Walking Disaster

Before you ask, yes this is about the same coworker who called me “too much”. She’s back on my shit list, this time for a very simple reason…I met her. And whether she meant to or not, she really got me thinking on the disconnect between women in the same roles. I’m not sure if this is a generational thing, or an east-coast versus west-coast thing, or a self-righteous soccer mom versus everyone else kind of thing. Whatever the reason, I do know it’s trivial, short-sighted, and, in my humble opinion, pretty fucking worthless.

I want to make it clear that most of the women I know are not like this. I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by badass bitches as far as the eye can see. Maybe it’s because I grew up as the youngest of any group I was in, but I always thought that it was an unspoken rule that girls should take care of each other, and if you’re older you sort of look out for the younger ones. I’ve learned the most from the women in my life because they took the time to take me under their wings, so I’ve gone on to try to do the same for younger women as well. But I’ve never lost sight of the fact that in any office setting, the true enemy (if there even is one) are the executives. Something that is apparently lost on others.

The reason I got so heated was because me and this other saleswoman are in a department of our own. We are the only two inside sales members, in a department designed to consist of four, with a salesforce including close to thirty others. Including my own territory of eight states, I cover an additional five territories, and she covers an additional three. When I talked to her about how we should get compensated for that extra work, she discouraged me from bringing it up with our boss or anyone in a leadership position — see my previous post — but I did it anyway, and within a week, the two of us were receiving monthly bonuses for the extra territories. You’re welcome, you cow. Then we had our first in-person sales meeting since pre-pandemic. This was a time to meet everyone and network, sure, but most importantly meet our new boss (since the problematic one was leaving), and get a good feel for where our sales team was going. For myself and this other woman, we had a few kinks to work out as inside sales.

My main concern was being able to work remotely part-time and getting a solid pay structure that had the additional pay for covering open territories included in writing. I wasn’t concerned with the additional workload as long as I had a guarantee that I would be compensated fairly. She also had her own issues that she wanted to address, and I knew that going into this discussion, we would have a fair amount of leverage since we were collectively covering so many territories and accounts. Unfortunately for me, she is not of the same (correct) opinion as me that together we’re stronger. Instead she met with our brand new boss, without me present, and didn’t present any of our collective issues, instead choosing to focus on her own micro-crises like samples and brochures. She then tried to present herself as spokesperson and head of the department (there’s only two of us), which might have been her goal in the first place, and now I have to work hard to undo the idea she may have given our new boss that we are not equals.

The good news is that the last time I spoke to her, I think I did a good job of holding my ground when she tried to dictate what I should do day-to-day, as well as stating that the next meeting she has with our boss about our department will include me. If my dad is reading this: yes I was nice! I do not like the idea of her “updating” me after the fact, because I should be involved in our equally held positions. I insisted upon this because she mentioned giving up our extra territories, which I thought was a terrible idea. First, why else would you have an inside sales team if not to cover places you don’t have onsite reps in? And second, giving up those territories takes away the leverage we have to make the changes we want in the first place. She’s such a company ride or die, she can’t even tell when she’s digging her own proverbial grave, although I think that process started when she sobbed loudly throughout our previous boss’s goodbye speech…in front of the new boss replacing him.

It’s not just something I’ve noticed with myself either. My roommate has had similar experiences recently. She works in sales as well, and when she was shadowing another woman in a different territory to get her bearings with different products, and to see different selling methods, she got completely thrown under a bus. While shadowing this other woman, my roommate took a backseat and watched her during her demos, and during her meetings, taking notes along the way, and saving her questions for the car when driving between locations. But when asked by their boss, this lady described my roommate as indifferent and unenthusiastic, claiming that if she wanted to correctly learn, she should’ve included herself in the discussions. While I think that idea has merit, it comes after sufficient confidence in the product and the industry, which comes after learning from those around you. And the main problem in both examples is this habit of running and crying to the boss/manager, instead of talking to and working with your coworkers.

Unfortunately, it raises the question, would she have done this to me or my roommate if we weren’t twenty-something girls? Weirdly enough, even though these were other women, I don’t think so. I think there’s a lot of women in the workplace who think they can be the only ones there. I’ve seen this with previous managers as well who maybe don’t encourage, but also don’t discourage “boy’s club” antics in their employees, because they still buy into the idea that if there’s a limited number of spaces for women, they can be the guy’s girl in the office. And that they need to step on others to do so.

I don’t even really know what the solution is. I think the new owners of the company I work for are making moves to put good people in management and leadership positions, and I really feel like I could go to them and make my thoughts known. I have my own insecurities holding me back from doing that too much, I always feel like I have a certain allotment of complaints allowed, and I used up one getting a stipend for my extra work. I don’t want to be seen as that girl who goes to the boss crying about how the other lady was mean to me. On the other hand, I can’t take this lying down, and if she’s going to talk to our boss herself and leave me out of it, I can play that game too. Even though she’s trying to give our leverage back to the company, I do have a fair amount of it, and a good relationship with the new executives, that could work for me. At the end of the day, it sounds like she just needs to pull her head out of her own ass, and realize that I am not her enemy yet. But also maybe it’s on me to realize that everyone is awful and I constantly need to lower my expectations. Apparently below sea-level was too high.