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What it's like working in an all female team

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What type of team do you work in?  I am the only male in a predominantly female team, and to be honest I am finding it extremely hard day to day.  I'm not saying that all women at work are like this, it's just my personal experience where I am working just now.

Several points to make about an all female team -

1. I'll start with what these women do - they're extremely catty.  Oh they love a good snipe at each other (and presumably me when I'm not around), and the sad thing is your drawn into the cattinesss - sucked into it like a black hole of death.  You can't get away from it.  You'll be sitting there with a cup of tea, typing an email and then someone leaves their desk.  Almost immediately, hell breaks out and there's one catty remark after another.  Then the person who left comes back and everyone is all nice and loving, not an issue in the world. How can they stand to be so two faced?

2. Sickness - Before I used to work with mostly guys who used to take the odd day off sick with Man-flu.  There's a new industrial disease though and it's called "Woman-Flu".  Basically when they have a cold they take a week off, when challenged about this they fall apart and cry their eyes out telling you on how they were on their death bed - except Saturday night when they somehow managed to muster the energy to go out clubbing.

3. Lateness - 9am start in our office is just a suggestion to some of these ladies, what it really means is you can start any time you want and still finish on time!

4. Targets - Again these are just suggestions and not something you actually have to achieve, because the company didn't really hire them to make money for the company.  No they hired them to do all of the above and and spend every other moment on Facebook.

A woman typing on a laptop 5. Pregnant - This never bothered me till recently.  Maternity leave is how long, about 9 months normally depending on the type of person you are?  My wife was off for 12 months and then back to work.  We have three pregnant girls at work and their maternity leave is on average about 6 months away.  However, you would have thought it started when they found out they where pregnant.  Switched off is a phrase that springs to mind, no hang on, they've completely powered down and are unresponsive.  As for the number of sick days they are now taking...

This is just a very small amount what goes on in our office, there's no team work, everybody is worried about what everyone else is doing.  Paranoid and reactive instead of pro-active.  The list goes on and on and on!  Come on ladies, you have worked hard to gain respect with us guys in the work place.  Why do this to yourself?


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boblet

boblet

I like cooking so my partner enrolled me in an Asian (what else I live in bradistan) cookery course it is brilliant but being the only man in the class I get frustrated trying to listen to six conversations at once.
17/10/13 boblet
1
Nick

Nick

It's like working in a pub with 3 hen parties going on at the same time. Enjoy.
17/10/13 Nick
-4
hairyfairy

hairyfairy

I can remember when I`ve worked with women, & in one job I was at the other girls were so bitchy to me that I couldn`t stand it anymore & left. when I think back, I believe that it was because I was the only one there that could look into a mirror without it shattering into pieces, I mean most of them were pug-ugly! seriously though, a lot of the cattiness of women is down to jealousy. If women could get over their stupid envy of one another, then they would be so much easier to work with.
14/10/12 hairyfairy
-6
Grassy Banks

Grassy Banks

I never employ women, they are too unreliable. It's easy to get around the legislation.
10/03/11 Grassy Banks
-8
Edgar

Edgar

My experience of managing mixed teams of men and women is that the sentiments expressed in points 1 to 4 of this gripe apply, for the most part, to both sexes. A lot of the problems outlined are due to poor management. With regard to point 5, the pregnant women in teams that I have managed worked no less than before they became pregnant. I would expect both men and women to take time off work when it was allowed by statute, as in the case of maternity leave.
07/03/11 Edgar
9
STEAL

STEAL

check this out for fair, my ex boss took mat leave 3 times in 4 years and came back to a promotion and pay raise everytime.. yet most of us did the donkey work. but she threaten to go to court if she didn't get it, as its a part of her progression plan.. ffs.
06/03/11 STEAL
-7
NSD

NSD

Big D, funny because in my team the guys knuckle down but the women try every tactic to get out of doing the work they were employed for and at the same time moan about how unfairly they are treated for being expected to perform to certain levels.
Perhaps the glass ceiling is a myth and theres a reason why only some women reach the top of the corporate ladder.....
02/03/11 NSD
-20
Big D

Big D

Wow there are lot of masogynistic replies to this post!!! I don't see too much difference in work ethic, performance or sick leave between male and female employees. If anything my female colleagues are more inclined to knuckle down and get it done. Most guys want to challenge your authority and question the way things are being done; sometimes I just dont have time for that. I would however say that Women can be incredibly cleeky and very cruel to some of there female colleagues. I don't see guys doing that nearly as often.
09/01/11 Big D
6
Steal

Steal

Girl, I notice your focusing on men in a truely and very negative typical way that most women do when they focus on the negativity of some men. But your comments are truly non original and are possibly made up.
No man I know - and I play rugby and train with over 30 men each week, plays a gameboy, and I don't actually know of anyone that isn't pre 16 that owns a hand held computer. If anything most men that play games are playing Playstation and spend their time at home, and won't be out creating the latest Jackson Pollock on the pavement outside "Jason Donner-van".
The men you speak of that are out getting drunk every week are probably young and do not last long in most jobs - it takes a few years of realisation they can't do that they cant do that all the time. Also to note, that the bigger drinking issue in the UK is women, more women have a drinking problem and officially more women smoke than men.
Working in a profession where a suit and tie is a everyday thing, I have not once met a scruffy male - infact dress codes within the work place seems to be broken by women, wearing what ever they want.
And with sickness - at least they are coming to work, thus showing the level of commitment.
Lastly Being pregnant is not an illness.
05/01/11 Steal
3
Girl

Girl

working in a mostly male team,things that get on MY nerves.
1) the endless conversations about how drunk they got the night before, how much they managed to vomit on the pavement, how many imaginary dragons they managed to kill on gameboy or whatever, how many disgusting combinations of food they managed to eat while out '' on the lash'' oh and the disgusting language and the constant need to ''out man'' each other in these areas.
2) the total inability to dress themselves. Daily I see guys come in the office with dirty shirts, wrinkled jackets, unpolished shoes, missing ties and faces they havent bothered to shave. I may spend time doing my makeup but at least I can get dressed without mummy to help me.
3) lateness- usually on a monday or thursday and usually after spending at least one evening getting drunk.
4) sickness, they come into the office, in an EVIL mood,whinge all day about how sick they are and then refuse any kind of cold medication. and while they are proving how hard they are by coming in every day- every one else gets their germs since using a tissue doesnt seem to be something men can do.
5) maternity- when you have had a human growing inside you for 9 months, sending your body and your hormones to hell - please whinge about it - until then please be quiet and try to show some respect for what women go through during this time.
02/01/11 Girl
7
Dave

Dave

If you want a productive office with negligible absenteeism, just do what my old boss did - never hire any women at all. All because he got stung once when he took on some young tart who decided to get pregnant and never turn up for work again - and the law said she had to be paid throughout. When he found out the new maternity rates he'd have to pay to any staff member who became pregnant - together with the time off to which they were entitled, he only selected men for jobs after that.
30/12/10 Dave
9
Juicy Lucy

Juicy Lucy

I am all for women's rights and feel that progress is moving out of the kitchen into the big wide world and getting a good education and moving on from tottering heels and Barbie land.

Unfortunately, some of the worst bosses have been men but mostly women. The listen to their b*tchy friends, make poor judgement based on emotional feelings rather than common sense.
Their cattiness and clique groups and unkindness directed at other women who are 'less than perfect or below them'.

I have to say, that my favourite bosses have been men. It seems, that they do not take this so literally and do not spend time being so strung up and nasty.
26/12/10 Juicy Lucy
-35
me

me

Do you have a manager? Well let's be honest they can't be doing their job properley either.
This should have been nipped in the bud ages ago - good management should have sorted it out.
A weak manager is inviting staff to take the ****
14/12/10 me
-14
holla3434

holla3434

what happens if jack the sha gger from the local pub goes round and does his business with 10 of the teenage girls that you have employed? gets them all pregnant and goes back to his cross eyed drug and drink enduced benefit funded gaze staring at the barmaid or the girls at the local supermarket booze counter? doesnt have a care in the world he's been spreading his seed and laughing hist t its off about it for years, no comeback or CSA, just drug enduced stupification coupled with the ethics of a rat...and the offspring will grow up with single mothers only to take pity on him and shower him with love and gifts when they start to hit 18...well the girls will want 6 months or a year off work on full pay, then when it reaches time to come back they will probably go "ah, um I want to change my horizons and like, something, for me.so...I QUIT HA HA bye." or if they want to come back, how do you deal with paying off the person who has been filling in for the last year...
25/11/10 holla3434
3
D-Jagamo

D-Jagamo

I work for one of the biggest companies in the world and the reason they're so successful? The magic 80:20 ratio, of men to women. Nuff sed!
23/11/10 D-Jagamo
-15

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