A few weeks ago, I was confided in by a close male friend, a guy who knows I am a straight shooter, that woman who tells it like it is, who has dealt with a ton of bullshit in the workplace.

I have had the stupidest, most pointless crap happen to me in my many jobs held over my working life.

Almost 50 years old, I have worked across several industries, from healthcare to restaurants to the bar scene to grocery store management to civilian work on military bases.

I feel like I have dealt with harassment in all forms.

I know many women who can empathize with this kind of shit — have lived it themselves.

Situations of total assholery and just plain antagonistic monkey-on-your-back behavior one deals with because of:

• the golden handcuffs, or;
• the working hours being a perfect fit for one’s family, or;
• the actual work being satisfying and perfectly suited for once, or;
• any similar, layered in complexity, reasons — all somehow intertwined with the bullying resultant — bullying originating almost always from one person being unreasonably jealous for insane reasons.

Why? We are never told.

We, those who suffer the situation, never consider how awful it really is for ourselves in regards to our mental and, yes, physical health, to deal with — day in & day out — such vindictive bullying, the stress, and hatred directed at us, simply for being there to work.

Our working well at our jobs.

. . .

However, my point , fellas—

— my gentleman friend stopped by and tentatively asked if we could chat.

“Sure,” I reply. I invite him into my kitchen for a coffee. We get our coffees squared away and stand by the oak table in the kitchen addition. I motion to him to plunge in, he nods and begins his story.

He nervously says, “I have worked at my current position for almost ten years now. It isn’t that large a place, you know,” I nod and he continues, “but I came in there with, well, have had a lot of experience working at larger companies with much bigger overheads and budgets…” He runs his hand through his brown hair, and sighs.

He went on with his company’s background for a bit, explaining how the corporate structure was set up.

His workplace’s executive suite seems mainly to be older employees who have gotten promoted there via two ways:

• longevity — — simply because they hung around. These people were not promoted for any performance based reason.

• camaraderie — the kissing cousin to nepotism, many were promoted because of the ‘frat brat’ or ‘good ‘ol boy’ network, where “yeah, we pledged at college together” so he is a “good guy”.

His frustration is clear.

“Really?” I ask. “That kind of crap isn’t just an old, 80’s movie, bad memory, joke?”

He laughs without a smile. “No, not where I work. The guys in E-suite are incompetent, actually. There are four or five guys like me, same age group also, who kind of hold everything together, make things go smoothly and run correctly.”

He shakes his head. “I feel like all the people in my age group, our age group,” he motions to me “are being completely ignored, passed over for consideration entirely by those old assholes in the executive suite.”

His face is grim. “Those guys do things the same way since 1978 because that is how they always have done it and they don’t want to even attempt to learn anything ‘new’ (he uses his fingers to denote quotation marks), so anyone who suggests implementation of any new, time and cost effective way to do something — ways that save time and money are totally ignored or shut down.”

He sips his coffee and stares off out the window.

I raise my eyebrows. “Like you?” I ask, feeling bad for him.

He nods. “Yeah, you got it.” Sighs. “I tried for the first few years, so many different ways, thinking if I did things this way, or that way, or presented things in a different way or to this particular person, maybe things would be different or maybe my way would be attempted.”

He looks down at the floor, then pulls a chair out from the table nearby and sits heavily.

“No. Nobody cared. No one did anything or even wanted to let me give a presentation,” he said with disgust.

I shook my head. “That sucks, man, but I don’t really know — ”

He puts out his hand, palm out. “Hold on, that isn’t what I wanted to tell you, to talk to you about. I just wanted you to understand the culture where I work before I told you what I wanted advice about.”

Okay, now I really am intrigued.

I sit down in the chair across the table from him. We are in my kitchen in the addition nook, which is a sunny little open room added on to the main kitchen.

I want to hear what in God’s name could possibly be worse than what he is describing. His workplace sounds like a soul-crushing, joyless hell-hole to work at, full of Boomers who could not care less about anyone else’s ideas about anything.

A bunch of water-cooler cowboys sans water-cooler.

Yikes. I ask, “Has anyone in your company ever had an outside contractor come in and do, like, an audit, or something of that nature, to assess the corporate strengths and weak areas?”

He barks a harsh laugh. “Oh, yeah, they commissioned one once in the years I have been there. They were highly put out by the report generated, ignored the advice given, almost were sued before paying the invoice the company sent for the service, and did not implement any of the changes recommended.”

I sit, stunned at this. Why would any company waste tens of thousands of dollars in such a flagrantly idiotic manner?

I ask and my friend just shakes his head.

Impatiently, I ask him to spill it.

We could sit and talk this kind of crap for a month, really.

He looks uncomfortable. “First off, I wanted to talk to you because I know this is something you have dealt with a lot, especially in the past.”

I am nonplussed. I have no idea what in the hell he could be speaking of.

He plunges in —

“For the last three years, I have specifically asked my immediate boss to tell me in my quarterly reviews what I was doing wrong, or needed improvement on, that was impeding my path for promotion.

Mainly because I kept seeing guys who were far less skilled than I, who were hired after I had been, even, being promoted ahead of me, and it hurt, it made no sense whatsoever.”

“Applying company rubrics for promotion, I should have, at the very least, been promoted before those hired after me, correct?”

His face is tight, and hurt surprise is clear in his eyes.

I nod, open my mouth to say something but he shakes his head slightly. I close my mouth.

He continues, “I was not given any reasons. Ever. I was never told a damn thing. I was only feeling more frustrated with each of my performance reviews, which solidly commended a good engineer with good company commitment and goals. But I never got a promotion.” He sighs and gulps more coffee.

“So I asked for a meeting with my boss AND his boss, too. I thought maybe the two of them could give me solid “career counseling” together,” he says with a harsh cynical laugh. “This was last week.”

“In that meeting, I was told it appears I’ have been reluctant to engage in conversations on Zoom’ the last month or so. They went on to criticize,” he laughs a little, “ to criticize my clothes.”

“They said ‘the way I dress suggests I would not want to get my hands dirty’.”

He stares at his hands and the peers up at me.

I am, well, speechless.

I do not think I have ever heard of a man being criticized for his clothing at his workplace, ever. Not one time, not in my entire working life.

I struggle to think of what to say.

I finally come up with a brilliant , “What?” as I giggle.

He laughs, too.

I ask “What the hell?! What are you wearing to work? A tuxedo?”

The dam burst and I roar with laughter.

Apologizing, I gasp, “ I am so sorry, but I have never heard of a man being told such a thing before.”

My mind is racing with what to advise this friend of mine to do or say to his bosses regarding this.

He says, “I know, it sounds absolutely ridiculous, doesn’t it? I wear decent clothing to work, usually a nice shirt with a tie and a semi-decent, but working vest over it, not a suit vest, but a dressier style of work vest. Like what I have on now.”

I look at his clothes, which I did not even notice at all when he came in — which really says it all, in my opinion. If this guy was overdressed, I certainly would have noted it immediately to myself.

He isn’t.

My friend continued, saying, “I always have a pair of complete coveralls in my work truck anyway, which all the guys I work with carry along in their trucks, too, so they don’t get crap all over themselves if they have to go out and get in the dirt, so to speak.”

My friend is an engineer. He is in and out of his office all day, drives around a lot to inspect things for his job.

. . .

Men of Medium — have any of you ever been critiqued for inappropriate work clothing — as in, told you dress too “fancy” for work, when you damn well do not?

When it is clear this is a major stretch by your executives to find some flaw to pick, for something to say is wrong about you when you ask?

I have no idea how to advise my friend — other than telling him to look into a lawyer and start exploring options.

Is that too harsh? Am I wrong?

To me, his boss’s statements are ridiculous. Perhaps I am playing into gender shit, I cannot help it. WTF?!

I only wish someone had told me to do that when I was being tormented for no reason twenty years ago.

I should have spoken to a lawyer. That was a massive failure on my part.

What would any of you men do? Women, what would you tell a male friend, or a husband even, if one came to you and related this kind of story to you?

I was so taken aback, I honestly didn’t have a lot to say right off hand, I am ashamed to say. Mainly due to the fact I had ever had any male tell me such a story, so I had nothing to guide me whatsoever except my own experiences — which are far & away completely non relevant.

I simply cannot compare what I went through to what this guy is. It isn’t even close to the same thing.

However, one thing I will say about this experience for my male friend is he now knows exactly how women feel in these situations.

He told me he felt the same mixture of emotions I always had felt when I was reported for my own “inappropriate attire”.

He said he never really grasped the gravity, the humiliation, or the hurt I felt until that day he was told that same crap.

It was no victory for me to hear those words from this man. He isn’t a misogynistic piece of crap. He does not deserve this at all and my heart breaks for him.

Please give me, give him, your attention and guidance, words of wisdom and advice.

Men, what do you think of this?

What would you do? Wouldn’t do?

What should I advise?

—

This post was previously published on Hello, Love.

***

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