Ok here’s my entry for Jay’s Blogging for Books Contest.

I don’t know if this is my worst experience, but it was an experience. I guess I had always passed some sort of high and mighty judgment about people who had dealt with sexual discrimination. I simply saw discrimination like any other obstacle that needed to be overcome. Remember the whole Anita Hill thing? I just didn’t get it. I was very comfortable being an ostrich. I didn’t think it would ever affect me.

I worked for a very large fortune 500 company in middle management. We will call the man I worked for Bossman. Bossman hired me and was a good enough guy I guess, but he wasn’t too politically savvy – or politically correct for that matter. First it started with the jokes he would email to the team. They were degrading to women but alas, some of them were really funny. I let it go.

Then there were the times when he verbally talked about how women weren’t too bright. All women. In total. He called all women Barbies. Ok. Whatever. I just let it roll all off my back. But then it started to get more personal. Not personal in an attacking way, but personal “it touched my wallet” kind of way. When it touched my wallet I started seeing things differently.

Bossman always told me I did a stellar job. He loved how elegantly I navigated the internal politics. I was well thought of by the higher ups and he basked in the glow of their praise for me. He loved how my achievements reflected on him. He took all the credit for me being at the company since he hired me. Bossman, in some warped sense, took credit for “molding me”. So I was shocked by the two things he did.

One time Bossman gave me an average review. But here’s the kicker: He told me it was because I got pregnant! He told me, “Well Kym, you do great work, but because you are pregnant and have been out on leave for a few weeks this review period, I’m giving you this average review score even though your work was above average”. I have no idea why he admitted that or why he said I got the score in that way. I was already starting to think about chaging positions, so I asked him to send me an email explaining my lower review score so I could explain to people I was interviewing with why I got the score. He put in writing that I deserved a higher score, but he gave me a lower score because I was pregnant.

Yep. You read that right. I had it in writing.

To be honest, because of the way this company gives reviews on a bell curve, I’m sure my average score had more to do with the bell curve then it did me having a vagina. Someone has to get low scores every review period or the curve isn’t bell shaped. However, he put in writing an illegal reason why I got the score. I argued this with Bossman, but I didn’t take it to HR. I didn’t tell him this was against the law, I just quietly took my hit for the team an accepted the lower score. And I filed away the mounting evidence. Strike one.

Then the next review period Bossman gave me a very high score. But I didn’t get the stock options or bonus to the level I expected. With as high as my score was, I knew I should have gotten more. So I started asking not so innocent questions to HR about why I didn’t get as much as I expected. And you know what happened? God smiled on me. Some new chick in HR accidentally forwarded me an email thread where Vice Presidents were talking about my stellar performance with regards to the reviews and who should get what compensation. But even though they all agreed that I was stack ranked in the top three of over 150 people, Bossman gave the BOY in my group more stock options and a bigger bonus. It was all laid out neatly in the email. Strike Two!

I didn’t want to fight this big company. I liked my job. But I knew that there are times in your life you have to stand up for yourself. So as uncomfortable as it was to do, I used this email thread and all the other evidence to help build my case for HR. In my mind, not only did they need to give me the bonuses I deserved, but Bossman was a liability to the company. There was an air tight case that Bossman participated regularly in sexual discrimination. The email thread was the cincher. The evidence read like a serial novel. I had an email thread that PROVED that my company, by way of Mr. Bossman, who should have been fired years ago, was discriminating against me and other women. They admitted that I was stacked ranked in the top 3% but that they gave me LESS then the boys. Not only did they not correct him. They let it happen.

After I brought all the evidence to their attention, they gave me the top level bonus and stock options. I got what I should have gotten to begin with, nothing more. I didn’t want anything more, but I wanted them to at least smack Bossman’s hands and recognize they needed some checks and balances for people like Bossman.

What I learned from this was that discrimination isn’t just about one idiot making stupid mistakes. How a company responds to allegations and punishes offenders is what determines the difference between “mistakes” and “discrimination”. Companies turn simple mistakes into a “culture” when they choose to play ostrich and not be accountable to the problem. They validate sexual discrimination by not taking swift decisive action against the morons who practice it. Fixing the mistake isn’t enough. There has to be a visable consequence for the people who made the mistake.

There wasn’t a consequence for Bossman. Bossman is still there and I’m sure still doing the same types of things.

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