CM is a very simple girl or perhaps a woman who happens to be a consultant. CM has worked 5.5 years in the same project 4 years in India and 1.5 years from the client location. CM has worked very hard and shown her merit and has gotten good reviews and ratings 4 out of those 5.5 years including her very last appraisal.
Incidentally CM is the only one belonging to the XX chromosomes gene pool and works with 12 other people who are XY chromosomes.
This incident is one particular incident that happened one particular day but is quite indicative of the kind of behaviour CM, and I am sure most other women have to constantly face at work.
So on this day a very senior lead from CM's India office visits CM's client location. A meeting is obviously arranged. Most meetings like this are CM's nightmare. So the senior lead walks in to the meeting room. Let us call him GD. He sits down and he says, "This is the third team I am meeting and this is the thing with every team. 1 ' LADIES' and rest 'GENTLEMEN'. Is this your plan? But there is no gender bias here and so no Ladies First Business here. "
Everyone around the table laughs a little. CM forces resemblance of a smile.
The meeting continues with expression of gratitude but also the dire times ahead. How the (human)resources have worked hard but ofcourse need to work harder. How they should expand their horizon and no not go travelling, but find new problems in the client architecture so that they can make the clients realize how inadequate they are and then give the client the solutions themselves like the great Houdini and let them know how indispensable CM's team specifically and her company in general are. Ofcourse it ends with the future prospects of CM's company and the new projects that they have acquired. The two recent large projects acquired by CM's company are two luxury brands. One related to Women's beauty product and the other is a well know designer brand for handbags. And GD concludes with "We should find this exciting specially the Ladies right?" He looks at CM and smiles. Now CM has learnt to keep her mouth shut in situations like this. Except CM's expressions gets the better of her sometimes. To CM it obviously does not matter if her company has acquired the project of a client who sells overpriced (and overhyped) handbags or a client who sells toilet cleaners as long as it means that her company gets revenues and profits which percolates down to her. Just one sentence escapes CM's lips. "Ofcourse. Since they will be giving us LADIES free stuff."
Everyone in the room starts laughing. CM wonders if they are laughing at the sarcasm or they think that is actually funny.
Incidentally CM is the only one belonging to the XX chromosomes gene pool and works with 12 other people who are XY chromosomes.
This incident is one particular incident that happened one particular day but is quite indicative of the kind of behaviour CM, and I am sure most other women have to constantly face at work.
So on this day a very senior lead from CM's India office visits CM's client location. A meeting is obviously arranged. Most meetings like this are CM's nightmare. So the senior lead walks in to the meeting room. Let us call him GD. He sits down and he says, "This is the third team I am meeting and this is the thing with every team. 1 ' LADIES' and rest 'GENTLEMEN'. Is this your plan? But there is no gender bias here and so no Ladies First Business here. "
Everyone around the table laughs a little. CM forces resemblance of a smile.
The meeting continues with expression of gratitude but also the dire times ahead. How the (human)resources have worked hard but ofcourse need to work harder. How they should expand their horizon and no not go travelling, but find new problems in the client architecture so that they can make the clients realize how inadequate they are and then give the client the solutions themselves like the great Houdini and let them know how indispensable CM's team specifically and her company in general are. Ofcourse it ends with the future prospects of CM's company and the new projects that they have acquired. The two recent large projects acquired by CM's company are two luxury brands. One related to Women's beauty product and the other is a well know designer brand for handbags. And GD concludes with "We should find this exciting specially the Ladies right?" He looks at CM and smiles. Now CM has learnt to keep her mouth shut in situations like this. Except CM's expressions gets the better of her sometimes. To CM it obviously does not matter if her company has acquired the project of a client who sells overpriced (and overhyped) handbags or a client who sells toilet cleaners as long as it means that her company gets revenues and profits which percolates down to her. Just one sentence escapes CM's lips. "Ofcourse. Since they will be giving us LADIES free stuff."
Everyone in the room starts laughing. CM wonders if they are laughing at the sarcasm or they think that is actually funny.
