How not to 'fill the gaps' for men

@MsTSwift

Dd1 wore a bra top and combats in freezing temperatures. Not my problem she wore her coat indoors and looked weird so won’t do that again

I laughed out loud... I now know what to do with my Dd1 next time...

Yes, minutes is a bit of a dual edged sword.

When attending meetings at one company, I actually stopped taking a notepad because I would be expected to take the notes and send them round (all nominally at the same level of seniority - all blokes but me and one other woman).

In my current job, as a consultant, I'm more of a facilitator anyway, so I arrange the meetings, set the agenda, and chair them - whilst taking notes (easier over skype) - which I can then, as others say, selectively spin/chase up depending on my own thoughts. Can be very useful.

I try to just let the balls fall - but yes, there's a point where you're saying to yourself that this startup could succeed, if I basically think of pretty much everything - but I dont' have the time to do that, so I have to let some stuff go, that isn't even my responsibility, even though it will harm my chance of success because I just can't do everything.

Same approach I started taking at home with DP, and whilst I don't necessarily have the tidy house I'd like, at least I'm not spending hours doing the washing to save myself stepping over his heap of dirty clothes behind the door.

If transwomen don't get all the boring admin dumped on them, they should most definitely be protesting.

Wow, I have been a filler for years...I'm going to stop

that’s a bit harsh. In my old workplace only the Directors had a PA but the PAs were allowed to help the Associates if they chose to. Funnily enough theyneverhad time to help any of the female executives only the male ones. There is a lot of everyday sexism in the so-called modern corporate world

Not harsh at all. It is still up to the associates to speak up about this. I have no time for women making themselves martyrs.

Minute taking can actually give you a lot of power imo.

You get to clarify decisions or actions 'for the minutes' making sure it is clear exactly who is doing what by when so people can't weasel out later.

You can also ensure that your views/input are clearly documented.

(Though maybe this only works if you are seen as an equal in the first place.)

I think the point is, burnoutbabe, that it's not women's responsibility to mop up after men. It's lovely that you take time to make your company look good and not piss off other staff, but surely it's everybody's responsibility to do that? The men don't have to think of things like that because they've got a woman doing it for them. No matter how senior she is, she'll pick up the slack. Doesn't help with equality at all.

I an the top female in my company. I regularly spot that an important meeting has been organised but the top bods have not bothered booking a meeting room.
I know they will take the meeting room regardless and kick out others in it. This will annoy others.
So I can pre empt it by booking the room and giving others notice of not having that meeting room. Or let it go and create bad impression of the company.
So I do it. For the company good (and every time I tell the blokes to book a room) and to keep rest of staff happier.

Interesting thread, thank you

The point of support staff/ secretarial staff is to support the higher up person. Your sister should be telling the support staff what she wants them to do and reporting them to their line- manager if they don't. If she isn't capable of doing that she needs to assess her own role and capabilities.
@DidoLamenting that’s a bit harsh. In my old workplace only the Directors had a PA but the PAs were allowed to help the Associates if they chose to. Funnily enough they never had time to help any of the female executives only the male ones. There is a lot of everyday sexism in the so-called modern corporate world.

OP great thread, thank you.

I'm realising how lucky I am to be in a predominantly female office (with female directors, no less) where the piss takers are few and far between! I am storing these up for use on my husband and father instead (tbh I have been going that way for some time, much to their dismay)

The scales are falling from my eyes as we speak!

This is an incredible thread, daring, so thank you very much for starting it.

I as a young woman (long time ago) offered to take minutes. I quickly realised that I could actually put my emphasis on what I believed in.

My male bosses - stupid central

She’s the only woman on her team at her grade, she has her own project work plus any planning/logistics/catering for events falls to her and she finds that support/secretarial staff (mainly female) will volunteer to do work on behalf of the male staff but not her, she feels awkward asking them and usually ends up doing it herself

The point of support staff/ secretarial staff is to support the higher up person. Your sister should be telling the support staff what she wants them to do and reporting them to their line- manager if they don't. If she isn't capable of doing that she needs to assess her own role and capabilities.

I have no time whatsoever for this pathetic "all the admin falls to me because I'm a woman" shtuck. All work places have a hierarchy. If you are at the upper range of the hierarchy you should be asserting authority that those lower down the chain do the admin/filing/booking transport or whatever.

I agree with the minute taking and the secret Santa - just don't bother. However I still struggle with the "workplace chicken" for the really important stuff. Fair play to you @Contrabassoon for letting the trip abroad go to shit. I don't know if I could have stood back and watched as that catastrophe unfolded.

Writing up meeting notes and sending them round the team

I have always refused to be the minute taker in a meeting, if asked I just claimed to be crap at it & declined. In reality I didn't want to be cast in the clerk/secretary role in a meeting just because I was female.

As I got older I realised that getting the women to take minutes/sort out drinks etc. in meetings not only puts them in a 'support' role to everyone else in the meeting, it also interferes with them taking an active part - who can concentrate on a discussion & be fully active in it when they are taking notes or sorting out who wants tea or coffee?

I have at least one (female) colleague who disagrees with me on this. I couldn't give a flying feathered fuck Wish I'd taken such a firm stance with my ex over wifework at home though.....

Good for your friend, @JuanSheetIsPlenty! This guy’s wife should have done that, because as far as I can gather, as well as being an unpaid intercontinental travel guide (and yes, she did actually message back suggestions about which train we might be on, in the middle of her own working day in the UK!) she did literally everything else in their marriage and with their children, apart from one meal of abstruse ingredients he spent several hours over on a Saturday, chiefly, as I understood it, to avoid having to deal with the children /take them out.

He’s now getting a divorce and will have to actually parent his children 50% of the time, in theory. I’m hoping his wife will not step in to solve issues...

he actually messaged his wife for suggestions! Clearly I was not living up to expectations.

Reminds me of a man my friend was dating. He messaged her from the bus station to ask about bus times to her town. She replied “you're the one at the bus station!” They didn’t have another date. I was very proud of her for that as she is very much a people pleaser.

Sorry, what I was trying to say was that you have to be prepared to stick to your own job responsibilities even when doing so is likely to risk making your organisation/department/colleague look very bad. Men assuming you won’t risk that, or that you’ll subordinate your own interests to the collective good is what keeps this misogynistic show on the road.

I have been forcing myself to use @TorkTorkBam 's method for years. A new colleague, senior (but not as senior as me) has started sending me REALLY menial tasks to do. I ignore him.
Friday he sent an email to a customer with me copied in, stating I would be providing the information they had requested.
I sent him an email saying I was unsure where he had gained the impression I was working for sales support and told him to redirect his request. He had the gall to respond that it was an activity I should be doing.
I probably wouldn't have sent it but I knew I was about to resign and I'm sick of the lot of them.

Exactly what @TorkTorkBam said. And whoever said ‘workplace chicken’. The most dramatic time I did this was taking a huge student group on a longhaul overseas trip with a colleague who was the trip leader — I was simply there to make up staff-student ratio and run one specific event on one afternoon of six, and I had been very clear in advance when I was asked to go on the trip about the fact that I was not taking any admin/organisational responsibility outside my own event. I was in fact doing the department a favour by going.

The male colleague whose baby it all was clearly expected me to bustle about filling in gaps, despite this, and kept sending over ‘to do’ lists. . I just had to resist and let the car crash happen.

And happen it did. We’re talking no transport arranged to pick up at airport, events unconfirmed so didn’t happen etc etc. It also became clear that he thought I was going to navigate the group around a major city that I didn’t know at all, despite the fact that he had led the same trip the year before.

I realised while spending a lot of time with him on that trip that he entirely unconsciously thought women would always sort him out. At one point when he took the group on the wrong underground train, he actually messaged his wife for suggestions! Clearly I was not living up to expectations...

I work in a small company and it's the small but really important admin tasks that always seem to fall to me. Like filing an HMRC thing or chasing up unpaid invoices or sorting out missing expenses. There seems to be a general awareness that I know these things need doing and care too much to let them slide.

Booking the Christmas meal/coordinating menus/deposits
Taking dirty cups/apple cores out of meeting rooms
Setting up meetings for more senior men
Writing up meeting notes and sending them round the team - no men do this EVER
Organising team away days

Pisses me off no end. Also annoys me how undervalued/underpaid PAs are - I think basically because men think they are a work wife.

I'm fascinated by this thread. What kind of stuff are/were you all doing to fill the gaps? I work in a male-dominated environment (engineering) and i don't think i do this kind of thing, but i am a bit of a misanthrope and it wouldn't even occur to me to do a collection for someone leaving, for example.