This guy can’t bother another man for help with some basics so he comes to me

This guy, man.

I work in the movie biz, on a movie that’s been shooting for a few weeks now, and a TV series just started prepping next door to us – the building is connected by a tunnel-like bridge. We’re under two different production companies but the same parent company. I used to be a Coordinator of the Art Department but moved to do Graphics – no longer concerning myself with the clerical side of the department.

All that is to lay the groundwork for a man – with whom I’ve worked before as a Coordinator – who works now on the neighbouring TV show, coming to ask me for a petty cash envelope. He would have had to walk through his department, past his Coordinator, through his show’s Production team, across the bridge, past my Production team, past my Art team, to me. I had to explain to him, in slow, excruciating detail that I wasn’t on his show, that I wasn’t a Coordinator, that I wasn’t *his* Coordinator, and that we don’t share an Accounting Department and that the systems aren’t connected; so, even if I had petty cash envelopes on hand, they wouldn’t work for him. He stared at me like he was my cat and I was explaining fractions to him. I finally told him that he had to talk to *his* Coordinator as I couldn’t help him.

“I don’t want to bother him,” this man told me, and it suddenly made all the sense. He wanted to bother *me* because I was a woman and my time wasn’t worth as much as a man’s time. You might be thinking that this guy is just comfy talking to someone he’s known for a bit, but no, we haven’t worked together for 6 years. This is (to my knowledge) the first time he’s had a man as his Coordinator and I don’t think he sees a man-Coordinator as he sees a woman-Coordinator; we’re there to service and help him, a man should not be bothered with the simple tasks of petty cash and printer issues.

I had this same issue when we had a man as an Assistant for the department on my last show as a Coordinator. People (men) were *way* more likely to ask me to do something when, the season before, they would go straight to the Assistant who was a woman.

Just now I caught this man mashing the screen on our photocopier. I approached him to ask him what the hell he was doing, and he asked me for help making the thing work (we have a smaller, lighter, newer machine than his department does as their printing and copying is way more intense than ours so their workhorse is older with mostly physical buttons and a lot easier to use). I asked him why he was over here using our machine and he griped that the other machine wasn’t working. I told him that the “other machine” was for his show and this was for our show; we pay by the print and copy and he can’t just come over and use our machine.

“But it’s broken.” He whined.

“Then get your Coordinator to fix it.”

“He’s too busy!”

“Okay, but you can’t use this machine; it’s for ‘movie’ and you’re on ‘TV series’.”

“Just-“

“No! Get outta here.”

I know he wanted to stay and obstinately use our copier, but he just couldn’t figure it out, so he shuffled away.

There are so many men like this who surround me in this biz. I hate having to understand how everything works so that our department and show can flow. All the women have to know how everything works or NOTHING EFFIN WORKS!

AAARGH!