Pulling Away When Women Do Hurtful Stuff

[PeacockMan]

Gentlemen...Straight to the point on this one!

I believe I need to get a better hold of my emotions and getting things back to normal whenever I encounter disagreements or arguments with women. I don't usually get into arguments with people especially women.. but when they do occur I find myself acting in the following ways:

• Distancing myself from the person for way longer than the average person would
• Feeling guilt or shame whenever I encounter that person
• Giving the silent treatment
• Avoiding eye contact with the person

Long story short, I work with a lot of women (1 guy to every 7 women on average quick estimate) and last week Saturday I needed some help with some of my workload and my manager approached me to say none of the ladies wanted to help (about 22 ladies in the office that day).

The type of work we do, it's typically our culture to assist each other if there are challenges and 2 days prior I did not have a working keyboard and had to wait for management to replace it hence why I needed the assistance.

Why The Ladies Did Not Want To Help (They Had Their Grudge)

About 2 weeks ago I came down with a bad flu which started on my weekend and unfortunately it led into one of the workdays where I called out sick. We have a company bus that takes us to and from work each day and on the morning I returned and boarded the company bus myself and the ladies were having a conversation which became a little heated. I'll save all the unnecessary details and get to the point.

PeacockMan: We get free transportation to work so why are some persons not at their bus stop and asking the driver to wait 2-5 minutes?

Lady 1: That is not how it works. If they are late we will wait on them because the workload will be less if everyone is at work

PeacockMan: If they cannot be early for the company bus, they can find their own transportation to work. If we are late, due to waiting on one person, all of our work hours will be cut short by management and I'm looking to avoid losing a part of my pay due to others running late.

Lady 2: Listen PeacockMan when you called out sick from work a few days ago myself and the other ladies had to pick up your work and we did not appreciate it.

PeacockMan: When I'm sick and take a day from work that is a company problem, not my problem!

Most of the ladies: (visibly angry at me and started arguing loudly)

............................................

So from me saying just that, they took offense to it and decided to seek some justice by refusing an ask from my manager to help. To give context to this, I'm someone who:

• Is present at work 95% of the time and is early
• Gets my work done and exceeds company targets
• I flirt with all the ladies in the office
• I'll help others with their work if I'm asked directly (I rarely volunteer assistance)

That line above in bold is what the ladies took personal offense to hence why they refused assistance. What occured last week Saturday when my manager shared this with me at my desk is I got upset and it led into about 3 minutes of an argument with the ladies.

PeacockMan: You are telling me they are upset at me for that one thing I said. When I was sick not one of them reached out on a personal level to see if I was ok. But they are angry at me for missing a day from work because I was legitimately sick. And yes I did state clearly if I'm sick and need to take a day off from work, that's now a company problem because I need to focus on getting better so I can resume work as quickly as possible.

(The Ladies exchange angry words and I do the same for about 2 minutes)


Off Vibe Ever Since

Since that altercation last Saturday, myself and the ladies have ceased all flirting and jokes. I find myself repeating what may be bad habits and honestly I'm also holding a grudge. Because I thought these ladies had some care especially since we run jokes on a daily basis. I thought it to be very unfair that they were visibly more concerned with having to split up my days work load to add to theirs than they were concerned I would return to normal health quickly.

Maybe my thought process is justified, maybe it's flawed. I don't know. But what I want to know is how to move forward when things like this occur. I see couples who go on to be in long committed relationships and I feel if I'm ever going to be able to replicate that in my own life, I need to learn how to let go of stuff and most importantly:

• How to rebuild connections with ladies after arguments
• How long to feel angry at women (sometimes they really be pushing buttons)
• How to make them feel comfortable reinitiating the flirting and good vibes again
• When of if I should apologize (from the situation above, I do not think I owe the ladies an apology)

But maybe other more Skilled Seducers see it differently and could shed some light.

PeacockMan

 

[topcat]

Man you need a new job, i fear all that estrogen is rubbing off on you!

Seriously though, working with that many women will always turn out to be a nightmare.

Practical advice?

Understand that women are highly susceptible to herd mentality.

Many of those women probably don’t even dislike you but due to peer pressure are putting on the act. You’re best to ignore them all.

Right now they know what to do to get a reaction from you and will continue to do it. Maintain a polite but distant and formal relationship with them and get on with the work.

Stop asking women to share your workload, be a man and shoulder it yourself.

A big part of your problem is acting like a man (as an individualist) in a female dominated space (an egalitarian space) then expecting the herd to fall in line after you’ve both shown weakness (being sick and getting into arguments with women over it) and burdening them with work without an explicit apology or acknowledgment made to the group (not that you owe them one but this is a gaggle of women we’re talking about).

Their goal is to ostracize you until you are humbled after which point they may not even accept you back (and certainly not as a high ranking member). This is how women deal with other women.

Show strength and stoicism, act like nothing happened and stop relying on them for anything. If the workload proves too much to bare without the support of these women, get a new job!

You may find after this they try to suck up to you and get back in your good books. Stay polite and professional regardless..

Continue to show weakness and i can bet your days are numbered as they find a way to oust you entirely.

I honestly can’t think of anything more frustrating than relying on an income from a workplace with a 1:7 man to woman ratio.

Jeez!

You’re a better man than me.

 

[PeacockMan]

Understand that women are highly susceptible to herd mentality.

Agreed! There was a general company meeting yesterday and I'm usually very flirty, professional and informative in meetings (work related conversations). Usually my ideas on how to improve things are welcomed by most of the ladies. But I found out the hard way yesterday.

Things they would normally agree with, I found them intentionally disagreeing with. I could tell other ladies were also just going along with the flow with their herd mentality.

Many of those women probably don’t even dislike you but due to peer pressure are putting on the act. You’re best to ignore them all.

Agreed many of them don't dislike me. I'd say 80% to 90% of the time I'm either focused on getting my work done and when I do converse with them the conversation is fun and flirty.

Stop asking women to share your workload, be a man and shoulder it yourself.

My bad! After I hit the post button I realized I wrote that section wrong. I get my work done 98% of the time. My attendance at work is exceptionally good as well. But I realize every time I'm sick or absent from work due to an emergency, people are pissed they get my work load. Yet when these same ladies are "sick", they are the same ones passing comments openly such as "if I feel sick no one can tell me otherwise", "If I have something important to do like go to the bank, I'll call out sick".

My interpretation of this is some of these women knowingly lie and call out sick from work due to other stuff eg. boyfriend issues, skipping work for another more "interesting" event... and they knowingly do it. So guess when ever I call out sick, they figure I'm on some BS like they are. I'm not their manager so it's really not my business to bring this to their or anyone's attention. But I've taken note.

Know the saying "it takes one to know one"... some of these ladies know what they are doing and try to make me feel guilty for legitimately being out from work. Aside from this one time with the missed productivity due to my keyboard issues, I usually get my work done way earlier than is required of me.

Right now they know what to do to get a reaction from you and will continue to do it. Maintain a polite but distant and formal relationship with them and get on with the work.

This will be my #1 takeaway and agreed!

A big part of your problem is acting like a man (as an individualist) in a female dominated space (an egalitarian space) then expecting the herd to fall in line after you’ve both shown weakness (being sick and getting into arguments with women over it) and burdening them with work without an explicit apology or acknowledgment made to the group (not that you owe them one but this is a gaggle of women we’re talking about).

Their goal is to ostracize you until you are humbled after which point they may not even accept you back (and certainly not as a high ranking member). This is how women deal with other women.

Show strength and stoicism, act like nothing happened and stop relying on them for anything. If the workload proves too much to bare without the support of these women, get a new job!

This makes perfect sense! When you say show strength and stoicism, from your takeaway here is how I believe I could have better handled the situation (I didn't even mention before I had a female manager to make it worse)

Female Manager: Hey PeacockMan your shift ends in 2 hours and I need all of the work completed by then

PeacockMan: (How I should have responded) Unfortunately 2 hours is not enough time to get all this work done. Due to the keyboard issue I lost a lot of productive hours this week and as such I believe this work needs to go to the team that works on the weekends to complete.

Female Manager: (actually what she said) I asked the team if they are willing to assist you and no one wanted to help because of the remarks you made on the bus last week where you said "When I'm sick and take a day from work that is a company problem, not my problem!". They are offended by that.

PeacockMan: (My response was to get upset and that's how the argument began. We have rows and most of the ladies sit infront of me so I openly addressed the issue and that is how the argument went on for 2-3 minutes)

How I should have responded

Female Manager: (actually what she said) I asked the team if they are willing to assist you and no one wanted to help because of the remarks you made on the bus last week where you said "When I'm sick and take a day from work that is a company problem, not my problem!". They are offended by that.

PeacockMan: Ok I'll get the work done on my own. It's not realistic to do this in 2 hours. It may take me up to 4 hours. If I have to stay back after work, I'll do so and the company bus can leave me on site. Aside from that I'd rather the work be assigned to the weekend team since I had a known technical issue that resulted in the loss of productivity.

That's it. My female manager could either decline, assign the work to my team members with or without their permission (because she can), or ask that I stay and complete the work. Either way I would have avoided an argument.

Hoping I course corrected the right way as you suggested. I think the response above would have shown more strength and stoicism.

PeacockMan

 

[Will_V]

Gentlemen...Straight to the point on this one!

I believe I need to get a better hold of my emotions and getting things back to normal whenever I encounter disagreements or arguments with women. I don't usually get into arguments with people especially women.. but when they do occur I find myself acting in the following ways:

• Distancing myself from the person for way longer than the average person would
• Feeling guilt or shame whenever I encounter that person
• Giving the silent treatment
• Avoiding eye contact with the person

Long story short, I work with a lot of women (1 guy to every 7 women on average quick estimate) and last week Saturday I needed some help with some of my workload and my manager approached me to say none of the ladies wanted to help (about 22 ladies in the office that day).

The type of work we do, it's typically our culture to assist each other if there are challenges and 2 days prior I did not have a working keyboard and had to wait for management to replace it hence why I needed the assistance.

Why The Ladies Did Not Want To Help (They Had Their Grudge)

About 2 weeks ago I came down with a bad flu which started on my weekend and unfortunately it led into one of the workdays where I called out sick. We have a company bus that takes us to and from work each day and on the morning I returned and boarded the company bus myself and the ladies were having a conversation which became a little heated. I'll save all the unnecessary details and get to the point.

PeacockMan: We get free transportation to work so why are some persons not at their bus stop and asking the driver to wait 2-5 minutes?

Lady 1: That is not how it works. If they are late we will wait on them because the workload will be less if everyone is at work

PeacockMan: If they cannot be early for the company bus, they can find their own transportation to work. If we are late, due to waiting on one person, all of our work hours will be cut short by management and I'm looking to avoid losing a part of my pay due to others running late.

Lady 2: Listen PeacockMan when you called out sick from work a few days ago myself and the other ladies had to pick up your work and we did not appreciate it.

PeacockMan: When I'm sick and take a day from work that is a company problem, not my problem!

Most of the ladies: (visibly angry at me and started arguing loudly)

............................................

So from me saying just that, they took offense to it and decided to seek some justice by refusing an ask from my manager to help. To give context to this, I'm someone who:

• Is present at work 95% of the time and is early
• Gets my work done and exceeds company targets
• I flirt with all the ladies in the office
• I'll help others with their work if I'm asked directly (I rarely volunteer assistance)

That line above in bold is what the ladies took personal offense to hence why they refused assistance. What occured last week Saturday when my manager shared this with me at my desk is I got upset and it led into about 3 minutes of an argument with the ladies.

PeacockMan: You are telling me they are upset at me for that one thing I said. When I was sick not one of them reached out on a personal level to see if I was ok. But they are angry at me for missing a day from work because I was legitimately sick. And yes I did state clearly if I'm sick and need to take a day off from work, that's now a company problem because I need to focus on getting better so I can resume work as quickly as possible.

(The Ladies exchange angry words and I do the same for about 2 minutes)


Off Vibe Ever Since

Since that altercation last Saturday, myself and the ladies have ceased all flirting and jokes. I find myself repeating what may be bad habits and honestly I'm also holding a grudge. Because I thought these ladies had some care especially since we run jokes on a daily basis. I thought it to be very unfair that they were visibly more concerned with having to split up my days work load to add to theirs than they were concerned I would return to normal health quickly.

Maybe my thought process is justified, maybe it's flawed. I don't know. But what I want to know is how to move forward when things like this occur. I see couples who go on to be in long committed relationships and I feel if I'm ever going to be able to replicate that in my own life, I need to learn how to let go of stuff and most importantly:

• How to rebuild connections with ladies after arguments
• How long to feel angry at women (sometimes they really be pushing buttons)
• How to make them feel comfortable reinitiating the flirting and good vibes again
• When of if I should apologize (from the situation above, I do not think I owe the ladies an apology)

But maybe other more Skilled Seducers see it differently and could shed some light.

PeacockMan

Dude your frame in the argument was not good. If you are sick and someone has to pick up the slack, of course they won't be too happy about it. And then you come back and the first thing you do is criticize people for being late.

It doesn't matter whether you're logically right here, even dudes would have been annoyed at that kind of attitude. A better attitude would've been to make them all feel good for helping out.

At the end of the day they don't care if it's the company's problem or not, all they know is you got sick and then they had to work harder. If you want someone to be ok with that (or even feel good about it) you gotta reward them.

 

[DarkKnight]

Okay chiming in... basically they will keep banding together against you especially as there is already a precedent set and you dont seem to have authority among them. Personally I would find another job, because you are fighting a war of attrition each time you engage these people and sure you can keep strong and try to remain unfazed but the fact is... these women are getting to you. Which is absolutely normal by the way, we want to work in environments among friends where we are acknowledged and where we are safe, there is no shame in that. Most people cannot even handle continous freeze outs.

Either talk with your manager and let him get these women on board (you lack the authority), if this doesn't work, switch jobs.

 

[PeacockMan]

Dude your frame in the argument was not good. If you are sick and someone has to pick up the slack, of course they won't be too happy about it. And then you come back and the first thing you do is criticize people for being late.

I want to seek clarity on your response. I also think maybe I did not add enough context prior so my bad on this one as I was attempting to make the initial post as short as possible to get to the point.

I've worked with this team of ladies for a little over a year and in the 1st year we worked at a different location which did not require any of us to take the company bus... that did not exist. However the company decided to expand and needed a new location and moved myself and the entire team more than 40 miles away from the prior location.

In the 1st year of working with this team, there was always an attendance issue. Especially on Saturdays when more than 80% of the team decided to come into work late on a consistent basis.

Back then I had my own consistent transportation so for the past 1 + year I've had an amazing attendance record. At least 98% of the time I was early for my schedule. For a long time management decided to give a "grace period" where those who were up to 30 minutes late for their schedule was marked as early. So people slacked off and did not care if they came into office 2, 5, 10,15 minutes late on a regular basis.

I on the other hand never took that approach. I viewed the grace period as something to use under extremely rare situations when I had a family emergency or something of that sort. But never as a priviledge. Which is what some people did.
.............................

Fast forward we all now rely on the same transportation to take us to the new location. And most of the ladies have brought the same attitude with them to the company bus. About 2 weeks ago management says the attendance has gotten out of hand and the clients are now complaining about it. So management gets strict and that female manager I mentioned above calls us in a meeting 2 weeks ago and says

"Going forward the entire staff on the bus will be marked as late. So if one person is running late, stop waiting on them. Leave them. Also your incentive and hours will be short as a result"

(less money for me due to other people's bad habits)

The commute time was already cutting it close to the start of our assigned work schedules and due to other persons I even started arriving to work late. So this discussion was going on for quite some time. My bad if I gave the impression that I just called out sick, people had to pick up my workload and then I came back and called them out for being late.

What stirred the conversation into that initial conversation on the bus which got heated was I'd been warning the staff from weeks prior that if they kept being late, the company might go in that direction. And they did!

The argument stirred because the ladies wanted to keep doing that they did: Show up late, wait for other ladies to arrive even later as we pick up people along the way, and then the entire staff comes in late.

That is considered insubordination because my female manager gave a directive there is not time to wait for those who are late and they continue to ignore those instructions.

I take it up with the ladies and in as respectful of a way I possibly can be asked them to follow instructions. Because my goal is not to report back to my female manager on who is late, but rather to have a civil conversation with those who are late and ask if there is anything I can do to help them to be early.

That conversation on the bus stirred from peaceful to an argument with the ladies holding their point of "we will wait on Sue if she is late. Screw what management has to say because it is better we have everyone at work to do all assigned tasks rather than some being out and we have more work to do"

That's when I disagreed with them and reminded them of what our female manager said "leave the person as it is better 80% of staff be early and get our full pay. The other late persons can find their own transport to work and let them alone feel the consequences". And that is when this conversation took place. (Copied and pasted from above)

PeacockMan: We get free transportation to work so why are some persons not at their bus stop and asking the driver to wait 2-5 minutes?

Lady 1: That is not how it works. If they are late we will wait on them because the workload will be less if everyone is at work

PeacockMan: If they cannot be early for the company bus, they can find their own transportation to work. If we are late, due to waiting on one person, all of our work hours will be cut short by management and I'm looking to avoid losing a part of my pay due to others running late.

Lady 2: Listen PeacockMan when you called out sick from work a few days ago myself and the other ladies had to pick up your work and we did not appreciate it.

PeacockMan: When I'm sick and take a day from work that is a company problem, not my problem!

Most of the ladies: (visibly angry at me and started arguing loudly)


...................................................

Also when I said it's a company problem, what I meant was management needs to have a contigency plan in place. I mean if someone is legitimately sick, they are alloted 14 sick days per year... I think they should feel free to stay home and recover instead of forcing themselves in office and risk getting others sick.

As for the extra workload, it's been a culture problem for the past year that if someone is sick, those assigned tasks are spread out amongst the entire staff. Which means a person would spend an extra 10 mins to 50 mins on that specific day resolving the absent persons tasks. The work load has been very light recently with persons having time to play board games, browse Youtube during company hours for quite a few months. So while I understand they would not be 100% happy having to work a little more, it's a case where they would have been able to get the task done in less than an hour and still have time to do none work related activities.

Even when the ladies call out sick, I take on their work... hence it's a company problem. Until they hire more staff (which they really do not because we already have too little work to do)... it's just a part of the work to pick up an extra assignment for those who are sick.

This is why I got upset that the ladies were holding a grudge at me over that one comment. I'm a man of discipline but some of these other coworkers are a different story...

 

[topcat]

I want to seek clarity on your response. I also think maybe I did not add enough context prior so my bad on this one as I was attempting to make the initial post as short as possible to get to the point.

I've worked with this team of ladies for a little over a year and in the 1st year we worked at a different location which did not require any of us to take the company bus... that did not exist. However the company decided to expand and needed a new location and moved myself and the entire team more than 40 miles away from the prior location.

In the 1st year of working with this team, there was always an attendance issue. Especially on Saturdays when more than 80% of the team decided to come into work late on a consistent basis.

Back then I had my own consistent transportation so for the past 1 + year I've had an amazing attendance record. At least 98% of the time I was early for my schedule. For a long time management decided to give a "grace period" where those who were up to 30 minutes late for their schedule was marked as early. So people slacked off and did not care if they came into office 2, 5, 10,15 minutes late on a regular basis.

I on the other hand never took that approach. I viewed the grace period as something to use under extremely rare situations when I had a family emergency or something of that sort. But never as a priviledge. Which is what some people did.
.............................

Fast forward we all now rely on the same transportation to take us to the new location. And most of the ladies have brought the same attitude with them to the company bus. About 2 weeks ago management says the attendance has gotten out of hand and the clients are now complaining about it. So management gets strict and that female manager I mentioned above calls us in a meeting 2 weeks ago and says

"Going forward the entire staff on the bus will be marked as late. So if one person is running late, stop waiting on them. Leave them. Also your incentive and hours will be short as a result"

(less money for me due to other people's bad habits)

The commute time was already cutting it close to the start of our assigned work schedules and due to other persons I even started arriving to work late. So this discussion was going on for quite some time. My bad if I gave the impression that I just called out sick, people had to pick up my workload and then I came back and called them out for being late.

What stirred the conversation into that initial conversation on the bus which got heated was I'd been warning the staff from weeks prior that if they kept being late, the company might go in that direction. And they did!

The argument stirred because the ladies wanted to keep doing that they did: Show up late, wait for other ladies to arrive even later as we pick up people along the way, and then the entire staff comes in late.

That is considered insubordination because my female manager gave a directive there is not time to wait for those who are late and they continue to ignore those instructions.

I take it up with the ladies and in as respectful of a way I possibly can be asked them to follow instructions. Because my goal is not to report back to my female manager on who is late, but rather to have a civil conversation with those who are late and ask if there is anything I can do to help them to be early.

That conversation on the bus stirred from peaceful to an argument with the ladies holding their point of "we will wait on Sue if she is late. Screw what management has to say because it is better we have everyone at work to do all assigned tasks rather than some being out and we have more work to do"

That's when I disagreed with them and reminded them of what our female manager said "leave the person as it is better 80% of staff be early and get our full pay. The other late persons can find their own transport to work and let them alone feel the consequences". And that is when this conversation took place. (Copied and pasted from above)

PeacockMan: We get free transportation to work so why are some persons not at their bus stop and asking the driver to wait 2-5 minutes?

Lady 1: That is not how it works. If they are late we will wait on them because the workload will be less if everyone is at work

PeacockMan: If they cannot be early for the company bus, they can find their own transportation to work. If we are late, due to waiting on one person, all of our work hours will be cut short by management and I'm looking to avoid losing a part of my pay due to others running late.

Lady 2: Listen PeacockMan when you called out sick from work a few days ago myself and the other ladies had to pick up your work and we did not appreciate it.

PeacockMan: When I'm sick and take a day from work that is a company problem, not my problem!

Most of the ladies: (visibly angry at me and started arguing loudly)


...................................................

Also when I said it's a company problem, what I meant was management needs to have a contigency plan in place. I mean if someone is legitimately sick, they are alloted 14 sick days per year... I think they should feel free to stay home and recover instead of forcing themselves in office and risk getting others sick.

As for the extra workload, it's been a culture problem for the past year that if someone is sick, those assigned tasks are spread out amongst the entire staff. Which means a person would spend an extra 10 mins to 50 mins on that specific day resolving the absent persons tasks. The work load has been very light recently with persons having time to play board games, browse Youtube during company hours for quite a few months. So while I understand they would not be 100% happy having to work a little more, it's a case where they would have been able to get the task done in less than an hour and still have time to do none work related activities.

Even when the ladies call out sick, I take on their work... hence it's a company problem. Until they hire more staff (which they really do not because we already have too little work to do)... it's just a part of the work to pick up an extra assignment for those who are sick.

This is why I got upset that the ladies were holding a grudge at me over that one comment. I'm a man of discipline but some of these other coworkers are a different story...

Lol dude, yeah this is a working in a female dominated workspace problem. It's a clear illustration of why the so-called "gender pay-gap" exists.

Do yourself a favour and make sure your next job has a greater than 50% male to female ratio of workers, and especially a male dominated management.

You're not going to resolve the inherent egalitarianism of a female workplace nor the weak leadership/organizational skills of female management via better communication, expecially as a subordinate..

 

[Will_V]

I want to seek clarity on your response. I also think maybe I did not add enough context prior so my bad on this one as I was attempting to make the initial post as short as possible to get to the point.

I've worked with this team of ladies for a little over a year and in the 1st year we worked at a different location which did not require any of us to take the company bus... that did not exist. However the company decided to expand and needed a new location and moved myself and the entire team more than 40 miles away from the prior location.

In the 1st year of working with this team, there was always an attendance issue. Especially on Saturdays when more than 80% of the team decided to come into work late on a consistent basis.

Back then I had my own consistent transportation so for the past 1 + year I've had an amazing attendance record. At least 98% of the time I was early for my schedule. For a long time management decided to give a "grace period" where those who were up to 30 minutes late for their schedule was marked as early. So people slacked off and did not care if they came into office 2, 5, 10,15 minutes late on a regular basis.

I on the other hand never took that approach. I viewed the grace period as something to use under extremely rare situations when I had a family emergency or something of that sort. But never as a priviledge. Which is what some people did.
.............................

Fast forward we all now rely on the same transportation to take us to the new location. And most of the ladies have brought the same attitude with them to the company bus. About 2 weeks ago management says the attendance has gotten out of hand and the clients are now complaining about it. So management gets strict and that female manager I mentioned above calls us in a meeting 2 weeks ago and says

"Going forward the entire staff on the bus will be marked as late. So if one person is running late, stop waiting on them. Leave them. Also your incentive and hours will be short as a result"

(less money for me due to other people's bad habits)

The commute time was already cutting it close to the start of our assigned work schedules and due to other persons I even started arriving to work late. So this discussion was going on for quite some time. My bad if I gave the impression that I just called out sick, people had to pick up my workload and then I came back and called them out for being late.

What stirred the conversation into that initial conversation on the bus which got heated was I'd been warning the staff from weeks prior that if they kept being late, the company might go in that direction. And they did!

The argument stirred because the ladies wanted to keep doing that they did: Show up late, wait for other ladies to arrive even later as we pick up people along the way, and then the entire staff comes in late.

That is considered insubordination because my female manager gave a directive there is not time to wait for those who are late and they continue to ignore those instructions.

I take it up with the ladies and in as respectful of a way I possibly can be asked them to follow instructions. Because my goal is not to report back to my female manager on who is late, but rather to have a civil conversation with those who are late and ask if there is anything I can do to help them to be early.

That conversation on the bus stirred from peaceful to an argument with the ladies holding their point of "we will wait on Sue if she is late. Screw what management has to say because it is better we have everyone at work to do all assigned tasks rather than some being out and we have more work to do"

That's when I disagreed with them and reminded them of what our female manager said "leave the person as it is better 80% of staff be early and get our full pay. The other late persons can find their own transport to work and let them alone feel the consequences". And that is when this conversation took place. (Copied and pasted from above)

PeacockMan: We get free transportation to work so why are some persons not at their bus stop and asking the driver to wait 2-5 minutes?

Lady 1: That is not how it works. If they are late we will wait on them because the workload will be less if everyone is at work

PeacockMan: If they cannot be early for the company bus, they can find their own transportation to work. If we are late, due to waiting on one person, all of our work hours will be cut short by management and I'm looking to avoid losing a part of my pay due to others running late.

Lady 2: Listen PeacockMan when you called out sick from work a few days ago myself and the other ladies had to pick up your work and we did not appreciate it.

PeacockMan: When I'm sick and take a day from work that is a company problem, not my problem!

Most of the ladies: (visibly angry at me and started arguing loudly)


...................................................

Also when I said it's a company problem, what I meant was management needs to have a contigency plan in place. I mean if someone is legitimately sick, they are alloted 14 sick days per year... I think they should feel free to stay home and recover instead of forcing themselves in office and risk getting others sick.

As for the extra workload, it's been a culture problem for the past year that if someone is sick, those assigned tasks are spread out amongst the entire staff. Which means a person would spend an extra 10 mins to 50 mins on that specific day resolving the absent persons tasks. The work load has been very light recently with persons having time to play board games, browse Youtube during company hours for quite a few months. So while I understand they would not be 100% happy having to work a little more, it's a case where they would have been able to get the task done in less than an hour and still have time to do none work related activities.

Even when the ladies call out sick, I take on their work... hence it's a company problem. Until they hire more staff (which they really do not because we already have too little work to do)... it's just a part of the work to pick up an extra assignment for those who are sick.

This is why I got upset that the ladies were holding a grudge at me over that one comment. I'm a man of discipline but some of these other coworkers are a different story...

Not saying you're wrong, but you did bring up the thing of being late on the morning of coming back to work after being sick? Probably not the best time to do so. Not about logic, but emotions. And women are more emotional and less logical than men. I can tell you that this kind of thing is a blueprint for fights in a relationship.

I completely agree with @topcat though, I've never worked in a female dominated workplace but I'd say it's a feature and not a bug. If you want to work in a place that's squared away it's going to have to be mostly dudes (with maybe the odd chick pushing hard to keep up).

 

[POB]

Never work in a female dominated workplace.
I agree with all the guys:
- Working there will never translate into rational thinking;
- They gonna waste a lot of time on petty stuff;
- Your voice will be silenced, even if you are right;
- Being stoic won't work long-term and you will feel ostracized;
- They will never take the blame for anything, so you will become the scapegoat for all their shortcomings

 

[Conquistador]

Yeah it’s a stark reminder that while individual women are variable and stuff, large enough sample groups of women are gonna be different than men and fairly predictable. Statistics, baby.

 

[PeacockMan]

Do yourself a favour and make sure your next job has a greater than 50% male to female ratio of workers, and especially a male dominated management.

You're not going to resolve the inherent egalitarianism of a female workplace nor the weak leadership/organizational skills of female management via better communication, expecially as a subordinate..

Notes taken!

Not saying you're wrong, but you did bring up the thing of being late on the morning of coming back to work after being sick? Probably not the best time to do so. Not about logic, but emotions. And women are more emotional and less logical than men. I can tell you that this kind of thing is a blueprint for fights in a relationship.

I get you now. Timing was the #1 root cause. Maybe if I was sick for a day and then brought up the topic a month later, maybe I would have gotten more slack to say what I want. I see where you are coming from. To ensure I fully understand, I'll use a "made up example".

If I have a girlfriend and I tell her we are going for dinner this Friday night... but Friday night I call her and cancel with the reason being my car has a flat tire while I was on my way and now I have to park the car at a garage.

Then a week later she comes over to watch TV but for some odd reason does not bring food (and prior that, she never comes over without bringing food).

Then it would be a mistake on my part to ask her why she did not bring food. I'm clearly walking right into an argument. Probably she is waiting for me to bring it up so she can bring back up the fact that I made her spend 2-3 hours getting ready for dinner the week prior and it's my fault..

.... Hopefully my example shows I get what you are saying about timing.

Never work in a female dominated workplace.
I agree with all the guys:
- Working there will never translate into rational thinking;
- They gonna waste a lot of time on petty stuff;
- Your voice will be silenced, even if you are right;
- Being stoic won't work long-term and you will feel ostracized;
- They will never take the blame for anything, so you will become the scapegoat for all their shortcomings

Notes taken!

Yeah it’s a stark reminder that while individual women are variable and stuff, large enough sample groups of women are gonna be different than men and fairly predictable. Statistics, baby.

Understood!

My takeaway from the responses in summary are:

- Find a new job with more than 50% male coworkers and a male dominated management
- Watch my timing when entering certain discussions with women (review my recent history to ensure they have nothing to tie an argument to)
- Maintain a polite but distant relationship with the ladies

From the advice, the only thing I can think of I'll have a challenge doing is regards to this line of advice from @topcat "You may find after this they try to suck up to you and get back in your good books. Stay polite and professional regardless.."

I'll think of something and attempt to figure this puzzle out on my own. Things are happening so fast. Yesterday the ladies were a lot angrier/moody towards me. Today I found some of them warming back up and attempting to start flirting again (weird). While I don't consider myself a natural flirt, I do enjoy it and the jokes.

Some of the ladies even started planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas games and events and asked me today if I'd like to be apart (edit: happening on company site. If it were a social event outside of work I could easily decline. But an event that they are having in the lunch area, lounge area, on the production space e.t.c....). I smiled but said very little and continued on with the work. And even while I had on my headset I occasionally heard the ladies including my name in some jokes. I guess it's their subtle way of slowly inviting me back to talk to them. But again I'll do my best to hold frame and keep a professional distance. And also strike the right balance to avoid showing more weakness.

Thanks

PeacockMan

 

[Gram]

I read the original post a second time but replacing the word "ladies" with "coworkers" and it gave me a different perspective.

The company has put managers in a poor position who have subsequently put you and your coworkers in a poor position. Based on what you say about the relocation (40 miles?!?!) the company is pretty worthless so I suspect the managers are given unrealistic goals.

I don't think it is the fact that your coworkers are women here but that your managers have turned you against each other. If someone is late you all suffer? If someone has broken equipment everyone has to work harder?

My advice is to find a different job, as crazy as that may sound, if you can. Nothing you individually can do will change the incentives or disincentives of your employer. Topcat's advice is good...shoulder the burden like an individual, or leave.

This isn't about you vs women. This is about you (out group) vs them (in group). The in group here share the characteristic of being women, but the same dynamic would play out if the shared characteristic was that the in group was a bunch of 20 year coworkers and you were the new guy. It is very hard to battle the in group when you are out. Part of your frustration may be that you thought you were in... when you were out.

A different perspective. Hope it's helpful.

Fwiw I've worked in some majority/all women environments who would hands down beat an all male workplace. It was about the incentives and culture.

 

[Gram]

I realized I never answered your actual question:

"But what I want to know is how to move forward when things like this occur. I see couples who go on to be in long committed relationships and I feel if I'm ever going to be able to replicate that in my own life, I need to learn how to let go of stuff and most importantly:"

I didn't start letting stuff go until I really focused on improving my own life...better diet, lifting weights, having goals and working towards them by developing strong habits (and recognizing that bad days happen). There are a lot of seduction articles on becoming more alpha. At some point you will realize that you and your life are more important than these petty things (both the small workplace flirts and the small workplace skirmishes, think about why you want your coworkers approva). Meditation helps your mind to calm down...even 3-5 minutes a day, or sound/breathing meditation on the bus. I can't say when, but it happens... these things won't matter as much and you'll be able to observe. You'll recognize what others are doing and consciously react or ignore. Time slows down a bit.

As you read the best seducers on these pages (and I recommend really evaluating technique and decision making as you do) you see that they are above the situation, determining where it goes... in realtime observing and reacting to their target. There is a quote in here where the newbie is concerned with her reactions/feelings, the veteran is concerned with where things are going/momentum..

Check out the Newbie Prerequisite in Beginners... some good stuff on developing the mindset.

gram

 

[Will_V]

I get you now. Timing was the #1 root cause. Maybe if I was sick for a day and then brought up the topic a month later, maybe I would have gotten more slack to say what I want. I see where you are coming from. To ensure I fully understand, I'll use a "made up example".

If I have a girlfriend and I tell her we are going for dinner this Friday night... but Friday night I call her and cancel with the reason being my car has a flat tire while I was on my way and now I have to park the car at a garage.

Then a week later she comes over to watch TV but for some odd reason does not bring food (and prior that, she never comes over without bringing food).

Then it would be a mistake on my part to ask her why she did not bring food. I'm clearly walking right into an argument. Probably she is waiting for me to bring it up so she can bring back up the fact that I made her spend 2-3 hours getting ready for dinner the week prior and it's my fault..

.... Hopefully my example shows I get what you are saying about timing.

Yes that's exactly it. Women will always bring up something you've done wrong as a cover for their bad behavior.

- Find a new job with more than 50% male coworkers and a male dominated management
- Watch my timing when entering certain discussions with women (review my recent history to ensure they have nothing to tie an argument to)
- Maintain a polite but distant relationship with the ladies

From the advice, the only thing I can think of I'll have a challenge doing is regards to this line of advice from @topcat "You may find after this they try to suck up to you and get back in your good books. Stay polite and professional regardless.."

I'll think of something and attempt to figure this puzzle out on my own. Things are happening so fast. Yesterday the ladies were a lot angrier/moody towards me. Today I found some of them warming back up and attempting to start flirting again (weird). While I don't consider myself a natural flirt, I do enjoy it and the jokes.

Some of the ladies even started planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas games and events and asked me today if I'd like to be apart. I smiled but said very little and continued on with the work. And even while I had on my headset I occasionally heard the ladies including my name in some jokes. I guess it's their subtle way of slowly inviting me back to talk to them. But again I'll do my best to hold frame and keep a professional distance. And also strike the right balance to avoid showing more weakness.

Be careful not to overreact, if they think you're getting all sore about things you can lose a lot of frame.

The way I like to go about these kind of situations - any situation where I am dealing with other people and things get difficult or unpleasant - is to simply take the role of a leader. A leader's responsibility is to keep everyone content doing what they are supposed to be doing. The worst thing a leader can do is start fights and spats because regardless of who wins, you will not achieve the above goal. So your job is to look around and see where the problems are and resolve them, whether that's by encouragement, pushback, pressure, whatever. The only marker of success is functionality.

And your manager will love you for it, because you make his job much easier. In the case of what happened here, another risk you have is that your boss sees you as a source of problems. All he knows is that other people don't want to chip in for you, which makes overall productivity go down. Does it matter why? Maybe he doesn't have time or doesn't want to bother figuring out why, and if someone ends up having to go for whatever reason, it might be you. But if he sees you going around taking care of problems and keeping everyone squared away, he will think "I'll just be the big man with the title and keep this other guy around who knows what he's doing" and will work to keep you there. In the end, it's the best position to put yourself in with the best options.

Dealing with other people is not about being right all the time, it's about understanding them and maneuvering them so that via their own worldview they end up doing what you want them to do.

 

[Skills]

you did nothing wrong, working with females is tricky.... The main problem is to have a female as a boss, but now most females bosses very masculine, they are like dudes.... To answer your question after like couple of days to a week or 2 you start little by little to reconnect(post silent period)... Since i a lot fake angry i can get away with calling them out and being blunt with no problem, may be your communication style....

 

[Dash of Englishness]

"When I was sick not one of them reached out on a personal level to see if I was ok". Did you actually say that? Are you listening to yourself?

What kind of work is it anyway? I haven't had a bus come by my house since school!!

I remember I worked in a deli with all women. It got very bad towards the end.

 

[PeacockMan]

I read the original post a second time but replacing the word "ladies" with "coworkers" and it gave me a different perspective.

The company has put managers in a poor position who have subsequently put you and your coworkers in a poor position. Based on what you say about the relocation (40 miles?!?!) the company is pretty worthless so I suspect the managers are given unrealistic goals.

I don't think it is the fact that your coworkers are women here but that your managers have turned you against each other. If someone is late you all suffer? If someone has broken equipment everyone has to work harder?

That is a great perspective. I never thought of that in such detail till you brought it up. Come to think of it, there are other things management has done to pitch us against each other. And yes, there are other unrealistic goals and KPIs set that are just dumb... for example "there is a Quality department who keeps track of work accuracy. And occasionally they do not audit each individuals work on a weekly basis. So management decided to use the average quality of those those who got audits to give those who received no audits their incentive. So essentially we are somewhat at the mercy of each other's work. If Pam, Jill, and Cindy averages 95% for quality but Jennifer averages 50% for that week, well that's a 83.75% average for 4 ladies (which is a failing grade...passing grade is 95%). Which means the rest of the unaudited department gets fucked losing 60% of our overall incentive and there is nothing we can do about it aside from resigning.

I realized I never answered your actual question:

"But what I want to know is how to move forward when things like this occur. I see couples who go on to be in long committed relationships and I feel if I'm ever going to be able to replicate that in my own life, I need to learn how to let go of stuff and most importantly:"

I didn't start letting stuff go until I really focused on improving my own life...better diet, lifting weights, having goals and working towards them by developing strong habits (and recognizing that bad days happen). There are a lot of seduction articles on becoming more alpha. At some point you will realize that you and your life are more important than these petty things (both the small workplace flirts and the small workplace skirmishes, think about why you want your coworkers approva). Meditation helps your mind to calm down...even 3-5 minutes a day, or sound/breathing meditation on the bus. I can't say when, but it happens... these things won't matter as much and you'll be able to observe. You'll recognize what others are doing and consciously react or ignore. Time slows down a bit.

As you read the best seducers on these pages (and I recommend really evaluating technique and decision making as you do) you see that they are above the situation, determining where it goes... in realtime observing and reacting to their target. There is a quote in here where the newbie is concerned with her reactions/feelings, the veteran is concerned with where things are going/momentum..

Check out the Newbie Prerequisite in Beginners... some good stuff on developing the mindset.

gram

I believe this is it! Nice stuff. I'll check it out and add it to my journals as I go along.

Be careful not to overreact, if they think you're getting all sore about things you can lose a lot of frame.

Gotcha! Ties in well with what Topcat shared regarding keeping things professional but distant. If they want to talk with me, keep the conversations mostly professional... don't act butt hurt but don't go all flirty.

you did nothing wrong, working with females is tricky.... The main problem is to have a female as a boss, but now most females bosses very masculine, they are like dudes....

Yes my female boss does act overly masculine at times.

To answer your question after like couple of days to a week or 2 you start little by little to reconnect(post silent period)... Since i a lot fake angry i can get away with calling them out and being blunt with no problem, may be your communication style....

Your onto something here. Over the years I've refined how blunt I am with women eg.

Girl: Can you buy me lunch today?

PeacockMan: I wish I was able to (smile)

... I have zero intent of buying her lunch and I told her no without being blunt. But I still have those rough edges where I just tell it like it is based on the situation.

And good stuff! I'll keep an eye out for that post silent period.

What kind of work is it anyway? I haven't had a bus come by my house since school!!

I work in the communications industry. The company bus picks most of us up at the old work location and those who live along the major road leading to the next city can get picked up along the way.

"When I was sick not one of them reached out on a personal level to see if I was ok". Did you actually say that? Are you listening to yourself?

Yes that's what occured. And it rings off several alarms in my head. Despite all the jokes and flirting I do with these ladies on a daily basis, at the end of the day, they are more concerned about getting a little more work to do if I'm absent from work than they are with my wellbeing. It says a lot and in a very cold way. Before making this post, I thought of all the different ways I could frame the situation

1. Getting angry and/or sad - I think this would be the worst way to respond since the ladies will possibly become disgusted with my presence very quickly. And worse think I don't get no pussy > negative social proof which is self inflicted.

2. Super happy attention seeking guy - I think this is a little better than the 1st option but is bad as well as I fall into the nice pushover guy category. I think by falling into the ladies frame to even apologize for being absent from work due to being sick, I'd only sink myself further. Or if I came into work after that and attempted to be their best buddy or flirt heavily before as if nothing happened, I might fall into the attention seeking low self esteem guy.

3. The middle, distant but professional - Before I wrote the post, my suspicion was this is the best way I could choose to respond to the ladies. But deep down I'd rather pull away (leaning to the #1 option "getting sad guy". To protect my feelings. So with none of the ladies choosing to reach out to see if I was ok I thought it would be appropriate to leave these ladies right where I found them i.e. coworkers... just people I talk to when I'm at work but outside of work, don't expect even jack peas from them. If the run a joke, maybe I'd flirt back briefly but excuse myself shortly thereafter to get bak to the job at hand. Clearly these ladies don't think too much beyond a few jokes and flirts so I think I need to act the same in return.

....................

Overall the takeaway I'm pulling from the responses are

1. Change jobs as quickly as possible
2. In the meantime keep things professional
3. Do the newbie assignment
4. Take the role of a leader for the remainder of my time here

.... I probably missed a few other stuff. But I'll go over the responses again as the days go along to ensure I'm following along well. Thanks

PeacockMan

 

[Red]

There is an alpha female in this group that is turning the others against you. Women are high in agreeableness. When the queen bee decides your no good they will fall in line.

However, male dominated work places aren't the answer as other suggest. Where women are prone to herd mentality, men are prone to destructive competition. Working around a bunch of dumb ass guy where everything is a dick measuring competition is tedious as fuck.

 

[Lover]

Despite all the jokes and flirting I do with these ladies on a daily basis, at the end of the day, they are more concerned about getting a little more work to do if I'm absent from work than they are with my wellbeing. It says a lot and in a very cold way.

You are coworkers, not friends. They may like the energy you bring, but that's about it. Your relationship is formal, not personal

So don't take it personally

 

[Conquistador]

However, male dominated work places aren't the answer as other suggest. Where women are prone to herd mentality, men are prone to destructive competition. Working around a bunch of dumb ass guy where everything is a dick measuring competition is tedious as fuck.

Because there’s no common goal or team spirit
Despite the important stuff women did, America’s two greatest achievements were both mainly made by men working together for a common purpose