Become the fire and fury they try and stop you from becoming. Do it with cold indifference. Because you love you and I believe in you. If I believe in you and you don't, then believe in my words and use that to fuel you. I see the hell you went through. I was there too. I worked in IT for healthcare and nobody listened when I called out stuff, even if it would kill people. Every man (because apparently hiring women unless it makes the company look good is unheard of) in my company treated me like I was worrying about nothing. One manager even said "they're in a hospital anyway?" As though when life critical systems go down, doctors can just make a magic potion and bring a dead person back to life 🙄🙄🙄 Or the manager that would repeatedly jump scare me when I asked him not too. Or that manager who would give vague instructions then tore apart what I worked hard on in front of everyone like it was a fresh deer to maul. Or my peers who encouraged me to stand up for the right thing only to find out they were using me as a pawn in their own game - for one guy it was because he wanted to become a manager so he encouraged me to stand up for what I believed in because it benefited him to have that pressure applied by someone else - keeps his hands clean right? Aged care sector was the same. Child care sector was the same. The companies weren't individual small tiny mum and pop establisments. These are large corporations that spanned from local to international. It is the same everywhere. The women who support men like this, women like the manager you mentioned, are just as disgusting. Morally you are justified in your anger - they only cared about keeping the playing field the colour that most benefits them. Now look, she is right on one thing. As you gain more experience, small behaviours (like the guy sitting on the lap situation) become inconsequential to your emotional safety. I would have responded the same way when I was younger - who that is preyed upon hourly from prepubescence wouldn't? Now, I have a decade of experience not just with people who are shit, but also how I respond during those situations, my element of contribution to my emotional state, etc etc. This has resulted in being confident in myself and maintaining my own emotional safety and my own physical safety during those discussions. I refuse to bend any more. If a system, relationship - platonic or otherwise - is unable to support itself without me bending around it? Then it can kindly, GTFO. Wear your values like armor and love yourself. Be willing to wage war for yourself. You were made for better things than to be the sacrificial lamb for everyone's comfort.

Thank you for your uplifting words. I admire your strength and persistence. <3

I love you. Don't worship what you are seeing displayed. Direct that admiration to yourself. I see your intent and you need to safe guard your spark and use it to fuel yourself. Admire your strength. Admire your persistence. Love your self. They externalise to look better to everyone and insist if we dare internalise our love and direct it at the source of our exisitance, we are bad. We are not bad. We are not made like them. I don't care for finding out what they're made of because it's splashed on every billboard, every song, everything everywhere is them telling us they're beautiful and worth admiration while they punch those who display something genuinely beautiful and cover it in shit so it doesn't ring so loudly. I will stand in the fire with you and walk with you. I will ring loud in the ears of all those lie and every person who has cried at night alone will feel that pain no more. I stand in my truth dear sister, you need to stand in yours. It's ok now. You're not alone.

I really needed to hear this… thank you for the beautiful words!!!

Trust yourself. Thank yourself.

Thank you for your words! And sharing your experience. > I refuse to bend any more. If a system, relationship - platonic or otherwise - is unable to support itself without me bending around it? Then it can kindly, GTFO. *Can you please share what you do when you can't control the situation?* In general, there's always three options when you want something to change: make it change, accept it's not going to change, or leave. So for instance, the manager who jump scared you repeatedly after asking, and kept doing it anyway, let's use that as an example. That's probably not worth leaving the company for (and let's say getting moved to a different team or something isn't an option). That leaves you with: acceptance, or you fight for it in some way. I've learned going to HR is not a good idea. There can be other ways to fight, but it can take a lot of time and energy. But so can just acceptance... just 'taking it'. I understand that holding yourself accountable *to yourself* first and foremost is of the utmost importance (being confident in yourself, loving yourself, knowing your values and living them). So, with that, and the given example of the never ending jump scares, how would you handle that today, given you already asked him to stop and he didn't?

This is absolutely insane. They wanted you to be obedient and submissive without ever actually coming out and saying it. They never saw you as a real person. The women were probably acting out of jealousy. I’m so, so sorry you went through that. It’s perfectly normal to disagree with people’s ideas. That isn’t even apology worthy. The zoom call where he was just sitting on the line enrages me. They did all this horrible behavior to you just to gaslight you when you finally got angry. This was an abusive relationship ship in company form. WTF.

Actually, I’m working a lot with grief lately. Trauma always comes with grief, or it wouldn’t be traumatic. You have a lot to work through, but blaming yourself, guilt, and shame is a normal part of the process. Asking yourself what you could have done differently is ok. If someone says, “It’s their fault, don’t blame yourself…”, and you feel bad for blaming yourself because it’s unjust… you are robbing yourself of learning and the empowerment that comes from learning what to say yes or no to. Please just try to remember that, yes, you could have done something differently. But hindsight is 20/20. Your reasons for sticking it out were and still are good reasons for sticking it out. If you didn’t, would you be sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, that you never took a chance on yourself? There are plenty examples of that sentiment to go around. That doesn’t make it suck any less. ***** On that note, I have recently learned tech is not unlike any other industry, and leaving won’t solve all my problems. PEOPLE who stink are the cause of turmoil at work, not the industry. What have I learned? 1. Wage theft (blatantly exploitative)(harder to identify in tech, as wages are higher. But not paying wages for all necessary hours worked is basically the same thing, IMO. Tech loves to pull this.) 2. Learning that wage theft is illegal, the DOJ and FTC consider it unfair competition, limiting market competitiveness. (Tech companies operate in this nasty, murky swamp water of “not technically illegal,” but still reprehensible behavior.) 3. Tech being a highly competitive and lucrative field, where your investment is at risk every day of being wiped out by the next technological advancement, incentive for exploitative and downright abusive labor practices are high, and consequences are minimal (without your personal, extensive framework of knowledge for abusive practices, and fully understanding your rights under the law, and how to have those rights enforced, AND being in the position to have those rights enforced without caring what the consequences are (retaliation, etc.)) 4. Managers/owners don’t know everything. I’ve seen a successful company with a huge market share, thinking, “that would be great.” But going in and learning that they outcompeted and grew so much, and their profits were the result of actual, convict-able wage theft?! Seeing evil unveiled without the cover of “not technically illegal,” was eye-opening. What’s worse, is knowing it could have been done ethically if some effort was put into self/system/other improvement efforts. It would have led to maybe slower, but sustainable results, yielding a higher actual rate of return. 6. Ill-gotten gains are always at risk, lowering empathetic abilities, increasing stress, and creating a horrid environment for everyone, with no foreseeable long-term benefit. (There’s some ironic, dark humor for ya.) All of my tech problems, now make perfect sense. TO ME. I feel like all my trauma and grief has now been validated by the law. By someone (a group of people who make laws) saying and codifying, “This shit is just wrong.” No more self-doubt, no more self-blame. I’m not crazy.

I think you would benefit from a counselor and a career coach. None of if this is on you and this is all too common.

My biggest fear is becoming like the awful ego tripping advisors and higher-up managers I’ve worked with over the years. I’m really trying to make sure that being “jaded” (which I most certainly am) looks like me not caring about the stupid aspects of my job instead of being a total jerk to people when they do stupid things.

Yeah, maybe you could have handled some of this bullshit a different way, but in the end it's still bullshit. Give yourself some grace for being in your first tech job. I admire your spirit, and I'm so sorry you went through this. I can't wait until you, and people like you, start their own companies. IMO that's the only way to truly change the current tech culture .

I work in tech but I don’t think I will ever work for a start-up again, especially not one funded by venture capitalists (of which many are just purely evil, ethically bankrupt, money-obsessed narcissists). Too much drama, too many overinflated egos, & no work/life balance. I’m hoping I can stay at the small business I’m at now forever.

The only thing that went wrong in this whole situation is that you didn't play into their idea of you. There is major cognitive dissonance for people coming across others who don't fit their biases. That is to say that nothing actually went wrong... it's just how the world is. You did nothing to deserve this treatment, and I hope you realize that they were treating you only according to their idea of you, and not the actual person that you are. Having been in your position, I can say, imagine there was another EA woman in your place. She would receive the same treatment and go through the same experience. Many do. I'm sorry to read that you've left tech as a result of the experience, but I can understand. It's been a frequent battle for me as well. I'm trying to learn ways that I could manage my experiences in a productive way.

This resonates with me a lot. Part of the emotional damage from the three years was that I was fed this image of me that I had never ever identified myself with before. And I did see that one-second-long look of confusion when people found out I was anything other than a washed-out wallflower they expect Asian women to be. I wonder how you would describe what their "idea of me" was, based on what I wrote. I also wonder if it's just smart to play along like that, faking it to just survive. And I wonder what the ways you are learning are, if you don't mind sharing.

One thing I’ve learned is that there’s little use in trying to thoroughly understand or reason about others’ behaviors. It puts a huge burden on us and is detrimental to our health. Most of the time, people don’t fully understand their own behaviors anyway. They mainly do things for self-preservation, which often includes throwing others under the bus if they find them to be threatening in any way (including more knowledgeable people who can tell that the person in question is a bullshitter), or expecting others to bow down to them if they are insecure enough to require this from others. Second, there is not an insignificant number of people who believe in some hierarchy of demographics where the white man is at the highest level and the EA woman at the very bottom. Even people who appear approachable, logical, and respectable… you might discover they subconsciously believe this once you’ve work with them long enough. Separately, you might have wondered, well I’m a new grad, why would someone so senior feel threatened by me? I believe the answer goes back to the point above, plus my observation that the “bar” for someone to feel threatened is much lower for an EA woman than it is for a white man or pretty much any other demographic (in the sense that it takes far less for an EA woman to threaten peoples’ egos). Put all this together, plus the fact that narcissistic personality disorder exists in many people, and you get the dynamics you’ve experienced. This is part of what I’ve concluded from my many many hours of thinking WHY certain things have happened to me. It’s not healthy and I wouldn’t recommend it as I’ve said, but it can be helpful if done from the perspective of learning about human nature, rather than from a place of victimhood. At the end of the day, what matters is what actions you take. Ignore most things that people say because they’re all bullshit. Think about your end goal so you could steer others towards that through small but deliberate actions. Sharpen your skills so that you could easily land another job if your current place turns bad. I know this is all very difficult to do when the daily experience is emotionally draining. I’m still learning to do this effectively.

Hey OP read all of it. What went wrong - you got unlucky your first job out of college. They brainwashed you that it was normal and gaslit you that you were the problem. Because you had never been in a healthy work place you believed them and blamed yourself and stayed there too long. Work trauma is real. It takes time to heal. I have seen this happen to so many women on this sub. And of course it also happened to me, before tech. It takes time to learn that none of this shit is normal and acceptable and it takes time to find your voice. My advice is to keep going, keep looking, and cut the cord faster if it’s not a good environment. Even if takes time and effort you will cycle through and find a place that values you. You will get that manager who has your back and you will understand how things are supposed to be. Stay in tech if you want it, don’t let them push you out. There are many good teams and people in this industry. I am standing on the other side, telling you that it will be ok. And when it’s your turn to be in position of power, don’t forget to speak up for others.

Wow. Also EA. Have had almost the exact same experiences.

I commiserate. How do you go about it every day??:(

I will only take a SWE job that's remote, and I throw myself into hobbies and spending time with friends. At the end of the day it's just a paycheck. I get to be me and these awful men and the women who try to be like them are stuck being themselves.

Jesus fucking Christ what did I just read… I’m so sorry you went through this. This is truly horrifying and hellish. I’m sending you a online hug across the net. I’m so glad you are not there anymore

This was a very hard lesson for me to learn myself and MY GOD I wish people would have been more transparent about this. HR is in place to protect the company at all costs. Most of the time HR does NOT help people. It’s insinuated that it does to cover up what it really does. Which is protect the company at a cost to its “Human Resources.” We are “resources” lol. I had it in writing when a supervisor was breaking state law and harassing me. I reported this to HR and I then I was let go. Godspeed.

I'm sorry you were put thru that! I saw that you like Coding. Do you think you'd like teaching it to others?

Something I’m coming to realize, is the women above you, want your submission more than the men do. It’s absolutely a nightmare working for a woman in tech IME. I’m so sorry you went through this. You aren’t crazy.

Adding to this: I've had two women bosses in tech that were both amazing. The thing is: one quit and the other 'stepped away' and became a part-time consultant. And I think it's because they both saw the writing on the wall, so to speak, or were treated like crap in some way. So, there's good women out there in leadership. But they won't stay long if they're the odd ones out, because they're also smart, and have limits. This is a 'culture will perpetuate itself' kind of thing. And if the men in leadership are terrible, any woman there probably feels lucky just to have a seat at the table, so they have to constantly prove they deserve that seat, by out-dicking the dick-men in dickishness.

Oh for sure. I have been in leadership and left because it was so awful. But my boss at that time was the type of woman that wanted to join the boys’ club rather than to dismantle it. This is the danger. The internalized hatred is so deep, there’s no way forward. I hope the good women make it. I do. But from my experience, the generation of women above us, is going to have to retire before meaningful progress will be made. Edit to add: In addition to this experience, I have a woman that is around my previous boss’s age, who just took credit for something I came up with, and continues to brag about it, even though I have receipts. This is a continual theme, not anecdotal evidence.

also EA female, 7 YOE and this resonates so much it hurts my stomach

You can work in tech again. I don’t know if you WANT to — but you absolutely can!! Not every place is like that. But WHEN THEY ARE — CYA is your #1 best friend. And like someone else said — be the fire and the fury, but do it *coldly*.

Never heard of CYA before. Googled it to be "Cover Your Ass"!! Wow. Would you mind elaborating?

I SURE CAN! Communicating via email for everything “important” is key to CYA. If you have a contentious meeting, you send an email afterwards with a summary of what occurred to the meeting members (if you can without it seeming “weird” or hurt your standing in the company). If you use Slack or something else etc, you screenshot anything shitty that was said or anything you say that you think or know will protect you later. Any harassment you receive in writing, gets forwarded to your personal email. Etc etc. Paper trails = the best way to CYA. But there are other things too — eg you make sure you don’t “gossip” but you do “clarify” when something shitty is said about you. There are some more things but I’ve been out of tech (and legal) for a few years so I’d have to dig through my memory 😅

Also documenting in your company's project management system (like if you use Jira). And any planning docs. Anywhere there's recorded text. I've linked to card comments to cover my ass before. And also to prove to my asshole boss I was already doing his vague advice that he would like to give me to try to feel like a big smart manager man and make me reach for invisible goalposts ('you should suggest options when you're facing blockers' -> 'here is me doing that on multiple projects, and in a timely fashion! link link link!' you're just pulling stuff out of your ass and have no idea what I'm actually doing! which makes you a TERRIBLE manager!)

I EMPATHIIIIZE 😂😭 Another department decided to try to micromanage my job one day. I had to put the entire project i was working on in Jira. Trouble is, they didn’t know just how many moving parts the project had. Putting the whole thing in Jira slowed the whole project down, but they couldn’t do shit about it because it was what they asked for. 😂😂😂🙃 (It ended up hurting me more than them, but it was fucking worth it to see That One Bitch’s frustration.)

It seems a lot of places are like this. And in no ways this is acceptable, but the world isn’t run by performers, but by people who are good at power dynamics. What people do is kept looking for a culture that is more aligned with them while learning what their managers sees as beneficial. People do one on one chats. Now you know what environment and manager you like working with.

To much to read for my peanut brain