There is a difference between learning about the
ignorance and inequality between the genders in our society and then there is
actually experiencing it. When I came to Ohio University, I was a budding
feminist and almost completely unaware of the inequalities that I experience
everyday as a woman. Since freshman year, I have been taking Women and Gender
Studies classes and this year I have declared a certificate from the WGSS
program. Throughout these classes, I learned just how inequalities can be
presented but the concepts never shook me to the core in my atmosphere here at
OU because I thought my college was too modern and liberal to hold that bias.
Those were my thoughts until my junior/current year of school, after becoming a
supervisor at my place of work. As a woman taking a superior work position over
men that are my age, and some even older, I become accustomed to being called hysterical,
a hard ass,
annoying,
needy,
and words to the same liking while my male counterparts have not been called
any of those names when we do the exact same work. I worked hard to achieve
this position of employment and its very disheartening that my efforts go
unrecognized because I am a woman in a superior position. From being so disrespected,
my self-esteem
has retracted and I became less confident in applying to other superior
positions. I think that a lot of women around the world can relate to this
feeling of negative pressure in the workplace and by doing research, there are
ways that we can combat this “glass ceiling” mentality.
My employment started with this job when I was a
freshman. Until I came to college, I was a very meek person. I think I was meek
because I never found anything yet to be passionate about; there was nothing
that really got me excited to do something. I babysat for money, got decent
grades, and lived a pretty average life. When I came to school, I branched out:
went to parties, got close to my three roommates, rushed a sorority, and broke
out of my shell. Living this new, social lifestyle meant paying for it. My
parents provided a small allowance for me at the beginning of every month but I
realized that I want a little more and more each month that went by. When I
came back for my second semester, I began to start the job search for funding
my midnight food runs and other entertainment expenses. I tried avoiding dining
hall positions as much as I could and I wasn’t eligible for the Ohio University
PACE program; I started to run out of options. I started to reach out to some
of my sorority sisters and ask about their employment situations and where they
were looking for jobs. After starting to get discouraged, my friend, Laura,
said that she just got a job at the “call center.” She gave me the application
website and said she’d talk to her boss for me.
About a week later, I received a
phone call from the manager of the call center, Carlyn Runnells. She said that
she had reviewed my application and that I was welcome to come in for a group
interview. After I got off the phone, I went up and down the emotion scale from
excited to nervous, to happy, to full out terrified. I started asking
myself
the typical interview-prep questions: what am I going to wear, what is she
going to ask me, who else is going to be there, what if I don’t get to talk?
Finally the day came, I walked myself all the way day down Union Street, and
entered with head held high and confident. The group interview wasn’t as bad as
I expected it to be; everyone got a fair chance to speak, Carlyn listened to
all of us fairly, and after the interview was over, she stood up and said we’d
be hearing from her soon. As I walked home, I analyzed everything I had said,
did, what others said and thought I did my best and only the best could happen.
Two days later, I received a call from Carlyn saying that she thought I would
be a good addition to the calling team and she would like to offer me a position.
I accepted and decided on my first day of training with her.
Training was over the course of a
couple hours in one day and it was a whole lot of information coming at me in a
small amount of time. My training class and I were taught how to properly use the
phonathon software, how to properly go through a call and properly ask for
monetary donations, and how to deal with the rejection that a caller typically
gets on the phone. I was excited to start and actually get on the phone and
actually start talking to alumni and asking about their experiences and getting
them to give. On my first day, I positioned myself right by the supervisor and
a couple of the older callers so that I could listen in and learn faster how to
be the best that I could. At first, it was difficult, as any task involving
asking strangers for money is, but thanks to my newfound social skills I
discovered in college, talking on the phone started to get easier and easier.
After the first month on getting started, I became getting pledges consistently;
every shift I worked, I usually got around three pledges. I started getting
noticed
by my superiors as a strong caller. I started getting incentives like gift cards and
prizes based on my work performances and was personally having my boss come up
to me after shifts and tell me how great of a job I was doing. I had never had a
position in my life that people other than my parents were giving me so much
praise and it felt empowering. I also started to not just like my
job because of the money, but because of the actual task at hand. The money I
was raising was going to support students like myself with scholarships,
building updates, and making an active part to betting the university. I felt
as though I was doing so much more than just calling people. I called from my
freshman year into my sophomore year, maintaining my rank as one of the top
callers in the center through the year. Towards the end of my sophomore year,
two positions as supervisors opened due to two seniors graduating. I was one of
five that applied for the two positions, the youngest and only woman applicant.
When I went in for my interview, my manager asked me why I thought I would be a
good supervisor. I distinctly remember thinking about my response first and
then saying, “because I care about the money we raise. It isn’t just a temp job
we’re doing here; we’re affecting a community.” I think that is why I got the
job.
I stayed the summer in between
sophomore and junior year to train as a supervisor alongside my boss. Over the
summer, she and I had gotten closer on a professional and personal level. I
learned more about how the company I worked for worked alongside of OU, how our
goal efforts were analyzed, and how to hire and train new callers. All that
experience made me a more effective superior to callers then and now. During
the summer, it was small shifts, lots of my friends, and I was the only
supervisor. When the school year started, I thought that it was going to be the
same as the summer, fun, easy, no stress while I was in the call center. Once
the old veteran callers came back to the center (mostly all senior men) and my
other supervisors (three other men) I learned that my ideal school year at work
was not to be. At first, older callers were nice and respectful to me as a boss: they
listened when I told them their goals, when I critiqued their calls, and laid
down discipline when I needed too. As the school year entered into its second
month, everyone got more comfortable at work. When I would critique calls,
callers would brush off what I’d say, when I tried to list off announcements,
not one would listen, and when I tried to motivate I would be laughed
at. My boss would sit back in her office with the door closed so she didn’t
experience any of this and I was too nervous to bring it up. As the year went
on, not only the callers were having bad behavior, my three other supervisor
counterparts also were lacking in respect for me as an equal. When we would
have supervisor meetings, I would be told that I care too much, I get upset by the
callers too easily, and so on. I tried to explain myself but they
wouldn’t (still don’t) hear it. Throughout the year, I started to become a game
on how to get me riled up during shift and once I hit my boiling point, it was
apparently laughable. I would be called a “mini-boss” and get harped on how much I cared. That
questioning of why I cared so much about my job made me the most upset. I would
go home from shifts and be visibly upset and it would ruin the rest of my
night, much to my friends’ and boyfriend’s dismay. A couple of these instances,
my boss did see it and would reprimand them, but once she went back into her
office, the games would start again.
I know that this is a college job, a temp job, a part
time, barely more than minimum wage job. To me, this a role that I might want
to pursue after graduation, but the way that I have been treated by these men
in my workplace are slowly convincing me otherwise. This past year makes me
question every man I work with in other jobs and school in wondering if they’re
making fun of me
behind my back and doubting me. I know that there are many women
around the world that can identify with me in how they feel in their workplace.
I would like to study why men tend to ask this way with women in power and why
they feel compelled to act out. What is further is that I don’t fight their
words and their teasing any more because I don’t want to match their
accusations and stereotypes of hysteria and whining. I would like to compare
the experience of my male supervisor counterparts to that of my experience of
being a supervisor and I could positively say that theirs would be a more
positive, less-harping experience of being in a position of power. Luckily, my
experience has not led to (and I don’t think will lead to) sexual harassment in
the workplace, but it is a possibility, not just in the United States but also
around the world. Aware (Association of Women for Action and Research), a
special interest group in Singapore, put forward a research study that found
that over 66% of the respondents of the survey “registered a high level of
sexual harassment in the workplace” (and the majority of these responders were
in the age bracket of 21-25 (Research Study on Workplace
Sexual Harassment). Luckily, people
recognize that all types of harassment, whether verbal, physical, or sexual, do
exist in the workplace. Support groups like the web group, Workplace
Intimidation, are there as resources for dealing with workplace intimidation
and verbal disrespect like such as the things I deal with at work. Some of these
resources include books, personal stories, and methods for training management.
The founder of this website is Judith Munson. Munson herself dealt with being
bullied in her workplace and she says that it affected her for seven years and
“it was seven years of my life that I would never get back” (Munson). Studies
also show that this type of gender inequality and disrespect leads to a
nonproductive work environment. The Australian government’s Workplace Gender
Equality Agency found in research that the link between equality between
genders leads to better organization and performance. This is thought to be due
to “bringing together varied perspectives” and its “producing a more holistic
analysis of the issues” at hand (Learn). After looking at these tools of
support and doing research, being passive and bottling my differences with my
coworkers is unproductive and unhealthy. Moving forward and starting a healthy,
educated dialogue about how this is unproductive to our workplace is a positive
way I can make changes for future female supervisors and myself in the future.
References:
"Learn."
Workplace Gender Equality Agency. Commonwealth Government of
Australia,
2013. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
Munson, Judith. "About Us |
Workplace Intimidation." Workplace
Intimidation
About Us Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
Research Study on Workplace Sexual
Harassment. Rep. Singapore:
AWARE, 2008.
Web.
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