Tell me why! I don't like Mondays...

I've had that Boomtown Rats song going through my head since I woke up this morning. At one point I think I even sang, "I want to shoo...ooo...ooo...ooot the whole day down!" out loud. So, we dove right in to week two of Audit Hell today. My assistant and I were summoned early to a conference call with the state auditors. I swear at one point I heard them ask "Where were you on the night of January 13th?" Eh, it is what it is. Let the crap fall where it may.

Something I noticed happening at work more and more is the constant hen picking of the women I work with. I don't get it. As a group, women are fiercely supportive of each other standing up to the workplace inequities and blatant sexism that exists. But individually we eat each other alive. We thrive on oneupmanship and take any available chance we can get to resort to the kind of tattle tale behavior we exhibited as school girls. While we're the first to protest and point out the idiocy of our male bosses, we are also the first to run to him to make one of our own look inept. I just don't see this among the men I supervise. They quietly go about doing their jobs, checking in once in a while to make sure I've seen them doing their jobs and, generally, relish the sense of camaraderie that they have with their coworkers. I have yet to have a man come to me, slam my office door, plop themselves down in a chair with a dramatic flair and sigh "I just can't work with her anymore!!" On the other hand, I've witnessed that exact behavior at least three times in the last two weeks from my female staff. I get bits of unreasonable "wisdom" thrown at me like "Just watch her face when you talk to her. You'll see what I'm talking about" and "I don't know why she has to ALWAYS have a tizzy!" (this after someone asked me just one simple question that set her counterpart into a rage...) None of the complaints (see "whining") seem to be based in any reality. I get caught in the triangle of "She hurt my feelings" and "Well, SHE hurt my feelings first!"

It's also not lost on me that I can talk about art, music, politics, literature and just about any other topic with the men. I've found that if I bring up a book I've read with the women I'm met with blank stares, silence and then the conversation usually drifts to who won 'Project Runway' or "Did you see America's Next Top Model last week?" I can't chalk this up to ages either. I supervise about 18 people and their ages run from early 20's to 74 years old! And one of the youngest is a man who can carry on a great conversation about science and music.

It's just interesting to me that in a business, social work, that is so female driven, this behavior would exist on such a broad level. Social work pays low. Usually too low for a man, who traditionally is the "bread winner" of the family to earn enough to support a family. So women are the prevalent sex. You'd think that would make a place where we choose to lift each other up but, sadly, that's not the case.

The best part about all of this for me is that I don't allow myself to get sucked into the triangles. When someone comes to me complaining about a female counterpart I get them both in the room to talk it out. That always takes them by surprise. I'm sure they think I will run to the "offending" partner and give them a stern talking to. But I don't. I'm not their mom, I'm their boss. After one or two face to face confrontations, they usually get over it. Still, it's something I don't think I'll ever understand.