h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yep, it's time for another of my boringly regular whiney posts about my job. More specifically the sexist and possibly racist bunch of people that I spend far too much of my time with.

Let me first say that I work to pay the rent and put food on the table. works too hard, and too long, but as you might know, rates of pay are, frankly, shite.

And so reluctantly I chain myself to a desk and do stuff I actually do not enjoy, to feed my kids. And of course 99% of the time it's lurking in the back of my mind that I'm failing my kids.

#1 has, apparently, concentration problems and is in severe danger of being kept back a year at school (but that's a whole other rant). #1 and #2 ask me if i "could be a proper mummy and get them from school"



I know I can't do the stay at home thing, it drives me up the wall - if I don't have a structure I drift. (I can see where #1 gets it from). And so on with the rant.

It's the time of year when people start to go on holiday (those without school age kids) and our secretary has managed to get 3 weeks away. So before she went she wrote a lovely list of things which need to be covered, and allocated the jobs around. She was not the only one on holiday, so the jobs are pretty much spread around 6 people. Making coffee, incoming post, outgoing post, flight/hotel/rental car bookings (me) and ordering the water/fruit juice that we get in the office. We work in a large office, with the Managers (oh, all men... how didn't I notice that before...) sitting in smaller offices (glass walled) around the sides.

12 (now) assistants sit at 3 groups of 4 desks and blow me if they aren't all women. With the exception of one who is assistant in the technical department. One girly (about whom I will not rant now, because it's not her fault, and I do like her) is not an assistant, so she gets left off the list. She was on holiday mostly anyway.

Anyhooooooo our big boss is coming over to visit this week, so I (being, apparently, the senior person - because I've been there longest, I have no back up on this when I'm trying to get stuff done) said to the guy assistant that he should order more water/juice for this occasion.

Only to be told, actually no he wouldn't and I can do it myself because "his" manager (and another manager) had become all excited about him being allocated a (fair) share of the work. Because he's a guy (although he didn't say that, he did try not to tell me this - but I'm skilled at this sort of information extraction)

Actually, he is a nice chappie and he ordered anyway, asking me not to tell anyone.

Btw, I should say here that we all work long hours (except mine are invisible, because I don't take a lunch break so I can get off in time to collect the Gruesomes from the child minder) and have more than enough work to do. It was acknowledged today by one of the senior managers (and more of him later) that we each do enough for 2 people...

Anyhow. I mentioned this to our senior manager, and mentioned that I have not yet brought up this sexism yet, because I'm still too angry to talk about it rationally. And then I realised that he knew about it. So I asked who the other manager was.

My direct boss.

Oh yes, apparently I'm senior enough to have to keep the others in line, but not senior enough not to have to do admin on top of being the main contact window and support person for our 2 key accounts.

And the senior manager, who I like greatly - we meet up on holiday sometimes too, with our families - did not feel it necessary to either warn me about this, or have words at the time.

So now what do I do? Quite clearly I can't get anywhere within this company because they are a foreign company and don't really like non-nationals being bosses. And certainly all assistants are women (except the techie ones) and no managers are.

We're currently recruiting an assistant for my department - and it is a foregone conclusion that it will be a girl.

I'm sooooo angry that I could jack it all in right now.

If I didn't have to feed the kids.

<---flowers for you, not telling you to cheer up.

I'm trying to think of a way, so might come back for more details.

At my age, there's no more way up (certainly not in Germany) and I've resigned myself to this. For some reason the girls at my office regard me as their senior, too, although I have less qualifications than them in areas like accounting or general business law. I don't have any common sense or the least bit of idea about money and sorting out the details of contracts with each client simply confuses me. But they still ask me to check it all for them.

There's no sexism, the men having the inferior jobs, actually. Our Senior financial manager is a woman and the company is owned by a woman - (woman?? - She's a slip of a girl ... inherited her position actually. Unfortunately the mother died a few years back, which was quite a blow to the town because the family is liked and respected.

Our sales manager is a man, with a mental age of about 5. Not worth bothering about.

My direct boss - our "Controller" is practically the only other male in the office. But as he wasn't my boss all the time and as he is young enough to be my son, we have a very well-balanced relationship and I can say what I like to him and have no qualms about praising him or criticising him.

So any ambition I have, I can project on to you and can only say "Attagirl"

Practical advice No. 1: how about asking if the company would support you if you did further training?

I only really thought about this myself when it was too late.

I decided I'd quite like to study business management with a marketing emphasis because marketing seemed to be being run by absolute idiots with no idea of sales) but by the time I'd decided this, my eldest were ready to leave school and this would have potentially meant three members of the family at university simultanously - which is just not affordable.

However, drawback is: if you want to carry on earning money while you learn, you'll have to go to evening classes and Saturday school and that, of course, is the last thing you can afford the time for, not to mention that this is when is working, so the kids would be deprived of their mother more often.

s all round to us working mothers!

It's one looooong guilt trip, innit.

I must put in a word of praise for the Civil Service, where I've found them to be willing to promote women on merit, and understanding of family committments. Commercial enterprises are obviously a bit more traditional