I’m Karen at work

[CoronaCustard]

Late 40s woman in an organisation full of 20 somethings - and I’m just failing to bite my tongue when they’re WRONG.

At the point where I’m just going to refuse to do it their way any longer.

And yes, I have written multi-paragraph letters of complaint and requested to see the manager.

How does one operate smoothly as a woman of certain age and wisdom in a world which is set up to not hear you ( I always presume because my qualification is different to everyone else in the office - but also maybe because of generation divide).

I don’t want to just walk out. I like the work. And everyone would scarcely be less eye-rolly to me if I bailed at 11th hour. Though yes I am job hunting for the future. Anyone know any good openings for a prime Karen?

Also to be honest I feel pity for you op. Because you want something to change at work, but due to your own attitude it won’t happen ever. You’re stuck in a cycle where the person stopping you getting what you want is you. And you can’t see it or stop yourself.

@Bluntness100luntness @Frappuccinofan

I think it’s a bit strong to say I talk to people like shit - and nowhere have I said that I wasn’t civil.

I said that my voice wasn’t heard.

And I can do various professional things to smooth it -I don’t need to ask an internet forum about that. However, my path is made harder not just by all my many failings as an individual - but by misogyny.

If I do ‘raise my voice’ (or, more specifically, write a multi-paragraph email explaining my point) - then I immediately feel social pressure to lower it - so that no one can possibly mistake me for the woman who-looks-like-me in a meme losing her shit at a fast food employee.

However much you guys take me down - it’s honestly not just my problem.

I’m unpleasant because I say what I see? Unpleasant because I repeat myself even if the majority pile onto me?

Pleasant being an important trait for a successful woman, of course.

“I said that my voice wasn’t heard”

It is heard op but due to your communication style people do not wish to help you. It’s you that doesn’t listen. You who doesn’t hear.

I’m fifty one. I am a strong character. I am both heard and listened to at work and I am treated with respect.

Because I not only put my point across with reasoned,logic. I listen to the other side and I move my position as necessary, or know how to convince when not necessary and I treat my colleagues with respect.

I do not blame everyone else other than me. Which is what you do.

This thread is a prime example. No matter how many people are telling you you hold firm, do not listen or hear the reason, simply repeat your position and blame everyone but you.

I suspect you’re incapable of change and these issues dog your private life as well, so it’s unlikely your work situation will ever resolve.

Fundamentally - I can plough through the professional challenge of this - but I do think that some of the reasons why it’s been hard to get my voice heard is underlying ageism and the sexism. That might be direct -( in the sense of the ‘K’ memes) - or it might be indirect (in the sense that I probably am harder work than my peers because I am different to them in my experience and personal circumstances).

So yet again you're ignoring what people are saying in favour of blaming ageism and misogyny
And yet again you're oh so much better than your colleagues.

If I do ‘raise my voice’ (or, more specifically, write a multi-paragraph email explaining my point) - then I immediately feel social pressure to lower it - so that no one can possibly mistake me for the woman who-looks-like-me in a meme losing her shit at a fast food employee

Someone raising valid professional issues in a professional way isn't going to be viewed as a moaning Minnie who tries to throw her weight around.

Do you also say you 'just tell it like it is' or 'I'm just honest and sometimes people can't handle the truth'? Because the more you post, the more it sounds like you're confusing professional assertiveness with being rude/arsey at work.

You're repeatedly, dare I say deliberately, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of people (including middle aged women!) manage to raise professional issues in the workplace.

OP

You seem like a poor communicator even if you may have a point. Stop waffling on about trifles and shepherds pies. I’m fat and you’re making me hungry!

You seem to be “othering” yourself which isn’t actually going to help you influence anybody.

You need to probably have a more softly softly approach or a more conciliatory tone if you’re trying to get a point across.... obviously backed up with examples etc. Because this is how younger people communicate, and if that’s the culture of your company, you need to adapt to it or find something else. If you are dealing with gammon, please fire away 👍

Being strident doesn’t go down well in any direction even if you are correct and I say this as a pretty angry 45 year old

The whole concept of the Karen thing is completely insulating too and I think probably refrain from calling yourself that on here.

After a life time of bullshit from men, we all become “Karens“ by this age. If somebody calls you a karen, you challenge that in a calm controlled manner.

You are unhappy at work, and don't fit in. so time to move on to better things.

@Bluntness100

“ I suspect you’re incapable of change and these issues dog your private life as well, so it’s unlikely your work situation will ever resolve.”

🤣

I think this has to take the medal for wild extrapolation character assassination! What’s wrong with my private life?

I do well enough at work to have outlasted most of the people I joined with (another reason why the age gap is widening & I’m becoming more opinionated).

I understand that we can always work on ourselves & our communication style. But I call bullshit on the idea that this is predominantly a personal issue - and nothing to do with misogyny. Encouraging women to blame themselves (and each other) is exactly how misogyny takes hold.

That, and attacking the woman’s femininity. Like suggesting I must certainly have problems in my private life, if at work I send multi-paragraph emails suggesting process improvements.

@1forAll74 - I probably will. A Pp is correct that it might be easier to find ‘school hours’ roles now that the whole world is working flexibly.

But running away from it (and being shouted down over it) does not make it that there was no issue. It’s still frustrating, even if I’ll escape eventually.

I call bullshit on the idea that this is predominantly a personal issue - and nothing to do with misogyny.

Is this actually the point you've been trying to make all along, OP? It is not easy to follow your posts at all. I think people (including myself) have genuinely struggled to work out what you're going on about. I do think that it's quite possible it's this lack of clarity in your communication style that is causing you problems at work. Is there any evidence that it's actually misogyny and ageism? Could it just be that people struggle to understand you and so you feel like they're dismissing you - when in fact it's just they can't follow what you're trying to say?

Youre still doing it and you simply can’t even see it op

So many examples. I said your attitude was unpleasant. You Immediately turned it into something different and sarcastically stated “successful women need to be pleasant of course?”. This is not what was said. But still you found the need to switch it round.

What was said was your attitude is unpleasant, . That goes irrelevant of gender, an unpleasant attitude gets you no where, no one wants to help the person who is unpleasant to deal with.

Other words which mean the same would be irritating, annoying, obnoxious or odious. If it help you understand.

Male or female. When your behaviour falls into these categories then people will not help you even if you’re fundamentally right. They won’t get past the odiousness of your communications.

This is nothing to do with your age or gender. This is everything to do with your communication style and how you interact with people.

Like suggesting I must certainly have problems in my private life, if at work I send multi-paragraph emails suggesting process improvements

This is just ridiculous and I’m out. You’ve done it again. No one, least of all me, suggested you had problems in your personal life due to you sending multi paragraph emails.

You were told it was because of your communication style. Repeatedly. But just like the unpleasant attitude comment, you immediately twisted it to being due to your tendency to send lengthy emails.

You can’t see it. You don’t want to see it. There really is no point in anyone trying to help you further.

I understand that we can always work on ourselves & our communication style. But I call bullshit on the idea that this is predominantly a personal issue - and nothing to do with misogyny. Encouraging women to blame themselves (and each other) is exactly how misogyny takes hold
I've worked with lots of highly qualified and experienced women who have expressed challenging views and challenges the status quo. They're not wallflowers. Within that group there's a lot of middle aged women who are respected by colleagues and even where there's professional disagreements these women command respect from those around them.

I've also worked with a fair few moaning Minnie types who are always complaining to management, think they're better than everyone else, flounce and feel hard done to if their brilliance isn't recognised/they aren't given a free pass to do things their way. In my experience this group are awfully quick to blame others, say they're a victim of misogyny, ageism etc. In reality it's their attitude.

@022828MAN

Stop using sexist slurs for what is essentially being assertive and standing your ground on things.

This ^

@Zezet

I am baffled as to why everyone is so harsh with you.

It does seem like there are different things going on (although it is a bit hard to understand because it's vague):

• You seem to have a cultural mismatch in how you want to organise your work day, linked to different family situations (young twenty vs mum with kids?).
• You seem to have been recruited for a speciality that is theoretically recognised as important, but that in practice is sidelined and to which templates are applied that are not particularly useful for your speciality.
• However, these internal objections/structures then clash with client expectations, because the clients do expect your speciality, not the main thing your company does.
• All that said, when push comes to shove your organisation recognises the importance of your speciality, as recognised by them putting up with it/you being a PITA.

Thoughts on this:
*Your only leverage is in the last point. If this is not true, then there is no interest, theoretical or real, to engage with you on doing things your way, and I see very little perspective for you to get anything changed.

• However, I do think you have become so discouraged and annoyed with the situation that you are thinking of it in a non-constructive way. They're not wrong to be making pies. They are not wrong to have standard procedures and templates suitable for pies. They know their job, clearly, as the company understands it (if your argument is that they all don't understand their job, then clearly you are with a company so hopeless at hiring and managing that you might as well give up). They are only wrong in applying these things to you. They are wrong not because it frustrates you, but because it confuses and displeases the clients. This is the bottom line they are going to care about.
• So I think you need to change your mind set and your tone and approach this from a much less condescending place. You also need to focus way less on the office as a whole and way more on the people who actually call the shots on your job. You have no standing to critique their handling of your coworkings/general way of doing things and doing so will only make it harder to get your reasonable point across. Then, you need to sit them down and explain which particular feedbacks you are getting from the clients expecting curry and why you propose that for the curry clients only*, you will do things a different way. You will either get buy-in or you won't. Either way you'll have the information you need to have an informed decision on whether you can make this work place work for you. You need to stress you are making this point in the basis of the specific professional experience they hired you for, not as a matter of personal preference. You could perhaps get buy-in here from the other curry specialist. A separate* problem and conversation is how you organise your work on terms of life/work balance. Here, again, focus way less on what others are doing and way more on what would work for your employer and you.
• It sounds like things have been quite sour for quite a while so while I think you have a good chance of getting this through, you might need to do some work, first of reframing this in your own head (they are NOT the problem, the company is NOT doing pies wrong, your coworkers' job is NOT yours to opine on) and then of conveying to them you've understood these things.

Good luck, it sounds like a difficult and frustrating situation, but one with a very good chance of being solved.

I agree. This lady seems very intelligent and would be an asset to any company. If she's not being appreciated maybe look elsewhere for employment. The problem seems to be with her employers and colleagues who are not appreciating her considerable efforts.

Well I don't really understand what your problem is other than you are being called Karen when it's not the name you go by. (middle name or not)

If someone called me Karen I would simply stop them and say "no my name is SmudgeButt, why have you called me karen?" That leaves them with the choice of apologising and agreeing what my name actually is or being offensive by saying I'm acting like whatever it is that a "Karen" is supposed to be like.

I've worked with someone similar-sounding to you OP and it wasn't pleasant. Multi-paragraph emails explaining why she was right just served to imply I was stupid for having a different perspective, and the more she did it the more we all eye-rolled. We weren't a large team, there were four of us, but even outside our team people would say "oh great, here she comes..." that sort of thing. She was one of those people who thought experience counted for everything, and she clearly didn't think she needed to be respectful to us, despite basically demanding we respect her due to her extensive years in the role. Oh, and any of our ideas were useless because we were just starry-eyed newbies who had no clue, ha ha ha how hilarious it'll be when it doesn't work, we'd soon learn the hard way, that sort of thing.

I left after a year, she's still there 15 years later and sometimes our paths cross on training days. She's not progressed, still has all the same complaints about how things are done and won't adapt or change. It's sad, actually. And now her reputation proceeds her even outside her own place of work, because she's always the one at training telling us how it 'should' be.

In fact, is that you R?!

@queenofknives @Bluntness100

I don’t find my communication style blocks me with my service users, nor in my previous job where I was a more junior member. I take more time over how I express myself at work, and am able to be more specific about where I think the process makes problems.

Me speaking up where I see problems with the process makes more work for the recipient than everyone agreeing with everything, but I genuinely believe my suggestions are practical and in the best interests of the company and our service users. Their responses suggest they do understand what I say - so I don’t think my communication style is a block - though it may be a frustration. I do also listen to the answer and worked with my allocated mentor to make my Indian dishes fit into the European ethos of the company - but my patience with these compromises is growing thinner as the needs of my user base is growing larger. I think I will end up leaving, just because I’m uncomfortable with the culture fit, despite otherwise being successful and in-demand in this role.

I’m sure you and others do believe that the problem is fundamentally that I’m a difficult individual

I take more time over how I express myself at work, and am able to be more specific
Well maybe the women of mumsnet deserve the same consideration?

I’m sure you and others do believe that the problem is fundamentally that I’m a difficult individual
I honestly don't even know what the problem is supposed to be, because you still haven't explained it in a way that makes sense. I'm sure you're a fantastic person but the evidence here suggests you are also a person whose written communication skills may not be effective. I expect people are focusing on that as your other problem is too vaguely and incoherently expressed to be understood.

@queenofknives

I take more time over how I express myself at work, and am able to be more specific Well maybe the women of mumsnet deserve the same consideration?

I’m sure you and others do believe that the problem is fundamentally that I’m a difficult individual
I honestly don't even know what the problem is supposed to be, because you still haven't explained it in a way that makes sense. I'm sure you're a fantastic person but the evidence here suggests you are also a person whose written communication skills may not be effective. I expect people are focusing on that as your other problem is too vaguely and incoherently expressed to be understood.

Yep. This.

@Zezet

I am baffled as to why everyone is so harsh with you.

It does seem like there are different things going on (although it is a bit hard to understand because it's vague):

• You seem to have a cultural mismatch in how you want to organise your work day, linked to different family situations (young twenty vs mum with kids?).
• You seem to have been recruited for a speciality that is theoretically recognised as important, but that in practice is sidelined and to which templates are applied that are not particularly useful for your speciality.
• However, these internal objections/structures then clash with client expectations, because the clients do expect your speciality, not the main thing your company does.
• All that said, when push comes to shove your organisation recognises the importance of your speciality, as recognised by them putting up with it/you being a PITA.

Thoughts on this:
*Your only leverage is in the last point. If this is not true, then there is no interest, theoretical or real, to engage with you on doing things your way, and I see very little perspective for you to get anything changed.

• However, I do think you have become so discouraged and annoyed with the situation that you are thinking of it in a non-constructive way. They're not wrong to be making pies. They are not wrong to have standard procedures and templates suitable for pies. They know their job, clearly, as the company understands it (if your argument is that they all don't understand their job, then clearly you are with a company so hopeless at hiring and managing that you might as well give up). They are only wrong in applying these things to you. They are wrong not because it frustrates you, but because it confuses and displeases the clients. This is the bottom line they are going to care about.
• So I think you need to change your mind set and your tone and approach this from a much less condescending place. You also need to focus way less on the office as a whole and way more on the people who actually call the shots on your job. You have no standing to critique their handling of your coworkings/general way of doing things and doing so will only make it harder to get your reasonable point across. Then, you need to sit them down and explain which particular feedbacks you are getting from the clients expecting curry and why you propose that for the curry clients only*, you will do things a different way. You will either get buy-in or you won't. Either way you'll have the information you need to have an informed decision on whether you can make this work place work for you. You need to stress you are making this point in the basis of the specific professional experience they hired you for, not as a matter of personal preference. You could perhaps get buy-in here from the other curry specialist. A separate* problem and conversation is how you organise your work on terms of life/work balance. Here, again, focus way less on what others are doing and way more on what would work for your employer and you.
• It sounds like things have been quite sour for quite a while so while I think you have a good chance of getting this through, you might need to do some work, first of reframing this in your own head (they are NOT the problem, the company is NOT doing pies wrong, your coworkers' job is NOT yours to opine on) and then of conveying to them you've understood these things.

Good luck, it sounds like a difficult and frustrating situation, but one with a very good chance of being solved.

@zezet described my actual work problem better than I did.

But I think that one way or another I will be able to get on top of it, because I’m good at my job and (believe it or not) pretty easy going.

The thing that bothers me though - what I wanted to call out - is that I feel the deck is stacked against me on ‘culture fit’ before I even walked in the door.

The ‘K’ meme has made me more sensitive about how I express my ‘complaints’ (which aren’t as numerous as PP would claim - but really frustrate me in having to be the one to try to ‘sell’ it to the service users, and then spend a squillion hours trying to reconcile what I did to the paperwork. Essentially, it feels almost like fraud, but I’m being told to plough on with the procedure as written. I have no issues with a pie-makers - just I don’t feel comfortable completing forms accounting for my pies, when I really made a curry with a naan bread balanced on top.).

Because I hear the younger people use ‘K’ in jokes, it also makes me feel that affects their response to me asserting my views.

It might not. I might just be paranoid and ineffectual.

Northernparent68 Sat 26-Sep-20 12:36:02
Be careful op, I can’t see this ending well for you

CoronaCustard
Because I’m calling this situation out (in an anonymous forum) as an example of a social barrier to women of a certain age being able to get their voice heard?

Because I’m using a widely known misogynist slur - which proves that I’m a misogynist - rather than that the scenario is so well known that it has its own memes? But shouldn’t be spoken about from the point of view of the middle aged woman.

This is a perfect example OP of how you're misreading people! I actually think people were weirdly nasty over the Karen thing. Sometimes people on mumsnet have an axe to grind and this was one of those times.

BUT

NorthernParent was very clearly making a point that you have to be careful AT WORK because it might end with them sacking you if there's a bad culture fit. That's the most obvious reading of her statement. I checked the entire thread and she didn't even make any prior post and certainly not about the Karen issue.

Why did you make a bunch of weird assumptions about what she meant? Why assume she was even talking about the Karen thing? This what people are trying to flag up. If you don't know what someone means, just say "what do you mean" but instead you keep putting words in people's mouths.

Also has someone off the thread called you paranoid? Because you've brought it up twice now but I've read the thread twice and not only has no one called you paranoid, no post seems to have implied that you are paranoid.

Because everyone is in a rush, and if you try to explain in detail why the world seems set up to make fun of women of a certain age having strong opinions, then you’re either accused of being paranoid , or TL:DR.

I might just be paranoid and ineffectual.

It seems a bit like you are responding to things people aren't really saying.

Nobody is calling you paranoid OP.

You're just doing that thing where someone starts a thread where they have absolutely zero intention of remotely considering they may be wrong. Instead of considering your attitude might be making a situation worse, you take any challenge as more proof that you're a victim and everything is stacked against you.

For someone who seems very willing to challenge, you come across as someone who doesn't respond well to being challenged.

If you genuinely want to resolve a work situation them it's worth considering your actions and attitudes. If you're only interested in having your victim status confirmed then your work situation is unlikely to improve and your colleagues will likely get even more fed up with you.

@hereyehearye - I read @Northernparent68 as referring that the thread was going to get meaner and more personal if I kept responding. Genuine apologies if I misread.