This whole controversy with Ed Sheeran and Robert Kraft has really brought up the conversation of power in working relationships for me. I mean, obviously, its brought up a lot more conversations that are arguably more important. But personally it has reminded me of a situation I’d like to share for the first time.
I was on a remote project outside of New York where I had been stationed for a few months. I was not senior by any means but I supported the most senior person, Sarah.
That is, until it became obvious to our execs that what this client needed was what many other clients before them had often needed: the presence of an older man in charge. So this was the process without any questioning. Our execs found one. They relocated him. It’s always confused me how this simple solution is often the most effective, esp in an industry that loves to throw around the word “meritocracy.” But I have seen it happen numerous times in both directions. Merit is second fiddle to age.
In this case, the person we brought in wasn’t known by the client. But unknown, he had the benefit of the doubt with the client. A stark contrast to what the starting line was for Sarah and I.
Sarah was the best program executive anyone could have found. But she had one fault: she didn’t look like the client’s executives. So when John was brought in, he immediately got the thumbs-up from the clients. It was a powerful lubricant for us. He agreed with some crazy (bad) ideas from the client, even knowing they were bad ideas, but the client needed that. And more importantly, they needed him. Not a competent woman who had to constantly re-earn their trust; an older white man in which trust was given freely.
He also knew something we didn’t. That sometimes letting people make terrible mistakes makes your relationship way better (and your job way easier) than trying to help them do the right thing. We tried to prioritize the city and the people, their safety, and their tax dollars. He prioritized their executives’ egos.
But that’s not the story I came to tell.
John came with a couple other fun quirks. He was from a time where women were exclusively admin. He expected that if he asked a woman to do something, they would do it, regardless of if it was in their scope. He never asked the men.
This can become career-limiting. Holding off your own career-forwarding duties puts more work labor on you and makes it harder to achieve your KPIs. This is well documented. Women are 44% more likely to be asked to do low-reward tasks with their time in the office, to the tune of about 200 more hours a year. It’s invisible labor and often takes advantage of women’s conditioning to “say yes.” These non-promotable tasks may make you more likeable, but being likeable does not translate to promotions, and esp if it is distracting you from meeting your KPIs. 200 hours a year of distractions.
Being well versed in workplace gender dynamics I knew this…as easy as it is to unload the dishwasher at the office, AVOID AT ALL COSTS. This was my baseline principle at the time of knowing John.
The men weren’t blind. My coworkers saw this distribution of “office housekeeping” to their female colleagues and they were sympathetic to us about it. They would roll their eyes and listen to us complain about it over happy hour. “Therapy” is what we called these evenings. But as Ed Sheeran learned this week being silent in the face of power dynamics even if you’re against them means you’re taking the side of the powerful.
One day, I was in our office taking a call with a different client as consultants are often doing. My clients back home needed my support and I agreed rather than finding someone else to backfill. Sarah who was my local manager in this situation was fully aware and supportive of this arrangement. The company also benefited financially by having one person work longer hours to fill two roles. So my direct manager back home was also supportive of it.
In the middle of the call, John sent me an IM asking me to print something for him. He had yet to learn how to use the printer which had always bested him. I let him know that I was busy with another client at the moment and could he find someone else to do it if it was urgent?
He was livid.
He did not like being told no.
He told me that I should not be taking on other clients if I could not fulfill duties for this client. At this point he’s spent the rest of my call fuming and ramping up more. Then, he’s over in my cube. My call with my client is finished. He’s letting me know how he thinks I fucked up.
He then made it about my time allocation, regardless of the fact that I had dropped none of my actual duties within my remit. And honestly, I bet he truly believed that. He’d never had to reflect on women’s roles in the workplace and invisible labor. His baseline principle was an inflexible assumption that things would be dropped for his wishes.
Nobody else had ever had the courage to challenge him on it.
I was not the most junior person on the team in which he could have asked nor was I the only person who knew how to print. I expect he liked that I would have done anything Sarah asked of me and he expected the same treatment. He wanted to inherit my loyalty when he inherited her role. He underestimated that while he didn’t have to earn loyalty with the other male execs, he did with me, and esp if he’s asking for me to do a pink-collar role that would take time away from me achieving my actual KPIs.
I remember explaining to him how critical of a client my other client was and how I was the only person on the call that could answer things for our company. I remember telling him that I could teach him how to use a printer so we wouldn’t be in that scenario again.
If he was reasonable, I have no doubt that we could have easily found many different resolutions that would have been acceptable.
As you can imagine, this wasn’t about the printer.
It was about being told no, and having to admit there was something he needed help on that he repeatedly could not figure out. It was about him valuing his time more than he valued mine. In other words, it wasn’t only the clients’ execs that prioritized their egos over their people.
Consultants are given a lot of leeway to choose what projects we accept/deny and how we allocate our time. This flexibility comes with pretty strong expectations that we are “billable” and produce good margins. We figure out how to make everyone happy by optimizing and shifting things around. At this time in my life, I was prioritizing work over everything else. I made great margins. And I know better than anyone else, you don’t say yes to a project you can’t follow through on as that can limit your future opportunities. It’s the beast that is consulting.
If any of my tasks were falling through, he may have had an argument. After all, women in male-dominated fields are held to perfect standards that the men aren’t. But as it turned out I was doing so well in both roles that this really is the key moment in my career where I was noticed.
I don’t remember if I kept my cool. I’m sure the entire office heard this from their short cubicles all crammed into our temporary space. I was consciously aware that we had the office’s ears. I remember being incredibly upset afterwards and knowing I had to grab some air. I remember trying not to cry until I got outside. As I passed by my coworkers, I got thumbs-ups and whispered “atta girl”s.
I never once felt unsupported.
Which honestly, might make me feel crumbier about it. The idea that you can have the popular opinion, other people can see what’s happening and disapprove of poor behavior, and yet no one wants to risk their own likeability by an old white man in a power position to point out a very low-stakes observation: maybe no one is entitled to expect others to do extra work for them without their consent.
In the end, he got the last say. He personally made sure I was removed from the project.
But I have very little regrets. I was in an impossible position. I was not able to help him print that day. I had career-forwarding duties I was in the middle of during this request to perform career-limiting duties. Afterwards I was at a crossroads.
I could have apologized and did the thing he wanted. Told him how wrong I was for him not being my top priority. That would have then secured my spot in being his admin always. And more, it would not have been me living up to my values as a supporter of equality in the workplace.
Or I could have told him what I did and risk his unreasonable wrath. Telling him that it was out of scope for me to do that work but I’m happy to help in other ways or after the fact.
I was not trying to burn a bridge.
I never expected that one disagreement later, I would be back home.
It was lose-lose for me regardless of what happened but in one way I kept my values. This is a position I was put in not because of anything special to me but because of the person who held all the power and their refusal to be agile to new realities.
I know without a doubt that Sarah got pulled into the disagreement.
In a male dominated environment, when you go up against the status quo by yourself, you have no hope of winning. You need allies. And you need the allies to look like the people you are going against. Neither one of us could take this on by ourselves. Individually we were blocked into positions where it was the giant against us by ourselves.
She chose to not disagree with him. She knew that she could not win. She also knew that she needed him at that point in the project. As much as the whole office was loyal to her and to me, the client needed John. Her and I went out for Therapy on Times Square my last night in town.
As you might have guessed, I have no ill-will against her. If anything I think she handled it very empathetically, diplomatically, and professionally with me. I have always admired that. It’s what makes an actual great leader. If we were serious about a meritocracy, for anything other than using it to explain why white men always get roles, she would be in power every time. There’s a reason she earned her stripes and was able to keep re-earning them as was required by this client. She also set me up for higher visibility with other execs who, importantly, look like us.
I don’t feel like a victim. I rarely think of this incident. There were so many individual instances of clients behaving like this client. Of managers saying carelessly sexist things. Of contractors misbehaving around me. I have so many more stories. Most of them are not as clear cut as this one. But some are. One day, I’ll share with you my list of sexual things I’ve been told at the workplace.
When people ask me why there aren’t more women, still, in our industry I usually shrug and say “That’s a great question!” But the truth is that I do know. It’s all these small papercuts.
I look back at my time as a consultant and wonder why women don’t have more stress. But I think it’s so common that it’s been normalized. The poor behavior. The misogyny. The loneliness of dealing with this by ourselves.
By the time I left, I didn’t even notice it anymore. And we have no hope of correcting things if no one else has allied with us.
So that’s my ask. Don’t be an Ed. Don’t be silent.
Listening: Beoga, the Irish folk band that pulled out of Ed Sheeran’s concerts. Potentially career-limiting, but courageously holding their values.
Watching: What’s happening in Palestine and the 50,000+ kids that have been killed or injured. And the AI-enabled tactics to “thwart peace” there.
Working: House projects. How do you build built-ins on top of baseboard heaters without messing with the thermodynamics?