Discrimination in the office

[gokartdillydilly]

I'm on here for a rant really, because I know I can't do anything about this except to call them out on it whenever it arises.

I work in the office of a small food marketing company with two colleagues (who are in a relationship), one of whom is my line manager, and one my counterpart, and several sales team members who don't work in the office.

We were discussing a colleague (sales) who resigned after maternity leave today, and my counterpart said 'Next employee will be a man', then went on to rant about women going off and getting pregnant the minute you employ them. She is quite old-fashioned in her outlook (men's and women's traditional roles FFS!), also has no children of her own, and thinks maternity leave is a piss-take. I told her it's discrimination, and I was promptly told to wind my neck in.

Line manager left the office saying 'I'm not getting involved in this', and so he was not able to hear the ignorant comments that followed about female employees. She wears the trousers in their relationship and he will not stand up for any principles that she disagrees with, even if he knows she's wrong. It's rather pathetic, but there you are.

I did ask her how she would have felt if she'd been treated like that and she said it was irrelevant in her particular role

I said my piece but I am seething. I have a daughter and sons who are all equally talented in their various careers and if they went through the expense and rigmarole of going for an interview and never got any further due to their gender we would all be furious. Not that you ever find out.

I can't complain to our general manager, as she is based in another part of the UK, and so if I complain to her about this sex-discrimination and it is escalated, my work life will become an absolute misery.

I have to maintain the status quo in the office. We're in a rural location and jobs are incredibly scarce so I'm not prepared to leave my very well-paid role (I tried once before and there is literally nothing that I could afford to live off). So I guess I just have to speak out when I can and try to ignore their idiotic behaviour.

Sorry for the rant. I actually feel a little bit better for it. But if there are any tips for coping with sex-discrimination (plus insidious racism - comments made in reverse, to look like a joke - but that's another story), I would appreciate it. Otherwise I'll just sit here seething until home-time!

Normally I would say leave, they are clearly a bunch of clowns, but bearing in mind your location, etc, just suck it up and ignore the silly bint. Follow your boss’s example and walk away chortling to yourself, you don’t have to be an audience to get rants.
Nobody cares what she thinks, she’s a ridiculous idiot 😁

Thanks @Shayne11. I think she felt a bit of a twat actually, as she was subsequently over-compensating all afternoon.

I was just so shocked that she had had the audacity/idiocy to say such a thing out loud in front of me, whom she knows spent nearly 2 years fighting a discrimination case at a tribunal in a previous career.

I can only relish in the thought that their dinnertime/evening might have made for very uncomfortable discussion 😂😂😂 They both know I'm right. He's the boss here, so legally has to toe the line, but he's terrified of her and so will not say anything to upset the equilibrium. Romance eh?!

I wouldn't discount being ale to get employment elsewhere.

If you want to spend your employment years in such a toxic backward thinking set up then OK, but I've got no advice about how to survive.

It will eat away at you on a daily basis and that's not healthy.

From a business point of view, women going on maternity leave is expensive. It is a common worry for small employers.

However she shouldn't be saying it in the workplace even if she says it ti her partner.

But there is no excuse for racism.