Saturday, April 24, 2010

Planting a fruitless seed


'Don't do it or you'll seem like a dictator'. 'You're starting to sound like a psychotic female'. 'Women and their hormonal tantrums...'.

Lately I've been working on a project for quite a long time (approximately a year) when two of my male collegues, one of them being my partner, started disagreeing with all my decision making and terrorizing me in to believing that if I demote or remove any of my junior staff that I would be a tyrant, a dictator and a psychotic female and to just stop my 'childish behaviour'. Note a woman's assertive decisions now being called 'childish'.

Funny thing is when I consulted one of my council they advised me against a certain decision to remove one of our subordinates from that same project yet when my partner removed the aforementioned subject he was praised heavily for it by those who had, just a day earlier, suggested that I avoid making that decision otherwise I would look like a dictator. Heaven forbid a woman make such an assertive decision. After all, our place is in the kitchen and not out in the world.

I no sooner quit that project only to realize just how uncaring and hypocritical both my partner and collegues were. They now have that project almost complete thanks to me and my effort handed to them on a silver platter and after I left would not even allow me to reap any of the benefits of my own project. I hope they wallow in shit without me and soon come to realize their loss...