I recently had a conversation with a coworker that has been nagging me.

Some background: I work for assholes. All of the companies I work for are owned by, and run by, cis het white men. Their styles vary, giving me different forms of sexism and misogyny to deal with. I take the bullshit in stride.

The conversation I had with my coworker was about one of my bosses. This boss is, on occasion, verbally and physically abusive to his workers, but never to the extent that someone has pressed charges. He is an asshole that we all deal with because you have to pay rent. Unfortunately, some of his sleaziness is just beyond the pale. I’ve listened to stories from other female workers that make me want to hurt him. But I say nothing because my finances are tenuous.

As I spoke with my coworker, a guy, he kept joking about how bad our boss is. Every time he tried to laugh off some shitty thing our boss did, I kept saying “That’s not okay.” I compared the examples he brought up to an abusive relationship.

Another coworker chimed in with an observation: People don’t last in his organization. The second coworker asked me to think about all the people who don’t work for our boss anymore. I hadn’t noticed because I don’t work for this company as much as I do for others, but the second coworker was right.

I don’t even know why I’m writing this other than to exorcise the frustration I feel towards the situation. Even when you see something is obviously wrong, solving the process seems impossible when you have no recourse to fix it.

I am thankful that, hopefully, I’ll soon be in a different situation in life, but what about the other women in my industry dealing with his bullshit?

I play this twisted game every time I work. When I hear a sexist comment or a gross joke about women, I check my watch. I want to see how long it takes into the call for this to happen, because it will happen. The shortest it’s ever taken is five minutes before we even started as we waited to begin. I don’t even try to count the number of times; that would be too laborious.

It is always worse when I’m the only woman on the crew, which is often. It rarely happens when the lead is a certain woman. She is sweet and kind and loved by most everyone. It happens quick and often when it is another lead. She is strong and confident and doesn’t give a fuck about what people think. I like her a lot. I like them both a lot, actually, because when I work for them I am respected. I don’t feel that very often in my job.

My favorite male leads respect women. My work crushes respect women. The combined list fits on one hand.

I don’t know how this gets better except to keep trying to have uncomfortable conversations. If I ever get through to someone is anyone’s guess.

[Okay, now a confession: Before I learned just how bad this boss was, I wanted to fuck him. I still get the twinge when I see him. He is an asshole, but in the kind of way that pushes my kinky buttons. I know he would be mean and nasty in the ways I like in bed. But, and this is a huge but, big enough that I have not gone there: I don’t trust him. After the things I’ve heard, I wonder if he’d accept my no or stop when I ask him to. Without trust, there is nothing. So, as much as he turns me on, he also turns me off in the same breath. Sad Poetic and her horny self regret his asshole-ishness; these legs are closed to his type of horrible.]

Categorised as: Work

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