In reply to Anka:

That is shocking!!!

My first day of my first “proper” job I answered a phone call and picked up the nearest pen to take a note of the message. It was a green pen and once I finished the call it was ripped out of my hand and I was given a lecture about knowing my place in the scheme of things by my supervisor (with the pen in one hand and a cigarette in the other, glad that has gone too)

This was back in the days of manual records and staff used black pens. Supervisors had red pens to sign off any amendments, mistakes or annual leave requests on “leave cards” and senior managers (all men) had green pens to sign off a 5% check or for authorisations etc.

Not that I knew it on day 1 but people actually walked about with the range of pens displayed in their top pocket as a status symbol!

To be fair to that first supervisor years later when I was promoted to senior management (and by then we had early versions of computers) I received a green pen through internal mail.

This was back in the day when women were not allowed to wear trousers to work and the most senior female supervisor checked that skirts lengths were below the knee and blouses fully buttoned up. Those infringing these rules were sent home to change and a half day of annual leave taken from them.

How the world has changed.

I came back from honeymoon and my much older boss said to me "Now you know whats what :/ you can be my mistress". He was being serious as well! Needless to say, I left pretty quickly after that. What made it even worse was that I worked with his wife in the same office!!!!!

My first job where I currently work was as an administrator, I'd been interviewed by the then HR manager and Finance manager and it had all gone well (I remember them saying that the plant manager should have been there but was unavailable). However, on the first day, I was met by the then plant manager whose first words out of his mouth to me were "lets see how well you can make me a cup of tea" (this was not what I'd signed up for), I thought he was joking but I soon learnt that he wasn't, I immediately disliked him and our relationship from then on was difficult, all he had me doing was running his personal errands for him, getting him bacon butties from the local butty van, getting his shopping from the local supermarket, I would have left if he hadn't. Thankfully, I've been able to work my way up to a senior HR role and my current plant manager runs his own personal errands :-)

Hi Lisa

I find it quite striking that a thread you started as a bit of fun has elicited a number of replies from women that range from the everyday sexism of senior males expecting junior women to wait on them through to what sounds to me like fairly serious sexual harassment. Some people have made it clear that the behaviour occurred some time ago but it makes me wonder how many working women are still putting up with sexism as part of being at work.

In reply to Elizabeth Divver:

Hi Elizabeth

I agree. I have more tales but they are literally too shocking to post here....and yes, they are recent.

Lisa

In reply to Elizabeth Divver:

I was thinking the same - this has almost become a #MeToo thread!

In reply to Lesley:

If it was a MeToo thread, , I wonder whether there would be a reluctance to post?

I can’t remember the CIPD doing any research on members’ experience of sexual harassment. Perhaps I missed it, but if not, why not? This is real and it’s still happening.

In reply to Elizabeth Divver:

There was something, as I found myself in print in People Management, however in circumstances I would rather not have been, in talking about a recent incident of harassment. And yes I could have written about many more.

I used to work for a man who was also a major in the Territorial Army and blurred the lines between his two roles. I was constantly being told to stand up straight, have the cleanliness of my shoes inspected and be in the office 'at sparrow's fart' (early). To be fair, he did these things in a light-hearted manner but even so...!

In reply to Elizabeth Divver:

As an office worker in the late seventies (the decade, not my age!) I was subjected to, quite frankly, appalling sexual harassment on occasions. Like Lisa commented, too shocking to post. I'm sad to say it was the norm then.

In reply to Sue Eakin:

I recall once as a youngish HR bod discussing job descriptions / job evaluation with a senior secretary / PA who told me that as PA to a very very senior manager her problem was that he was a (barely) functioning alcoholic and every day when he returned from his mainly liquid long lunch in the exalted senior managers' dining room he was so p*ssed that her main problem and function was to keep him safe and to take all his phone calls and make up appropriate excuses as to why he wasn't available.

The fellow had burned himself out setting up from nothing and running throughout World War II a major special steelmaking plant without which the British war effort would have been most severely impaired. So even though he by then only functioned in the mornings he was still seriously contributing to managing the place and regarded as a bit of a hero and his 'little problem' was studiously overlooked by everyone.

Inconceivable now of course, but not then, and it wasn't all that long ago.

(She commented too that at least he never chased her round his vast office........ - as Shakespeare sagely wrote in a similar but wider context re alcohol: ' it provokes the desire but takes away the performance'.....) -  as in 'the Scottish Play' : Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke? Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance; therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery........

I feel like I have had way more than my fair share of weird bosses, up until recently I was starting to think that there was something about me that was attracting them.

In the not too distant past (i.e. last year) my boss who was the General Manager would call me "young lady", expect me to make the tea for all the leadership team meetings, despite the fact that I was also a member of the leadership team and take minutes in all the meetings and keep my opinions to myself as that was what a "young lady" did at work. He also liked to smell my perfume, by actually putting his nose on my arm and taking a BIG sniff. All but one of the leadership team where men and along with the regular and awful inappropriate jokes and comments I was constantly treated as a 1950's secretary by all of them, it was awful.

Needless to say I stopped wearing perfume and found a new job, only to end up with a much worse boss who not only hurled abuse but also office equipment, like staplers, pens, hole-punches etc. whenever he was unhappy with me. He also would double check anything I said about HR by looking it up on the CIPD or Acas website. I lasted three months.

Thankfully now I am in a much better place with much nicer people, where HR is respected and appreciated, but I sure had to kiss a lot of frogs to get here :)

It does make me wonder though, my experiences are recent as are a lot of others in this thread, how is this still happening in 2019?

In reply to Ashling:

Hi Ashling

Like you, last year I, too, had to put up with this. I was alo the only female in the senior management team and I also had to always take the minutes....the commercial manager was vile. We had a couple of run ins. One where he physically put the palm of his hand an inch away from my face and shouted "DESIST LISA" in the middle of the office and in front of the boss....needless to say, he got a mouthful from me but was never reprimanded for it officially....

As I said, there are other recent incidents I faced that are literally too disgusting to post here.

Your experience is truly shocking.

Lisa

In reply to Lisa:

Is anyone at the CIPD reading this thread?

I've just searched MeToo on the main site to see if I could find a reaction from the CIPD to this movement. There are plenty of magazine articles and fact sheets, but I can't see that we as an institute are doing anything about this.I can't see a position paper or press release.

Obviously, this thread is purely anecdotal, but shouldn't the CIPD be surveying members to see if we are experiencing sexual harassment or the kind of everyday sexism Ashling and Lisa describe, or how much we encounter in our HR roles and the receptivity of our employers to doing something about it?

@Lisa - you have mentioned more than once that you have experienced something/some things too serious to raise here. Are you battling along alone or have you got support?

And again, shouldn't the CIPD be offering support?