A brief primer on business meetings

We can talk about sex and we can talk about work, but not in the same conversation

I have been reading the stories at Elephant in the Valley and I read a comment on Ask A Manager from someone who was surprised that a woman had been told to smile because the commenter thought that sort of thing was way out of fashion and – dang, y’all. It just doesn’t stop, does it?

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. Look at these stories (from Elephant in the Valley).

 

Let’s talk about what a proper business meeting looks like, shall we?

A proper business  meeting does not take place at a venue where women are scantily dressed. This includes but is not limited to Hooters and strip clubs.

I am thinking this should not be a difficult concept to grasp but apparently, it is something that has not sunk in, as 22 years after my own Hooters and meetings conversation with my VP, Hooters meetings are still happening.

Here’s how it happened at my old job.

I was working in corporate finance and strategy (do not do this unless you love working until 10 p.m. every night and no they do not pay you enough to make it worth it). One day, in the locker room at lunch, some women from another group were talking about how their boss had held a work meeting during work hours at Hooter’s.

The women were furious and their male boss didn’t understand why.

That afternoon, I told the story to my (male) VP, thinking he, who was only 42, would get it immediately.

His brow furrowed. “But – I like Hooter’s! And their wings are really good!”

“You think it’s OK to have a work meeting there?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Why not?”

I hate resorting to this argument because I shouldn’t have to, but sometimes it’s the only way.

His daughter was seven years old at the time.

“Do you want your daughter to grow up to work at Hooter’s?”

The blood drained from his face.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh. Yes. I see what you mean.”

We should not have to resort to, “But your daughter/sister/mother/wife” arguments. Sheesh. But at least now he understood.

My first job out of college, I was in sales. My male co-workers took customers to strip clubs and expensed it. Nobody questioned it (except my female co-workers and I). Hey, if it makes money, do it, right?

The first time I went to a trade show, I was astonished to see half-dressed women dancing in front of the equipment used to transport scalded, eviscerated poultry corpses across the processing plant floor.

(NB I am not hating on the women who do these jobs. I like sleeping indoors and so do most other people. If someone will give you a lot of money to do this kind of thing, go for it! But men in the business world? SAVE IT FOR YOUR OWN TIME.)

I couldn’t figure out the connection between poultry-processing equipment and semi-nude dancing women. I felt quite overdressed in my suit.

I was walking with a VP. Perhaps this is not the language I should have used, but I was so shocked at what I saw that I blurted out, “Is there a booth where they are giving blow jobs?”

The VP was stunned but honestly, in retrospect, I am more ticked off that to him, half-naked dancing women was a perfectly unremarkable sight.

And to answer the blow job question, no, I don’t think there was such a booth, but one of my company’s salesmen told me that there was a lot of after-hours entertainment that he chose not to provide for his customers because it made him so uncomfortable.

I don’t think anything has changed since then except in some places, it’s harder to see.