My old-school boss was horrified at what I said and I am only now, 25 years later, realizing it
In 1999, I was the only woman in a group of men at a three-day offsite meeting. They were all sleeping in a big house on the golf course together; I was in my own little cottage down the street.
The first day, at our meeting in the big house, one of the guys – Bud – said he had hit a golf ball into the smegma.
I was used to being one of the only women in the room.
I was used to the male employees taking male clients to strip clubs.
(My few female colleagues and I were not invited.)
(I wonder why we didn’t win the Big Accounts.)
I was used to the language.
I was used to the harrassment.
I was used to the men doing inappropriate things like rubbing my neck while I sat at a desk doing my job or kissing me on the lips when I thought I was just saying hello.
But I had never heard someone use this word in polite company before.
I gasped as the blood drained from my face.
Bud noticed my response – nobody else had reacted – and looked puzzled.
Instead of doing the tactful thing,
Instead of doing the diplomatic thing,
Instead of doing the logical thing that everyone else in the world would have done, which would have been to whisper, “Don’t worry about it I’ll explain later,”
or, if he insisted on knowing now, instead of pulling him aside and quietly explaining,
I blurted out the explanation to the entire room.
Yes.
Using technically and anatomically correct language, I explained to a group of men I barely knew, including my new boss, who had hired me for a six-month stint at the factory he was trying to turn around, what the word meant.
That’s when the blood drained from Bud’s face.
I didn’t know! he told me.
I had no idea! he continued. I thought it meant a clump of grass on a golf course!
Later that day, my boss said I should go back home – it was too expensive for me to be in a cottage by myself and of course staying in the house with the men was not an option.
It’s only now – TODAY, MORE THAN TWO DECADES LATER – that I am realizing he probably sent me home not because of the expense but because I had explained what the word meant to all those present.
If I had known my reaction might have an impact on my career, I might not have rolled my eyes at the poor booth babes dancing half-naked at the Atlanta Poultry trade show in front of machines designed to transport eviscerated poultry corpses across the factory floor and asked my new boss and the VP walking with us why they didn’t just put up a sign offering blow jobs.
I’m sorry booth babes! I know you weren’t giving blow jobs at a trade show and I know you were not enjoying dancing in front of a bunch of old lechers, many of whom did indeed find and pay for female companionship later in the evening, some of them on my company’s expense account and I KNOW THIS because one of the sales rep turned a little green when I said something about the booth babes and told me I had no idea what really went on and how he loved his wife and refused to participate.
Wait. Even if I had known, I still would have rolled my eyes and said something. Because the VP was shocked not at what was happening, but that I said something about it. That I pointed out that this was not a good thing. Because what was happening was his normal. And exploiting women should not be normal.
Texan in Exile 