The Girl-Geek Anthropologist

I work at a very large multinational (?) investment company. I have no idea how many people work for it. I am now developing a reporting software for them using .Net technology. Overall, it's a really sweet deal. I get to work at home four days a week, and when I go to the office on Wednesdays, I'm usually in either meetings all day, or continuing work. I sit in an empty cubicle and code all day. Not too bad for someone like me.

My boss is a very sweet woman, and probably one of the most committed women I've ever met. Our team, which consists of about fifteen people, is all men except for her and myself. Almost all the upper echelons she deals with are also all men. Everytime I meet with her, she just unloads all the emotional things she's been holding for the last week. All I have to say is "So.. how are you doing?" and I have to prepare myself to sit for the next half hour and listen to her tell me sometimes tearfully about all the stress she's going through. She's literally always running from place to place, or on the phone, or in meetings. How she gets any work done at all is way beyond me.

Today, however, I discover at what price her dedication is coming. The woman has taken only two days of vacation since starting two years ago! TWO DAYS!! Good god. Isn't there a law against that? She is not married, and not involved with anyone, and lives by herself, and so of course, she's all happy to work. I ask if anyone else is asked to give up their weekends and nights and vacations to work other than her, and she says there's the boss two levels above her who is like that, but that's about it. She's actually asked to cancel her vacations so she can catch up on budgets, putting out fires, etc. etc. She's doing the job of at least three people. And, although she was promised full-time help locally, most of her team is in North Carolina which makes delegating a little difficult. And, while she was promised two lines of hires for the upcoming year, one of them was slashed because of reorganization. The other one (my line) is still possibly maybe available. Essentially, she's told to just do her job, and that's about it. Although she's an excellent manager, she's not taken seriously, and she has to ask four times for something before it gets done.

So, she's telling me this, and I said "Please don't take this the wrong way, but do you think that gender has something to do with it?" and I could see her eyes well up. She was quiet for a while, and she says "funny you should mention that, I was talking with someone yesterday, who told me she had gone to HR who is very well aware of these types of patterns." Then, she tried to back out of it, by saying that sometimes her boss works through his vacation, etc. Then, she followed it by telling me how she actually came in on her Christmas break to get work done.

I think this is the first time that I've come face to face with these patterns of blatant, not discrimination, but perhaps... what is it called? Giving different tasks and more responsibility to women than men, and expecting them to do everything with less resources. That's really disheartening to see, and I hate to see her that way. I even told her that. She was very touched, and I could seriously see that the woman is hurting, but she just doesn't feel like she can do anything about it, unless she changes jobs. I hope I never have to go through that personally. It's just not worth it. In the end, nothing is worth it. She's the only one who will feel the aftereffects of that much stress. No one else will really care.