Hi! I (26F) work as a welder/weld robot operator. It’s very dirty and gritty blue collar work. I’m a certified welder and fell in love with the trade halfway through college. In my building there are a total of 10 women who work here out of 450+ men. I’m very good at what I do, all of my other bosses and supervisors compliment my work and my attitude. I’ve been working here for about five years.
My first day my supervisor 48M (lets call him Kurt) told me that if he hadn’t have been absent the day of my interview that he would never have hired me and that he does not think women should work here. I’m assuming this is in part because I’m quite short, girly, and look very young for my age. He stuck me on the hardest job in the building, presumably to pressure me into quitting. I didn’t. I worked my ass off to get a much better position.
Over the last five years I’ve heard from other coworkers that he bad mouths me constantly. Often when he does his hourly rounds he will skip my process completely to avoid any form of contact with me. He interrupts me when I speak refuses to look me in the eyes during conversation, and likes to act like I’m the most inconvenient and awful thing to have ever spoken to him if I need something. If there is a man I’m working with he prefers to speak to them directly, even if I have more experience and seniority. Recently he moved me off a project for newly engineered products because I’m “too much of a distraction to his men”. Mind you I was hand picked for my experience and skill to participate in this project.
I’m not sure what to do. Going to HR is not an option because he hasn’t done anything in front of anyone else. (I once turned a contract guy in for asking me probing questions about joining him in his extreme kinks because he “loved redheads”. They didn’t fire the guy because I had no witnesses.)
I also know that none of my coworkers will back me up, simply because Kurt is very vindictive and will make these guys lives a living hell for going against him. (This has happened in the past.) I don’t blame them for that.
What do I do? I love my job, I love the pay, and I love the hours. I also adore all of my other supervisors and coworkers besides Kurt. But this treatment has reached a boiling point and has begun to get under my skin.
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Backup of the post’s body: Hi! I (26F) work as a welder/weld robot operator. It’s very dirty and gritty blue collar work. I’m a certified welder and fell in love with the trade halfway through college. In my building there are a total of 10 women who work here out of 450+ men. I’m very good at what I do, all of my other bosses and supervisors compliment my work and my attitude. I’ve been working here for about five years.
My first day my supervisor 48M (lets call him Kurt) told me that if he hadn’t have been absent the day of my interview that he would never have hired me and that he does not think women should work here. I’m assuming this is in part because I’m quite short, girly, and look very young for my age. He stuck me on the hardest job in the building, presumably to pressure me into quitting. I didn’t. I worked my ass off to get a much better position.
Over the last five years I’ve heard from other coworkers that he bad mouths me constantly. Often when he does his hourly rounds he will skip my process completely to avoid any form of contact with me. He interrupts me when I speak refuses to look me in the eyes during conversation, and likes to act like I’m the most inconvenient and awful thing to have ever spoken to him if I need something. If there is a man I’m working with he prefers to speak to them directly, even if I have more experience and seniority. Recently he moved me off a project for newly engineered products because I’m “too much of a distraction to his men”. Mind you I was hand picked for my experience and skill to participate in this project.
I’m not sure what to do. Going to HR is not an option because he hasn’t done anything in front of anyone else. (I once turned a contract guy in for asking me probing questions about joining him in his extreme kinks because he “loved redheads”. They didn’t fire the guy because I had no witnesses.)
I also know that none of my coworkers will back me up, simply because Kurt is very vindictive and will make these guys lives a living hell for going against him. (This has happened in the past.) I don’t blame them for that.
What do I do? I love my job, I love the pay, and I love the hours. I also adore all of my other supervisors and coworkers besides Kurt. But this treatment has reached a boiling point and has begun to get under my skin.
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Might want to start finding a way to record these interactions for leverage