.

Took a while to make the link, huh?

I am still holding on to the idea that men and women are equal (but not the same). So when it comes time to move desks around, I would expect the women to help out. It's not really physically demanding at all, especially when there are three people doing the job, so to suggest that they simply aren't capable of the physical work is bogus. Here's what happened today.:

Marketing Woman #1 and Marketing Woman #2 (they aren't really in marketing, but I am not really impressed with them right now, so...) hold their little queendoms in the corner of my floor. They have huge work areas covering huge areas, areas that could be used for us. We hired two new guys starting Monday and there was no obvious place for them. MW #1 has stated that she is not budging in terms of her space. Now, there's a vacant office on our floor. She has, as I said, a huge work area at her desk. It's twice as big as mine, and almost twice as big as the sales manager's. The sales team is packed in like sardines. She complains that we are too loud, and is squatting in the vacant office. So she insists that we leave her work area alone, but won't work there.

The sales manager asked her if she wouldn't mind having her work are rotated so that I and two others could move over a few feet and allow a bunch of other changes to take place. She could have said no, and we would have been fucked. More on that later. She agreed, but instead of pitching in like the rest of us, she stood around talking to MW #2. So I and another sales guy picked up her huge work area and rotated it.

She just stood there. Ignoring the hired help. She didn't even offer to help. It was her desk, and even though it wasn't her desire to move, it would have been polite to at least offer.

Now I know that there are lots of women that will pitch in and get their hands dirty when physical work needs to be done. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any in quite some time. They don't offer. They suddenly become incapable or uninterested, especially these prissy, dainty passive-aggressive Baronesses of Bullshit.

Am I just an asshole to expect these women to do the simplest things such as change lightbulbs, or help move their own office furniture? I can tell you that every single man was expected to pitch in, but not a single woman was. Could be something specific to these people and this organization, but I doubt this.

I am a pig. A sexist horndog. Watch out, because if you are female, I am looking to fuck you five ways from Friday.

I especially want to do it on your desk.

You see, I was, in my opinion told that I was a perverted lech by my boss. She gave me a Formal Warning in writing. The salient points of the warning were "Communication needs to be Crisp and professional", "Respect and Inappropriate comments", "Initiative and organizational skills", and "Attendance, Tardiness".

"I don't see what the point of life is."
"I don't know why I keep going on."
"Life is a sexually transmitted disease."

I know that the older I get, the more people I meet. But it seems as though the more people I meet, the more likely they are to be depressed, bitter or both. I had lunch with a coworker today. We were in the kitchen and she just looked like shit. I mean, depressed, that is.

I asked her what was wrong and she said that she was having trouble with her boyfriend. Then we got into a discussion of various things, and it turns out that she is a Sad Girl. She is a failure, nothing works out, people suck, there's nothing new under the sun, blah, blah, blah. I basically said that life isn't that bad (she countered that it is worse), and thought to myself that I won't bother with people who are like that all the time. I have enough on my plate emotionally as it is.

UPDATE 8/10: She broke up with her boyfriend. She still seems negative and mean.

So I'm told that it is wrong to say, "You look great today", because there is a definite implication that yesterday you didn't look great, and it doesn't matter whether or not it's true. I'd just like to say that there is no reason to believe this, in general. Why not think that the man means that you look particularly good today? And what is wrong with this? That's what it means, at least when I say it.

This really bugs me. But maybe I'm just "sensitive" right now.

If a woman works to make some improvement to her looks, or if the light hits her just the right way, why is it that when you compliment them, they usually say in an accusatory and defensive tone, "What, so you didn't like X before?"