I worked in the shop environment for twelve years and it was mostly Men with few exceptions. I’m now working in a business environment and women are a fact of life here.
My question is this:
Are all women gossiping nagging bitches in the business world?
OMG it’s driving me crazy! All these women do here are bitch about who did what and why their better than everybody else!
Please tell me it’s just in my office, I might have to go back to a shop if it continues.
I don’t think so. I work in an office of all women–save one token guy. We support each other, never undermine each other’s work, and don’t gossip about one another.
I hear ya, someone else. I’m forced to attend the staff meetings here (I work in a law firm so staff basically means secretaries) because the office manager wants me to talk about technology in every meeting.
If I have to listen to these women bitch about how long it takes the conflicts resolution department to do their job or how long it takes to get a client matter number or how much they have to nag to get their attorneys to submit their time cards in a timely fashion I’m going to scream!!!
Every single flippin’ staff meeting’s just a bitch session with free lunch.
I, too, have found that many women in the workplace are often nagging bitches. However, my department, which is all women (yes, including me), is extremely supportive. We don’t talk about each other and find that bitching wastes a lot of time when we could be using that time to get some work done.
On a different note, though, I also work for a large corporate law firm and find that the men who work here are frequently nothing more than overgrown children. They are given to throwing tantrums when something doesn’t go there way, even when it’s something that no one can control. They just have to find someone to get mad at. I’m sure you can guess who they get mad at - their secretaries. One of our attorneys here has gone through no less than 12 secretaries in the two years he’s been here. But I am bitching now. On the bright side, I am so glad I’m not a secretary. They take a lot of shit and I think they frequently have good reason to complain.
I used to work in an office with 30 catty, pitiful women. I’m a good ol’ miswestern girl who does not get off on picking apart another girls outfit, or caring who-knows-who. It was so cliquey, and I hated how snobby, materialistic and judgemental they were. I lasted only a few months there, and I am happily in a small office with two very cool, down to earth girls now!
I work in a very large office. There are cliques of catty women, and I find it more prevalent among the administrative assistants than the professional staff.
This is not to say that the men are backstabbing SOBs. They are, they are just quieter about it. Bragging about backstabbing someone nullifies the effort of the backstab.
I’ll disagree with overlyverbose. I find (in my very, very informal observations) that a larger %age of professional women throw temper tantrums than the men, although in that population, the men tend to be more babyish than the women. This observation is among upper management - below that level, women must be more careful than their male counterparts if they wish to advance (I’m not defending the system, just stating the way it is).
my office is basically myself and my boss, who is female. while we’ve not got any real politics/ issues between us, i can tell that across campus (we work at a University, in the office of Student Life) the women are certainly not friendly towards her- i am usually the one to interact with ladies. she’s also a Director, which means that she outranks most other women on campus…dunno how much this figures into it.
but while she complains that she gets little cooperation from women on campus, she is also one to gossip, especially about appearance, and especially about perceived sexual behavior. which is weird, since, with her level of interaction with students, i can say that there have certainly been quite a few inappropriate moments (nothing BAD, just the appearance of it).
anyway, just seems like crabs in a bucket to me. though i’ve seen some of the same behavior in male-male interactions, there seems to be a lot more backbiting/undercutting among the ladies.
Here’s the deal. If you are used to an all-male “shop” environment where you can make penis jokes and talk about drinking and banging girls all day, you may find the multicultural office environment a bit of a change.
That said…
My experience of women in the office is that they tend to try to lead by consensus instead of using the manly art of simply telling people what they need to do and when to do it. Women managers tend to say “please” and “thank you” a lot more than their male counterparts, often giving the impression that you are doing them a favor instead of following an order from your boss.
In general, women-centric offices (and I’ve worked in 2 that were on the Top 100 Places for Working Mothers ) tend to be a lot-touchie feelier.
Women also seem to throw themselves into their work diferently then men. They seem to buy into the corporate BS more easily then men who take a more practical view.
My personal theory is that women tend to treat the office as a surrogate family. This is based on my annecdotal but consistant observation of women who go from hard working and career minded to just puting in their time as soon as they get engaged or pregnant.
i agree, i dont work in a office, i work part time at a local supermarket while at college, i cannot stand most of em, seriously all they do is complain and moan! the ones around my age are grand like 18-22 but after that its omg will you shut up! but the guys there arnt like that at all, even the management
some ppl just cant be happy…
oh and to Bruce, they probably left the kitchen to help u out in some way or other… prolly to find ur car keys
lol
Hmm, about 70% of my colleagues are women, and I’ve never encountered anything remotely like the behavior the OP describes. I expect it depends on the type of job and the climate in the particular workplace.
[sup]Just kidding.[/sup][/ul]