TLDR version - I was retaliated against for pointing out sexist behavior and how I was discriminated against for not having a child. My boss told me not to go to HR (which I was trying not to do anyway because HR doesn't help anyone except the company) and instead he used my vacation time (after telegraphing before I left that he would probably fire me) to come up with a strong CYA for himself. (General issues - male boss and male teammates were permitted to routinely be late, miss meetings, push work deadlines. They were allowed to talk about their work with the boss when I was made to talk about my hobbies because my work was 'boring'. They received recognition when my name was excluded. I was also told I didn't have responsibilities because 'I didn't have a family.' This was on multiple occasions and my family issues were never important and were dismissed. Male coworker was permitted to work the weekend because 'at least he has a family.')
The company supposedly doesn't tolerate this behavior, but when push came to shove, they're going to help a sexist man continue to fail upwards and try to sweep the sexism / you don't count because you didn't breed problem under the rug (probably by just hiring more men for his team...great solution).
Here's a list of what I had to deal with:
1. First, I was told by HR that what I said wasn't valid, because our boss 'delivered feedback' as appropriate. When I asked how she knew, she said it was because he said so. She also condescendingly told me that she had been with him since he started at the company... so a handful of months (I looked it up).
He point blank told me he didn't deliver feedback to my coworkers about being late, skipping meetings, or pushing their work out, or working/turning their work in on weekends sometimes, because it 'wasn't necessary.' Even though it was happening all the time, it was something he said was okay for people to be doing and he himself engaged in this behavior. He only had anything to say about it for me after I pointed out his sexist behavior.
(Also note, I didn't skip or miss meetings. I made a mistake on occasion and apologized for my errors but he would make a big fuss out of my occasional mistakes while turning a blind eye to the team's permitted skips, misses, and deadline extensions. I continually wondered why my stuff needed to be pushed out in favor of whatever my coworkers were doing instead.
I also cannot imagine if I'd tried one of the excuses I heard the guys use like I was outdoors or I couldn't attend or I needed a break or I was running an errand or whatnot.) But this wasn't really about these issues, it was about trying to come up with a fake reason to remove me for speaking out to him. I don't begrudge them their excuses - it's not their fault they received a privilege I didn't.
2. Our boss ASKED US DIRECTLY to work a weekend for a project because he felt nervous about its outcome. My male coworkers chose not to work the weekend. Fair. I did. Nothing was said even though I turned in some of the work over the weekend. I continued intermittently working on weekends if I felt like doing so.
Later, after pointing out my boss's sexist behavior, I was informed that it was inappropriate for me to turn in work on weekends. Even when the situation he criticized was one where he gave me EXTRA WORK last minute before my vacation. He did not allow for extra time for the work, even though that would generally be considered unusual. Instead he said 'but you like this work, so it should all be done.' Since when do people like things and it means there's no schedule change? I was told he 'hoped I wasn't working weekends' when I'd often worked weekends by my choice in the past with no comment. I was also then told my male coworker was permitted to work the weekends because 'at least he has a family.' So as a queer single woman, I guess that's out for me. Also btw, I still do have a family. Relatives are family and my family has gone through a lot. The only item I feel comfortable sharing, is I had a sick family member who has now passed away. The other items are things where I too could have sometimes used a moment to take a break because what was happening to them was stressful. I never asked for such a break because my family doesn't count for anything to this person.
He tried saying it seemed like I didn't want to be at the company (no, I just wanted a boss that isn't going to be sexist with privileges or tell me I don't count because I didn't breed...especially at a company that prides itself on not tolerating this).
3. I was told it was 'attacking' my coworkers and I must not like them (completely inaccurate, they're all brilliant) when I was asked to list the privileges they were receiving that I was being denied. It is not their fault they received these privileges and it absolutely was not attacking them. If you're like well they shouldn't be doing those things... OKAY SORT OF MY POINT? It's an unfair, permitted privilege, one that I don't even try using. Also how do I discuss this anyway?! They get unfair privileges so I should sit quietly and let a boss give them miles of leeway and then it's me making 'everyone look bad' to mention it. If it's bad nobody should be doing it at all! Otherwise, distribute the privileges fairly.
4. We were asked to attend a weekly 1-1. When I went to my 1-1, I was told in a hostile tone of voice that hearing about my work is boring and he would prefer to 'get to know me.' I was made to discuss my hobbies or make small talk and this was supposed to 'build rapport.' Don't get it twisted - yes this does build rapport and small talk is great. I'm not saying this shouldn't happen. However, it's not great when I wasn't allowed to use the time to talk about my work because it was boring for him.
Can't we build rapport talking about my work too? And solving problems together and all of that? I was baffled. And it became clear the men on my team weren't being made to do this. He bragged in multiple 1-1s with me about the cool projects and work he discussed with my male coworkers during their 1-1s. I was not permitted this privilege. I was also continually told in each 1-1 that he just didn't have visibility into the work I was doing. (Has he heard of a filter for our communication tools...psst you can filter by name and project...somebody tell him.) I placed my work in Slack, sent it by email, offered to demo when necessary (not permitted I would generally get pushed out), filled out cards updating tasks, gave presentations and... oh I guess we could have used my 1-1 for clarification but it was more important for me to talk about a hobby or the weather.
It was also incredibly frustrating how he would just wave away information. He didn't want to look in the systems. I once gave a presentation with a section that was labeled 'Things we can do right now' and he was like 'I felt like there weren't any action items in this presentation.'
5. When publicly describing our team, he excluded my name. I didn't say anything, but someone did on my behalf. He had a private meeting with me to say he wasn't going to tag me and I shouldn't take it personally. Are his fingers broken? Type out my name. The guys get mentioned, I should be mentioned. I don't care about your ridiculous policy that if you can't use a tag you're not putting a name. That makes zero sense.
6. He generally would accept that the men wrote code that worked and not question it. My code would constantly receive questions but mixed with him saying he didn't know what he was talking about. Okay, so why are you doubting my work then? Also where were the questions for the men? In one example I was enthusiastic about a published tool we offered. He said I had better be sure it worked. When I said it worked, he said he wasn't sure about that (even though he also stated he didn't understand the tool) so I offered to provide a demo. HE DIDN'T WANT THE DEMO. Seriously come on. The men could demo anything they wanted and then he expressed doubt but doesn't want to see it work. Maybe that's not entirely sexist, but it's really dumb. ALSO WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN COOL - maybe actual code reviews or discussions for each piece of code not just saying mine probably doesn't work without looking at it?
7. My boss constantly cut meetings short to go help with his family. He constantly posted explanations of things to do with his family that impact his day-to-day. I don't begrudge this. Also, again, it's tough to talk about somebody giving themselves a privilege. Family and family time are important and should be respected.
However, when I struggled with some family issues, my boss AGAIN told me that it must be nice to have no responsibilities or a family. My issues fell on deaf, unempathetic ears while my boss / team continued to be permitted to make family based excuses for literally whatever they wanted. I don't begrudge anyone having family, that's great. What's not great, is telling somebody they don't have a family or any family responsibilities because they don't have a child. It made it impossible to discuss some of the stuff I was dealing with because it was so incredibly rude and horrific.
8. After I tried providing the feedback about him being sexist, that's when a lot of issues swung into high gear. With much more unreasonable distribution of privileges. Something that would have helped, is if he'd ever created any performance metrics for us. It would have been obvious what was going on with the work.
9. My boss also stopped me if I shared an idea to explain why I need to be careful or why it might not be possible. This isn't generally done to my male coworkers. But I had to watch out for every single idea. I was also told a project I was allowed to run was stupid and he didn't think it really worked. (Okay why are you having me write presentations and strategy decks for it if you think it's stupid? Give me something to do that you respect.) I've observed him do some of this to HIS female boss. He often tells her something can't be accomplished for various reasons. Initially, I thought he just didn't know, and he would like to know that many of the things could be accomplished so I would privately share solutions with him. This made him angry.
10. I had difficulty getting started at the company, because I would enthusiastically volunteer for a project in our meetings, put my name on the project card, communicate when I'd start, and then the project would be reassigned to one of my male coworkers. Initially I thought I'd just keep trying until I got to run a project. When I tried providing feedback this was viewed as attacking my coworkers. I explained that no, the problem was that it was not clear how the work was being distributed. If he was going to just give the project to someone else after I followed the established process, how could I get the opportunity to actually run a project myself?
Here's the shady AF section that I can't really prove but I find suspect:
1. I would set up my work cards and provide links to my work. I would then find a comment from my boss saying I hadn't included the link. This happened three times and for one of them I was asked about the lateness of the work. I said that's really odd, because I put links. After the third time, I said I was going to screenshot the cards so we'd have a record of them that could be used for debugging. The missing links stopped happening.
2. I also put a bunch of my work into a tool we used. My boss had a weird discussion with me where he said the tool was so hard to use, he didn't know how to use it and he couldn't even log into it but it looked like it was easy to make mistakes. I logged into the tool and all of my work was deleted. I raised it as an issue, since it could be flagged as now this work is late. My boss's response was to try to suggest my coworker had deleted it. I didn't like this because I didn't think my coworker touched my work and it made it look like I thought he did.
Also here was the HR hilarity:
1. She didn't need to talk to me because she trusts the abusive boss.
2. I was told she 'really did her homework' and then she provided me a lecture about how it's hard to work in a start up in the most condescending tone. Two seconds of Googling would tell her my career has been in a variety of start ups and independent projects, meaning maybe she'd gotten the situation really wrong. But that would have required actual effort to look into the situation.
3. I was told she and the company cared deeply for me, but she was not able to correctly pronounce my name. It should go in a movie. ....FAIL
4. I was told my coworkers got asked about the situation and didn't see anything. Why would they see or comment on microaggressions not directed at them? Particularly when it's obvious the boss tries to fire anyone who has anything to say to him that isn't gee you're great? And particularly when maybe it's not the best set of team policies to offer?
5. Because my team has literally no metrics and uneven distribution of privileges, the CYA for removal was really ridiculous. I was told I had difficulty using a tool that a blindfolded monkey can use with ease. Not only that, but it was the tool that my boss had 'trouble seeing things in' which he could have resolved by learning to use a filter.
6. HR yelled at me that I needed to 'own the feedback' I received which is a super stereotypical thing to force on a woman. I'm supposed to be apologetic and sad so you can feel good about doing a bad job investigating a situation and making a decision that's company appropriate but definitely not about supporting people in a modern or forward thinking way. I'm not owning garbage feedback that's a retaliatory CYA in response for pointing out real, sexist behavior and discrimination because I don't have a child. Instead, I will be openly angry. Also unpopular for women to do. It's my fault for believing this company meant any of the things they claimed. I also noted, that there didn't seem to be plans to own any of my feedback. They can't because maybe it's a lawsuit. They have to sweep everything under the rug and help this boss continue to fail upwards. So HR is not going to do better on investigations, and probably, you'll just give this boss male workers so this issue doesn't occur again.
7. I was told I would receive severance pay. I was like oh, hey that is actually pretty good. It wasn't mentioned that it included me signing away the ability to sue or support other women who were abused in the same way. It's standard to have this type of thing on exit, but it was kind of lame to skip over mentioning the contract.
I will not be signing it. Also, I am tired of being quiet about stuff like this. It's considered 'professional.' It's professional to smile politely and say thank you for supporting sexism and retaliation in the workplace.
Distributing privileges unfairly is unprofessional. But being mad about them is the only thing we're gonna notice here. Also who is professionalism really for here? What is remotely professional about trying to destroy somebody's career because you don't want your company to have a lawsuit? Why is the affected party supposed to have a polite response to such complete and utter BS? Also who benefits? I smile and quietly go away so you can have an easy time of it. You're not giving me an easy time.
Maybe if people talked about what happened to them more, companies would stop helping abusive people fail up through the ranks of their companies. Maybe it would be like, gee, if we don't want to look bad, we actually have to do something. Not just rely on how 'professional' the person we're hurting will be after we're done doing it.
