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Ever experienced double standards in the workplace?

Wanderer2010

Obviously no workplace is perfect and there is always a bit of give and take when it comes to enforcing rules softly or hardly, but have you ever experienced double standards in your job to such an extent that your work/health etc was affected?

Personally I have seen bosses chase up lads to do a set amount of work or reports a day, emailing them regularly for updates, getting annoyed with them when they miss one little detail or format yet they take a different approach with the women- hands in pockets, not pressing them for a deadline, and allowing them to arrive late and leave early. I have seen supervisors bully their way up the ladder then take a hardline approach to bullying in the workplace.

Anyone ever experienced bad double standards at work?

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gctest50

discus wrote: »

Don't get me started. I know of a female troop commander who got one of the privates to carry HER radio, HER batteries and HER extra ammo, on a 5 day, fully tactical exercise out on the ground... and used that as an excuse.

thats not much good - she'd need to be at this craic to keep "ready"

scheister

i had this in a hotel i worked in a few years ago. If the wedding was less then 200 people and i was working it i was expected to clear the floors of glasses etc on my own at the end of the night. But if a girl was assigned to the wedding and their was more then 130 people i was expected to stay and help her clean up. She was working their longer then me

suicide_circus

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Be careful. If one of the lads hurts their back doing yet another manual lifting task that you give him and claims compensation, you are in the firing line for not distributing the tasks of the job equally and fairly. I have seen it happen before.

yes it is a risk. however, the chance of one of the girls hurting her back trying to do one of these manual handling tasks is far far higher. in my experience, women are far more likely to go sick, hurt themselves in the work place and to sue the company

eviltwin

I used to work for a Jewish man who hired a few friends children even though they had no qualifications and they were always given religious feast days off in addition to normal holiday allowances. If anyone else had tried that we'd have been told NO.

I've also worked in places where smokers were allowed go outside multiple times a day for a smoke leaving their desks for 10 - 15 mins at a time while the non smokers only had permission to leave their desk to use the loo.

Shakespeare's Sister

All the time. Favouritism being the most annoying one. But my managers now are absolutely superb - treat us all exactly the same, no matter what. Makes such a difference.

bnt wrote: »

This is a trick question, right? "Do as I say, not as I do" is practically an Irish corporate mantra.

Irish?

ancapailldorcha

We had a diesel spill at work just over a month ago. As part of the response, we had to put stuff in large boxes. Being the only chap in my group (aside from the boss), guess who did the lifting? One of the Italians was bragging that she could "use her sex" to get a man to lift hers.

Shakespeare's Sister

Why didn't you ask the silly bints to help you?

vitani

Half the company directing their queries to the man I share an office with, even though the questions are about the work I do, and the final decisions lie with me.

ancapailldorcha

Magaggie wrote: »

Why didn't you ask the silly bints to help you?

I work in a nearly all-female building and this Italian is the one of the people I can call on for help if it hits the fan.

Buzz Killington the third

My boss calls his assistant by saying "hey sexy, got a minute?" But if I did it, it'd be a hr issue... I don't care if she's his girlfriend, totally double standards. He probably gets to bone her on the desk too!

Tail Docker

The Boss in our place is a lazy fecker who is always dying of a hangover, does feck all and wastes a load of money on hair-brained schemes and dopey ideas - he always favours the female employees over the men and expects everyone to be in on time while he dodders in whenever he feels like it and nearly always leaves early. Also, whenever he fecks somthing up, it's grand, if an employee did the same, there would be aggro. Serious, aggravating double standards. He also constantly uses company resources for personal projects, usually with no regard for cost or what else doesn't get done.

There's also serious nepotism, he has most of his family working there at this stage, and a fair few of them do sfa, if they even bother turning in.

If It wasn't my company, i'd have a real problem with working there tbh.

The Diabolical Monocle

Well yes, I remember a time when I was hauling ass with two uk pallets, one in each hand. Throwing those bad boys around like Godzilla throwing Japanese firetrucks.
Thence looking to my left and seeing little miss sweet ass parading down the factory floor on her way to have a natter.

Pretty sure I was being paid the same rate.

anothernight

P_1 wrote: »

Female staff being allowed to wear seemingly whatever they want while male staff being bound to the shirt/tie/slacks combo comes to mind

I work in a company where the dress code is spelled out for men. Then they add something to the effect of "equivalent clothes" for what women should wear. This means that I don't have a clue about what I should wear, and shopping for work clothes is an absolute nightmare. I'd much prefer if they spelled it out for us too.

Lingua Franca

I've never really worked an office job, I've always worked in entertainment or daycare, so going shopping for "office clothes" with my friends is always enlightening. And by enlightening, I mean I still haven't a clue what makes acceptable and unacceptable office wear. This black and white long sleeved top is officewear and this almost identical black and white long sleeved top isn't. These flat pumps are perfect and these flat pumps "give off the wrong impression". Yeeeeah, I'll stick to my jeans and t's and still manage to do my job satisfactorily.

speedboatchase

I work in Qatar so I've seen it all at this point. 'Qatarization' is the term for the -usually enforced - public and private sector positive discrimination targets of hiring Qatari staff, regardless of suitability or qualifications. And the Qataris will be on much, much higher pay for the same role - the average Qatari household income is 3x that of expats. A job posting I saw recently included the line: 'Please note that minimum qualifications for role do not apply for Qatari applicants'.

Aside from that, they're a great bunch of lads.

iguana

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Be careful. If one of the lads hurts their back doing yet another manual lifting task that you give him and claims compensation, you are in the firing line for not distributing the tasks of the job equally and fairly. I have seen it happen before.

This is a joke right? There are laws about what weights people can be asked to lift at work and the weight is much lower for women.

Joe Doe

There is an old proverb:

'Sh1te flows downwards'.

whatdoicare

Guys here do you not realise that women cant physically lift the same as them, its not possible.
Guess what, my female boss didn't know that she couldn't lift as much as a man until she prolapsed her womb. She didn't want to be seen as treating girls different than boys and led by example.

Now she gives every new employee the same speech and I think its very fair. She makes sure that everyone knows that the guys will be doing the heavy lifting but in return the girls will be doing the dirty cleaning jobs. We're in a kitchen.
I think its fair, the think its fair, everyone pulls their weight.
If I cant lift something I either leave it for a guy or i recruit a few of the girls to help.
In return I break my back doing hours of clean up with my arms up to my elbows in ****e and I never complain.

Ive never encountered sexism in the workplace but then again I'm usually too busy working to notice.

Jesus Wept

Do you bake cookies too for the lads? If so, fair enough.

Shakespeare's Sister

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I work in a nearly all-female building and this Italian is the one of the people I can call on for help if it hits the fan.

I'm not seeing how this stops you from asking for help from the women.

calanus

Magaggie wrote: »

I'm not seeing how this stops you from asking for help from the women.

I would presume that he would prefer to stay in her good books so that he can call upon her "sexiness" to smooths things over with the bosses?

py2006

eviltwin wrote: »

I've also worked in places where smokers were allowed go outside multiple times a day for a smoke leaving their desks for 10 - 15 mins at a time while the non smokers only had permission to leave their desk to use the loo.

I have experienced this too. It got to the point where it was every hour on the hour and they were gone for 10mins. I suggested to management that the non-smokers should be entitled to day a month off as they were working that much more than the smokers. Didn't go down very well obviously.

So, I said feck it and went out with the smokers every hour and enjoyed the natter.

steddyeddy

I worked in Superquinn before it changed ownership. At the time they weren't allowed to keep under 18 year olds after ten pm. However they threatened the staff by telling them they wouldn't have a job in summer if they left at ten. Anyway long story short all the female staff got sent home at ten and the men had to stay behind until 12 or more.

py2006

anothernight wrote: »

I work in a company where the dress code is spelled out for men. Then they add something to the effect of "equivalent clothes" for what women should wear. This means that I don't have a clue about what I should wear, and shopping for work clothes is an absolute nightmare. I'd much prefer if they spelled it out for us too.

It would probably make life easier alright but I they are probably worried they would be hit with, 'you can't tell women what to wear, that is discrimination, sexist etc etc etc.....'.

steddyeddy

I don't understand nepotism at all. It doesn't happen in science as much believe it or not but the business end of science i(in Ireland is a joke). For seemingly educated people there seems to be trend in Irish finance that it's OK to give a job to someone who's related to you over a more qualified person.

UCDVet

whatdoicare wrote: »

Guys here do you not realise that women cant physically lift the same as them, its not possible.
Guess what, my female boss didn't know that she couldn't lift as much as a man until she prolapsed her womb. She didn't want to be seen as treating girls different than boys and led by example.

Now she gives every new employee the same speech and I think its very fair. She makes sure that everyone knows that the guys will be doing the heavy lifting but in return the girls will be doing the dirty cleaning jobs. We're in a kitchen.
I think its fair, the think its fair, everyone pulls their weight.
If I cant lift something I either leave it for a guy or i recruit a few of the girls to help.
In return I break my back doing hours of clean up with my arms up to my elbows in ****e and I never complain.

Ive never encountered sexism in the workplace but then again I'm usually too busy working to notice.

I entirely realize that men and women are not physically the same.

In my example/experience women were expected to do A and men were expected to do A + B. Without any additional recognition or compensation. That's certainly a double standard.

A fair way to do it would be to divide up the work in an equitable fashion (and there is no reason to do this by gender - I've seen women at FlyFit that can out lift most 95% of men). Group employees based on self-reported abilities - let them decide if they can safely lift a box or not. Offset the box lifting work with other tasks of equitable effort.

The other fair way to do it would be to group employees (again, no reason to do this by gender) into those who do their regular job + box lifting and those who just do their regular job. Pay those who also do box lifting slightly more money because they are doing slightly more work.

anothernight

py2006 wrote: »

It would probably make life easier alright but I they are probably worried they would be hit with, 'you can't tell women what to wear, that is discrimination, sexist etc etc etc.....'.

I very much doubt it.

steddyeddy

In fairness girls in my lab get told what not to wear. They don't scream sexist.

Awkward Badger

Worked in two different supermarkets where it was the responsibility of the guys to do all the cleaning. The girls and women were exempt from a lot of the work and usually finished earlier than the guys. They were not expected to pack bags, help customers to their cars, collect trolleys, clean the floors at night, clean spills during the day, clean the unisex toilets, clean the store room or the canteen. Even the girls changing room was sometimes cleaned by the guys after they were all gone home.

Add to that the fact that all the guys had their own jobs to do and areas to stock the same as the girls as well as helping the girls stock their trolleys in the store when the stuff was heavy and bring it out to the shop floor a lot of the time too.

I don't know if there was a pay difference as I never asked but unless the girls were on 2 quid an hour it wasn't enough to make up for the huge difference in the amount of work expected.

Shakespeare's Sister

sock puppet wrote: »

I merely responded to your retarded extrapolation of your personal experiences with another.

He does like to pretend that what's in his imagination is reality all right.