Pearl Necklace

I like pearls. It’s my favorite stone and I like to wear them when I feel like doing jewelry, real or custom.

My engagement ring is a made of pearl (I hate diamonds), I have pearl earrings of different shades and a variety of pearl necklaces to match them and not match the rest.

One day I wore pearls to work. That afternoon I had a meeting with one of my bosses and a colleague. I was explaining a new concept that I thought we should try when someone interrupted the meeting to chit chat with my boss. The conversation was short but ended with my boss saying “Hey, did you notice that XXXX has a pearl necklace?!?” He began to laugh loudly, glancing back at me. I’m not sure what’s funny so I just sit there slightly confused trying to run every memory I have that could explain the hilarity of this moment. The interrupter grins wide and deviously at my boss. I’m starting to get irritated because I’m made fun of for the way I was dressed and I don’t understand what’s so funny about my pearls.

The interrupter leaves and my boss laughs again,  slightly quieter but looking intensely at me as if he wants me to be in on the joke. I begin to talk and he smiles and snickers again. The colleague in the room joins with a controlled laugh and I finally laugh as if I liked the joke so I can move on with what I was talking about. Seconds later I realized why it was so funny and what that devious grin meant. A “Pearl Necklace”, according to Sex and The City, is when a man cums all over a woman’s neck.

I don’t know why I laughed or didn’t say ‘go to hell’ like I should of but hindsight is always 20/20. The only thing I could think of was that I was embarrassed. I was angry and I felt stupid because I didn’t understand why they were laughing at me, and when I knew I just wanted it to go away because I was hurt.

I’m not a sex object. I don’t dress promiscuously and I don’t start these kinds of conversations at work. I am a professional.

My fault in this scenario was not remembering some obscure porn reference I saw on a show 10 years ago when I got dressed that morning.

That wasn’t the first time I wore a pearl necklace to work but it was the last.

How Big Are Your Nipples

I was at an office party and I was having fun. It was the first time I got to cut loose with my colleagues. I’m very much a work-hard-play-hard kind of person but up until then it was only work. Lots of deadlines, lots of pressure and long to-do Lists. It was our first office party and I was enjoying myself.

I wore a dress for the occasion. I’m a fairly conservative dresser, I don’t do high collars but everything is plain and completely concealed at work, from shoulders to ankles. I wore a dress because I wanted to show a more human side. It was a knee length strapless dress, white with light grey stripes. I even put on some make-up that night, another office first.

The party was going well, we all were drinking, laughing and sharing personal stories. A male coworker sits silently next to me listening to my conversation with another woman from the office. Our conversation ends and I start chatting with something else. He ever so slightly leans towards me and has a slight smile on his face, he has a question. He asked “Can I ask you something?” I smile and “Sure, what’s up?” he ask “..How big are your nipples?” he’s still smiling. I feel and probbably looked confused so I say “None of your business” and I walk away but the conversation doesn’t end there.

He interrupts a conversation I’m having with a higher up to plainly say “I bet they are huge” I ignore him and then he taps me on my shoulder and when I turn around he says “They’re dimed sized aren’t they?” “That’s none of your fucking business.” I’m pretty angry at this point. I know he’s drunk as many people at this party are but he has a girlfriend, who I know and he’s not leaving me alone.

2o minutes later and he bothers me again. I’m sitting down at a table and he sits next to me. I’m not scared but I’m irritated and angry that this lil drunk shit isn’t going away.

This time I’m talking to a few male coworkers and he tries to get my attention by tapping my shoulders, I turned to him doing my best to look as angry and intimidating as possible. He says “quarters”. He’s still smiling, at this point I’m wondering how in the hell does he think he’s being seductive and why does he think that just because everyone has been drinking that I’d cheat on my husband to be with someone like him. “Who the fuck does he think he is. I should throw a drink in his face!” I think to myself but no one in the party seems to care about him disrupting our conversations and I’m probably the one who’ll get in trouble, seeing how this is someone from upper management and I’m fairly new there. I’m kinda flaming in anger at this point.

“You’re really pissing me off” I say to him. He pauses and said “What would you do if I pulled your dress down to see your nipples?” Now, I’m scared. I’ve never been backed up into a situation where I felt powerless like this. He’s very much stronger and quicker than me and everyone is very intoxicated and if he tried all I could do is hold on to my dress for life. He was close enough to do it and he didn’t flinch.

My response was “If you did, I’d punch you in the fucking face!” I said as fierce-some as I could and as loud as I could without screaming. I knew that he easily could block my feeble punch and everyone would just laugh at my exposed breast and I’d probably cry about how stupid and weak I was. He leaned in and whispered to me “it’d be worth it” with a serious face.

The night ended without incident. My dress wasn’t pulled down, my breast weren’t exposed and no one cared or noticed what happened. I continued to laugh with other colleagues although I wasn’t drinking anymore.

To this day I can’t look at his face without feeling a little scared and sad and vulnerable; and for moments I feel shame for wearing a dress that could have been easily pulled down. Then I think it was a sensible dress and I didn’t ask for his harassment.

Chinese Jokes

I’m not sure why the people at Company X , think it’s funny to make Chinese [or more generally Asian] jokes but they do and they do it regularly.

 

“An Italian guy, a Jewish guy and a Chinese guy walk into a bar…”

” Chinese people all have this…” 

“It’s like an Asian baby, they look cute but when they grow up…” 

 

You get the point. The funny thing is they have Asian employees, it’s just that for the most part the racist Chinese comments are said away from their ears. I guess they think it’s okay to say it to me because I’m not Asian and that I should think it’s funny, the reality is I don’t. I think those kinds of jokes are fucking awful and just because someone isn’t part of a group doesn’t mean that they want to make fun of them.

I’m somewhat of an anomaly, so I guess people seem to not understand that I may not be cool with certain behavior. Guys will make sexist jokes to me as if I’m suppose to laugh, because I’m not very feminine, of course. People feel comfortable complaining about black people, spanish people, asian people because they assumed by my background that I would cool with it or maybe they forgot that I wasn’t exactly like them. I think of this ‘blessing’ as a superpower, a truth serum that I end up pumping into any room I’m in. Because of this I know the true feelings of the people I’m around. I’m The Living Douchebag Detector. They only realize that they’ve said something to a minority/woman/young-person/heretic until I say “Umm, that wasn’t fucking cool” At work I don’t say anything, so the Chinese jokes continue.

 

She’s a F*cking Slut

I work in a male dominated corporation. I work with just as many women as I do with men but  it’s not the ratio of the sexes that makes it male dominated, it’s the culture. The Head of HR, an executive officer and half of the corporate staff is female but that doesn’t change the personality of the office. It’s still very much a man’s world.

The head of the sales department loves to tell loud stories about his latest conquest; ultra personal stories about how things happened and how he doesn’t care about these women’s feelings. I thought that by being in a female to male equal office this kinda thing wouldn’t happen, but it turns out that the women who work there, even those higher up the ladder, just laugh along or just ignore this stories.

When I interviewed for the company they spoke a lot about finding the right person to fit in. They had to let some people go that didn’t fit the company culture. I understood because I also care about company culture too. I got the job, a position in a powerful and ever growing corporation. I was told that they were looking for people to grow with them and help build their empire. As the company grew, so would my responsibilities, position and power. “This company” I thought ” is where I will build my career.” I was planning on staying there for a long, long time. It was only until they got comfortable with me that I saw how they did business and men were far more important then any woman.

“She’s a fucking slut!” the head of sales yells in his office. He’s angry that a long time customer of ours is giving him some sort of trouble. That’s what he always yells when a female customer complains or misunderstands or says something wrong. Whenever a male customer annoys him, that guy is ‘an idiot’ but when it’s a female she’s ‘a slut’. What does her promiscuity have to do with her being an annoying customer and why it is only women that he sexually insults? No one ever says that guy’s a dick, or he’s an asshole. But when it’s a woman that’s all that he yells. I’d at least like to hear “She’s a bitch” just once, at least that implies that’s its her temperament that people have a problem with.

After he calms down he’ll say “This is why I hate working with women.” to 1/2 an office of woman and to the female CEO, who’ll wince but fake a smile. The other heads will nod in agreement and add their own salacious comments.  The head of sales will also casually talk about how the women in the office are cool but he doesn’t like working with women because they aren’t good at business, they get emotional and don’t work well under pressure.

Did I mention the head of sales is best buddies with the entire board? He is. That is helped build the business to what it is today? He did. That he reminds people that if it wasn’t for his hard work we wouldn’t have a place to work. He does.

At first I didn’t let it bother me. I have older brothers so I don’t get offended too easily but after I noticed that all my hard work getting someone else praises and favors I saw the signs. Male employers beneath me in my department kept getting my credit, even after I claimed the credit  for myself, nothing happened. There would be a short silence and then a Moving-Right-Along segway into the next business topic.

“She’s a fucking slut!” Sales would yell from his office after hanging up the phone. “This is why I hate working with women!”

When I Was Younger

I was pretty ambitious. I was class treasurer, I had a lot of extracurricular activities and I had a lot of friends. I wasn’t popular or any more popular than anyone else in my school but I had a diverse fun, ambitious crowd that I hung with.

When ever I heard about racism or sexism or general bigotry it was always happening somewhere far away, and never to anyone that I knew or would know. That shit was a thing of the past. Something my grandparents had to worry about, not me. I thought everyone in America pretty much lived in the same bubble of equality and positivity as I did. Anything could happen if you worked hard enough. No one would care about what you looked like as long as you were competent.

It was only until last year that I realized that was just not the case. Racism, sexism, classism does exist and if your qualities are match up to the wrong check box you’ll be seriously disadvantaged when trying to advance your career.

This blog is meant to be an anonymous place for me (and  in the future, maybe others) to share stories of the hardships faced when trying to climb the corporate ladder.