I’ve held exactly one managerial position in my life. I oversaw a group of four instructors at a computer school in Seattle. My management style was fairly easygoing, but I took the job seriously (which was probably a mistake because the school went under not long after my ascension to power).
The other day I read something that reminded me of my Days Of Power. A professor at a university in Canada had a student who claimed that he couldn’t do a group portion of an online class because his religion prevented him from mingling with women. The university pressured the professor to accommodate the student and the professor refused to do so.
As part of my Position Of Power I had to occasionally find new teachers. But my boss Pam always did the first interview. Pam was a tough-as-nails, controlling person who broached no gaff from anyone. She was humorless and took even the slightest quip as a sign of disrespect. Her managing style was Captain Ahab to my Captain Rehab.
So I find a group of candidates willing to work for below-market wages and extend an offer to come in for an interview. One guy emails back saying that he won’t shake hands with a woman, but he will bow. I stared at the message, uncertain what to do. We didn’t have an HR department (because that cost money) and I didn’t know squat about employment law. But I’d already offered the guy an interview — I wasn’t going to risk having the school or myself getting sued for discrimination. So I set up a time for him to come in.
Pam interviews the guy. It’s short, maybe twenty minutes tops. Ten seconds after she shows him to the door she bursts into my office and shouts “What the fuck was that!!”
“That,” I replied, fighting back a smile, “was us not getting sued.”
I hope the guy eventually found a job. It’s gotta be tough landing work when you can’t mesh equally with ½ of the population, unless your dream job is handing out jock straps in a high-school boys locker room.
I think I would have dressed up as a woman, just to see him bow in front of me.
Well, I am pretty sure that this guy would not get hired at an all-girls’school . That might kill him!
That’s as bad as having signs go up in New York neighborhoods populated by a certain religious group, asking women (on the street, in public, which, in New York, means every person for himself, male or female) to walk behind the men!
I have never had that much occasion to walk through those areas, but if I did I would be sorely tempted to walk as fast as possible, nudging all the guys I would pass, then, once I got in front of them, slow down and hog the sidewalk.
It’s hard to imagine how some people thrive in the real world, not just the business world!