Cat in rack?
Posted on 07/08/2008 7:50:56 AM PDT by flowerplough
"Sometimes, a term of endearment can be anything but endearing.
"I had this manager who … started referring to me as 'honey,'" recalls May Snowden, former chief diversity officer for both Starbucks and Eastman Kodak Co. (one of DiversityInc's 25 Noteworthy Companies), who is now a consultant for Creative Wealth Alliance. "[It was] when I took my first director position. I was in a male-dominated job in the telecommunications industry and I did not want to embarrass him in front of his peers, so I invited him to my office and indicated that 'I won't call you sweetie if you won't call me honey.' We had that little conversation and he stopped. He was really embarrassed, [and because] he calls his wife, his daughters and other women 'honey', he did not even think about it."
"We all come to the table with biases and histories and upbringings in life that give us a perspective that may have 20, 30 years behind it," says Sherry Nolan, vice president of diversity and organizational capabilities at Pepsi Bottling Group..."
(The List:
Any kind of sexual comment
"You don't really want that promotion. You'll never see your kids."
"You'll get the job because you're a woman" or "You must be the token woman"
"What's the matter, is it that time of the month?"
"You're very attractive [or pretty, or beautiful, etc.]"
"You look great for your age" or "Do you use Botox?"
"You do that so well … for a girl."
"When are you due?")
(Excerpt) Read more at diversityinc.com ...
Yeah. I used to get dumped on all the time because one of the other execs had to ferry kids around. I was always saddled with taking the visiting consultant or client out to dinner or picking them up at the airport.
Cat in rack?
No need for those high-beams Linda, there’s plenty of light in the conference room.
We had a Diversity Chief at one of my jobs. She has access to board meetings and such. Office next to the President. High visibility.
When profits tumbled, they made her go back to work. That was funny.
“”I had this manager who … started referring to me as ‘honey,’” recalls May Snowden, former chief diversity officer for both Starbucks and Eastman Kodak Co. (one of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies), who is now a consultant for Creative Wealth Alliance. “[It was] when I took my first director position. I was in a male-dominated job in the telecommunications industry and I did not want to embarrass him in front of his peers, so I invited him to my office and indicated that ‘I won’t call you sweetie if you won’t call me honey.’ We had that little conversation and he stopped. He was really embarrassed, [and because] he calls his wife, his daughters and other women ‘honey’, he did not even think about it.””
This woman may work in a totally made-up position, but I’m inclined to take her side. Calling an underling “honey” is a term of belittlement that’s not appropriate for a manager who’s building a team.
I also give her props for discussing it in private instead of trying to embarrass him by getting a public pound of flesh. I don’t think it’s inappropriate for someone to tell the boss they’re feeling uncomfortable. Some people just need a little notice and they self-correct. This is exactly the way to handle it, instead of running to a harassment attorney.
What are you ducking for? She probably hits like a girl too.
*Disclaimer* The last comment does not apply, if said female entity is properly equipped with a frying pan.
"nice jugs"
And you really can’t say:
How about a hummer?
“Hysterical”
“Drama”
The problem I have with a list like this is that it assumes the ‘offenders’ are ignorant and in need of re-education - that office men are completely unable to project how someone might receive a controversial comment.
I don’t believe that’s entirely true. A lot of people like to use sexual or belittling comments to shock, stun, intimidate or otherwise suppress other employees. These bullies don’t need legal action - they need a slap in the face with a good follow-through.
Calling an underling “honey” is a term of belittlement that’s not appropriate for a manager who’s building a team.
***********************
I had a manager once that called me ‘Kiddo’ constantly.
The manager was two months older than me....Irritating.
LOL. I went to college in the seventies, punctuated with three years of working in the middle. After I graduated I worked another four years and then found my one and only. I got pregnant immediately and was pregnant again just four months after that birth. All this time I was working as an executive at a university. One day, seven months pregnant and my body very bloated, I was walking out to my car at the end of the day with a coworker. He hesitantly asked me, “Are you pregnant again or is that left over from your daughter?” I laughed and said, “Don’t worry. It’s new.” He was a good friend and, incidentally (if you are old enough to remember), a former member of the singing group, The Lettermen. I never took offense.
I came of age professionally in a very awkward time when women were just beginning to make themselves seen and heard in up-and-coming careers. I call it the “Brunhilda” time when men were men and women were men. We dressed like the men, treated each other like the men, avoided personal involvement with coworkers like the men, and tended to handle problems like men. I certainly did not take offense that easily and most assuredly I never complained to anyone about any treatment since I considered it a fatal sign of weakness. A lot of those comments were made to or about me but I never considered it grounds for whining to someone else. If something like this went beyond a casual slip of tongue, you handled it mano a mano, tete a tete in privacy and with tact.
Nowadays, women who dress provocatively at work wonder why they are not respected. Minorities who walk around with a perpetual chip on their shoulders, assuming every little faux pas on the part of a coworker is evidence of the appropriate forbidden “-ism” wonder why so few want to socialize with him or her. All managers who think they need to manage with gruffness and incivility wonder why coworkers take offense so easily.
What we need is not a “diversity” education but an education in simple human understanding and relations and the insistence that it be the first resort of all controversies among people. In the meantime however, if the teenaged grocery bagger says one more time “Hello, young lady”, I’m going to take him down! ;o)
You mean coming in late, leaving early and on the phone every hour with some sort of 'emergency'...
“You are smart for a girl.”
You NEVER say it but I had a boss who would get so bad that I actually kept track of her cycle on my desk calandar... "Careful"
“When are you due?”
Now I wonder, is this incorrect because you’re not supposed to notice that a woman is pregnant, or because she’s not pregnant just overweight?
Because “honey” to a lot of women is like the n-word to a lot of blacks. Okay for me to use, not for you.
Michelle Obama: AAQQTODB
Affirmative Action Quota Queen Turned Overpaid Diversity Bureaucrat
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