Insty linked to this article a while back:
Will #MeToo Spark Backlash Against Women in the Workplace?
You’d better believe it, although not just in the ways that the [female] writer of the article thinks. Here are my thoughts on the topic, and I’ll bet anything that I’m not alone in this.
If I were a company owner or senior manager, my first obligation would be to the company: its performance, productivity and profitability (the Three Ps). In order to further that agenda, these are the things I’d do.
- I would never hire a woman again, unless I absolutely had to. In the latter situation, I’d hire an older woman with lots of experience only if there was absolutely no male candidate for the job with the same skills. (Why older? Because young women are fucked up, and I’m not interested in helping them. Younger women are also more likely to affect one or more of the Three Ps because of their attitude, their propensity to cause trouble in the office, their sense of entitlement, and all the other characteristics which would affect the company’s productivity e.g. months and months of pregnancy leave.) But honestly, I would prefer to hire male workers almost exclusively so we could concentrate on getting the job done.
- I would not hire a Human Resources manager, or have an HR department. HR is most often a refuge for women in any case, it has no operational function within a company, is quite simply overhead, and in many cases, malevolent overhead because it has to justify its existence, and can only do so by screwing with the lives of the employees and being an organ whereby dissatisfaction can be aired. Every single technical function of HR can be handled by competent line managers, and what can’t be, I’d outsource.
- There would be no administrative assistants (“secretaries”, as we used to call them, another hive for women to inhabit). In today’s world, I would expect every employee to handle their own admin as part of the job description. What they can’t handle (e.g. business travel planning, which can get complicated), I’d outsource that as well.
- If I were to hire a woman, she’d have either a STEM degree from a technical college or any degree from Hillsdale. I would make it plain, as part of the interview, that the focus of her job was to be the business, and nothing else. And yes: she would have to have a track record at least twice as good as any male interviewee for the position.
If all this comes across as hard-ass or “discriminatory”, I don’t care because I didn’t create today’s toxic environment, where men are vilified just for being men, where unprovable accusations are accepted as fact, and where prickly sensitivities have to be protected by company policy instead of by manners and decency. To be frank, I hate the feminization of the business world, and in my own small way I’d be pushing back against it.
Of course, I’m never going to work in an office, or for Global MegaCorp Inc. or for anyone other than as an at-will worker. Nor will I ever hire anyone ever again. But let me tell you all, do not be surprised if the “backlash against women in the workplace” manifests itself in any or all of the above bullet points, even in part.
Men didn’t start this bullshit; but we sure as hell can do our part to end it. What you sow, you reap in the end; and women need to understand this, if nothing else.
Kim – my CV
Has a business degree
Has 35 years experience
Likes work but likes guns more
Knows how to dress like a woman should
When do I start?
Just ditch yer old man, and you can start tomorrow.
Update: Oh, wait. You’d be wanting a paid position, then. Never mind.
Only thing I disagree about is the Admins (my wife is an Executive Assistant, so maybe I’m prickly about it).
A GOOD Admin (like my wife) frees up a highly paid employee to do the things ONLY he can do, by taking care of the nuts-and-bolts stuff. Do you really want your half-million-dollar-a-year executive to spend a half hour combing thru his schedule to find a time for a half-hour phone call? Or would you be better off hiring a 75K a year assistant to do that, who then sets up an alert on the execs calendar? Which is more productive?
Of course the operative word is GOOD. The last several people my wife assisted all had salaries in the high-six-to-low-seven-figure range, and she was their right arm. She was sufficiently good at it that one of her clients hired her part time as her personal assistant after she (the client) retired, doing the same sort of stuff (mostly scheduling and travel planning), just less of it (since the client isn’t working 80 hour weeks anymore).
There’s a HUGE difference between a PA and a secretary — although some top-level secretaries can and have often fulfilled the same function. A PA is a managerial job, not an administrative one.
I guess I think of it as Administrative Assistant (of which PA and Executive Assistant are sub-categories) and Secretary/Typist. That’s generally the usage my wife uses. I know she doesn’t care to be called a secretary. In a nutshell, Administrative Assistant is the person who does the things the principal COULD do, but it would be a waste of his/her time. An Executive Assistant is an Admin for someone whose title includes VP/President/Partner/CEO etc. A PA (in her usage) is an AA for someone outside of the corporate environment.
HR dept, most useless bunch self aggrandizing f-wits ever. Same for “payroll”. You are right about outsourcing admin type tasks, such as travel, insurance, tax for both employees and business. You are a professional with a highly developed skill set, let others use their skills for you.
Part of the reason I refer to HR as Human Remains.
I recently retired after 30 years at a midsize company (tripled in size over the years). In the past 15 years I saw the accounting / payroll dept grow from four to twelve employees (all women) who spent their time whining, backbiting, and justifying hiring more of the same to do their jobs for them. Payroll and billing went from 5% of our day to 25%, most of which was to help make the acct/payroll dept’s job easier. I have literally seen the dept manager allocate 50 “man” hours to make the accounts balance to the penny at end-of-year. I’ve seen professional engineers waste hours of what could have been billable time tracking down $5 lunch receipts.
During this time we also added an HR dept, which spent its time figuring out ways to fire people and attending sensitivity training. We’ve had three HR “managers”, all women, with extensive self-appointed HR industry qualifications, who began their jobs by speaking for the company to people who had been employed there for ten or twenty years.
I don’t see much hope for the country or for the business world with these tails wagging the dogs and I’m glad to be shed of it.
As someone who does still have to work in big corporate America, the whole metoo thing has only served to remind me of some very important rules that I absolutely will adhere to.
1. I don’t stay late under any circumstances with a woman regardless of her position. My work can be done at home just as easily as in the office so somewhere between 5 and 6, I leave the office and if I need to do more work, I take my laptop home.
2. Never, under any circumstances, will I be alone with a woman. Period. Full Stop.
3. I will never, under any circumstances compliment a woman on her appearance or engage in any kind of personal conversation deeper than small talk (e.g. talking about my kids funny behavior is as personal as I’m willing to get).
4. I avoid traveling with a woman. If I must travel, if possible I will take a separate flight and stay in a separate hotel. If we must travel by car, separate cars whenever possible. If there is an expectation that eat together, it will always be at a crowded restaurant (you know…the kind with multiple TVs playing whatever game happens to be on).
5. I will never initiate any kind of physical contact beyond a simple handshake. No hugs on the last day. No hands on the shoulder. No leaning in to point to something on a monitor.
6. Despite being married, should the day ever come when I’m not, no office romance under any circumstances. Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn isn’t just some lovely bit of literature, it is a very real fact and the men who forget that ALWAYS pay.
7. I prefer to avoid being supervised by or supervising women. I don’t even like mentoring women, but will do it in a pinch. My current supervisor is a woman, but she is actually someone worthy of respect, very competent, and dedicated to the three Ps for our team. Without exception all the other women that have supervised me have been gross incompetents promoted well past their ability.
I know I come across to the women I work with as stand off-ish, but I don’t care. I am here to write code, not pander to their insecurities nor am I here to be their friend. If that limits my promotability, fine. I have neither the resources nor the desire to defend myself against any kind of sexual harassment or #metoo accusation. I have a wife I love dearly and I have no wish to give her reasons to worry about me while I’m at work. If that hurts the feelings of the women I work with…so be it.
WG,
Your first six points should be taught as part of a business school curriculum.
And here’s a ditto. “
I’m so glad I live in Asia where this bullshit hasn’t taken hold.