The Cost Of Staying

Given a choice between accepting that something awful has happened, or thinking that someone is mistaken, exaggerating, or lying, much of the time our brains will deny the awful thing happened.

You are not imagining it. If something feels off, it probably is. Doubt is part of the pattern. So is denial.

influencers actively trying to convince young women to aspire to unemployment and servitude is literally so sinister

Women In Tech: A Relatable Story?

Hey everyone, 

I'm a 31 F, working at an architectural design firm. I will keep this short because I am pretty upset and I know it will just turn into a big rant if I don't.  

I am newer there and lower level - junior designer slash BIM tech. But I have a degree and am frankly overqualified based on past experience and my skill set. We have a few Slack groups divided up by project, job and client. I'm on most of them because I am a newb, they have me bouncing all the time from thing to thing. So I get to see most of the messages across the company. 

It's almost all men. 30s to 50s. I am one of two women in the entire place other than cleaning staff. I almost didn't take the job because of that but I have a kid and student loans and can't not keep my pay at the level it was. 

My secondary work computer is a laptop and it was stolen a few weeks ago. It wasn't backed up so I lost a lot ofwork and had to redo it. It took a lot of extra time. This caused delays and a headache with two big clients and my project leads and boss have treated me like absolute shit ever since. 

After that the running joke on Slack about “diversity hires” has been getting out of control.Nobody has said they mean women specifically but all the details about what happened with me have been mentioned very clearly. The have gone as far as saying it's so sad how the company is “lowering the bar", that this is why the economy is so bad. 

The supervisors are on these threads too. They steer clear of that stuff but they don't stop the constant jabs either. Based on their treatment around the office I feel like they actually hate me. I can't go to them. The owner is the biggest douchebeg of them all. 

We are all contractors I think so there is no HR. It's "in the works" they tell me. 

The other woman I work with has become an ally and a friend through this and we want to get out of there but yeah we can't afford it. We want to resist. But there is nothing to do about it. Sick to my stomach of the backward slide things are taking, women are becoming second class citizens again.

Want to burn the place down. Nowhere else is hiring where I am.

Sorry if there are men on this thread I know you are not all the same but sorry sometimes it feels like you are.

I am so frustrated I want to scream.

If you think you're being sexually harassed...

you're

probably

right

You don’t have to be perfect to be harmed.

Maybe you’d had a drink. Maybe you laughed along. Maybe you told them they were cute once. Maybe you texted back. Maybe you said yes to one thing, but not to what happened next.

Maybe you tried to be polite when you should have run. Maybe you didn’t run because you were scared. Or tired. Or frozen.

None of that means it wasn’t harassment. None of that means it was your fault.

"They're not harassing you. That’s just how they talk." Oh okay. I’ll just rewire my nervous system so it understands context.

Life gets easier when you stop fighting it. The rain will fall whether you complain or not. Traffic will exist whether you stress or not. People will act how they want whether you worry or not. Focus on what you can change. Let go of what you can't.