I work in Education, in a (sort of) unit in a secondary school. For a while, I've been feeling a bit demotivated and undervalued at work. I'm the least senior in a small, close knit team of three. There's the leader of the unit (male), and my female colleague and I. The kids are great and I have a fantastic rapport with them.
I get on extremely well with my colleagues, the female in particular. However a couple of low level things have bothered me about the male, the head of the unit. He is such a lovely guy but there's occasionally a subtle sexism to him. He'd be mortified to see I thought that. And I can't figure out if I'm being unreasonable.
He'll never wash up the kids' dishes. Not once. Unfortunately we can't ask the kids to do it, as we don't have a sink and must take the dishes to another room - where the they aren't allowed to go - to be washed. I know he's busy but it does smack of 'leaving it to the women'.
Today, I made hot chocolate for one of our boys. He added extra milk and the cup overflowed a bit. In the absence of a sink, the lad (very sensibly!) emptied some of the drink into a plastic basin.
This befuddled my boss a bit, and he walked over to me with the basin and said 'kissthefish, would you mind taking this and cleaning it out'. He also asked me to take the boy, until I reminded him that I couldn't.
I don't know. It just made me feel a bit shit. It would have taken him two seconds to go to the kitchen and do it himself.
I've also observed some slight differences in how he treats the boys and girls in our unit. He's much more likely to get involved with the boys, to take them out for a walk or play a game with them. To be fair, they can be more challenging. The quieter girls, he'll leave more to my female colleague and I.
Am I being ridiculous or was the basin thing not ok?