A woman in a female-dominated company writes about the reaction of her fellow employees to a new Gamma male:
Repellant to women. That phrase just keeps coming back to me, as it perfectly describes the reaction of nearly everyone at my workplace to the recent hiring of a Gamma.
We work in a small office with around 20 people, only three of whom are men. I would assess two of them as Deltas: hard working, polite, able to give – and take – a joke without causing or taking offense. The girls all love them in a brotherly sense, have little inside jokes with them, etc. However, the New Guy™ is an entirely different story. He perceives himself to be charming, witty and attractive, tries to engage all of us with “witty bon mots” and other conversational gambits.
Scuttlebutt around the lunch table yesterday consisted of, “He’s not going to last long.” “Well, I wish he would hurry up and quit then. “ “I don’t like him.” “I don’t appreciate his sense of humour”. As well as comments about what a girls’ blouse he was for nearly bursting into tears when one of the girls complained to the boss (he was eavesdropping) about how she found his habit of asking for too much personal information unsettling. He stormed out, and then had to be talked into returning to work. They should have just let him leave. I also heard through the grapevine that the reason his nose “looks like that” is that he has been punched in the face so many times over the years that it has been broken more than once.
Every afternoon I find myself muttering shut up-shut up-shut up-shut up-shut up under my breath, as his talking escalates toward the end of the day.
I’m counting down the days until the petty sabotage begins. It’s going to be awful.
If you’re a gentleman who considers himself to be witty and charming, respectful of women though just ever-so-slightly roguish, and always capable of dropping the perfect movie quote at just the right moment, you should probably take this advice to heart. Yes, she is absolutely talking about you.
And shutting up is a very good place to start.