Day 1

Well, here it is. March 1. Day One of Women’s History Month, and the first day of my third annual Women’s Writes marathon. For the next month, I will post something for you every day, unless in that time period I am rendered unable by external forces beyond my control. I will start this year with something yanked from my own life, the story - modified, of course - of something that happened to me because I am a woman.

I know it may be difficult to believe; it was difficult for me to believe when it happened. But the conversations about women between Diane and her male co-workers actually happened, from their mouth to my ear - and now to my page. I have changed their names, and many details, but the incident and the conversations occurred. Ryan is not the same as my boss; Ryan is a composite of many bosses, but not a good descriptor of the boss I had at the time. The ending of the story is much different than what I experienced; the solution Diane uses is not something I had available. The company I describe at the end did not at that time - and does not now - exist in Oklahoma City. Too bad. I would have loved to be able to take that path.

So on with the show.

FROM A WOMAN

Diane twirled her hair and kept her eyes on the parking lot. She checked her watch again, and compared it with the clock she could see inside the plate glass window. She shifted uneasily, crossing and uncrossing her legs. She checked her watch still another time, only to find the same thing. Caleb was already 30 minutes late, and she hadn’t heard from him. He had not answered her voice mail messages or her texts.

Thirty minutes. Time to call the office and tell them she would be back later, so she wouldn’t get docked. She slid the black rectangle out of her purse, still suspicious of this technology that her boss had insisted she start using. Seriously, she had a flip phone, she could have called on that. Ryan actually brought her the smart phone last week, paid for out of department funds, and told her she was to use that, instead. She glared at the hated piece of equipment and shoved it back in her back. She used her old familiar flip phone to phone home.

“Diane? What are you doing at that number? I thought I got you a proper phone.” Ryan sounded annoyed.

“This one works just fine. No need for all those gadgets just to make a phone call.” Diane kept her voice cheerful. “I use the other to text, but this one is more comfortable.”

Ryan didn’t answer. She could imagine the look on his face…his young face, she thought, a young face that didn’t understand that older people were able to get things done without necessarily doing them the same way he did. The silence went on so long, she was worried he had hung up. “Okay. Just…get used to it, okay? This is the twenty first century, not the eighteenth.”

Diane resisted the urge to point out to him that they didn’t even have phones in the eighteenth century, let alone smart phones. She was trying to get used to his hyperbole…and his poor grasp of history…now that he was her boss. He had much less experience than she did, but they elevated him over her when the position came open. His smug, entitled air irritated more than the lack of recognition of her twenty years of service when they promoted a young man who had been there a year.

“I didn’t call to argue about my phone”, she said, keeping her voice cheerful. “I needed to let you know I’m going to be late getting back. Caleb isn’t here yet; I haven’t heard from him, so I don’t know what time I’ll be back. I…” She was about to make a snarky remark about being on the clock so she was thinking about work when Ryan cut her off.

“Caleb? Why are you waiting for him? Where are you waiting for him?”

“I’m here…in Tulsa”, Diane said. “He was supposed to meet me, so I could train him. Remember?”

“No. But he’s still here. He’s been at his desk all day. You want to talk to him?”

“I would love to talk to him! But he won’t answer my calls or texts, so I can’t talk to him.” Diane suppressed the rage in her voice. That little shit, standing her up and not telling her. “Could you find out when he’s leaving to come meet me? He said he would meet me at 2:30 in the parking lot of the car dealership his uncle owns. I’m sitting here waiting, in the parking lot, and the salesman is about to sell my car to some woman, I think.”

“Yeah, right. No one would buy that beat up old heap”, Ryan snorted.

“It’s only six months old, it is not a heap. Besides, that was a joke. I’m in a company car.”

“Wait. Let me talk to Caleb. I’ll see…but he won’t be able to get there before his shift ends if he leaves now.”

“I know that”, Diane said through clenched teeth. Ryan was sure she had no idea how to read a map, how long the distances were from one place to another, or what was required to get to a site. He told her he had never met a woman who had a clue about navigation.

Ryan put her on hold; she waited three minutes and forty-seven seconds, by her watch. Caleb came on the line. “Ryan says you’re waiting for me.”

“Yes. You were going to meet me here today so I could train you on your project. Remember?” Diane managed to get through without swearing. Good job, she said to herself.

“What? No, I’m sure I didn’t say anything like that. It’s not on my calendar.”

“Well, it is on mine. And I probably still have the emails.” Diane only thought it; she said “Okay, well it’s too late today, so how about tomorrow? You arrange a truck, and we’ll leave from the office first thing in the morning.”

“I can’t.”

“If you’re busy tomorrow, I am free…” Diane checked her pocket planner. “I can do it on Tuesday. Put that on your calendar this time.”

Caleb snorted. “Seriously? Why? I’m not going to waste my time. There is nothing I can learn from a woman.” He hung up.

Diane stared at the phone in her hand. She shook it as though to make it say something that she could believe. She knew Caleb didn’t like working with women, that he came from a sexist background and had imbibed those ideas with his baby formula, but to sabotage his own project, the project he was hired to lead, because the person who could train him was a woman? No, there must be a mistake.

It was now 3:30, and the work had to be done. The samples had to be at the lab before 5:00 when the lab closed. She headed to the reservoir and collected the appropriate samples. If she hurried, she could get to the lab just in time, and get her own precious samples from her project to Oklahoma City and preserved before the ice melted in the ice chest. She slid out of the parking lot into afternoon traffic, swearing at every red light and every lousy driver she encountered. Her mood was foul as she dropped the sampler into the lake at six different sites, and gathered the samples. She got them to the lab with five minutes to spare, and headed home.

The next morning, Diane approached Ryan during a moment he wasn’t busy. Which was most moments, if she was honest. He had delegated most of his work to her and to Nancy, the only other person in the office with years of experience. The young men that were hired as all the old guard retired had apparently spent most of their time in college taking classes in how to get middle-aged women to do your work for you.

“Ryan?”

“Yes?” Ryan appeared irritated to have his important game of Free Cell interrupted.

“We need to talk.” Diane accepted the seat Ryan offered. “Caleb never showed yesterday.”

“I know. He was here all afternoon.” Ryan shrugged.

“He said he wasn’t going to reschedule, because there is nothing he could learn from a woman.”

“Well, you know he has problems with women.” Ryan seemed uninterested.

“Yes, but…the project needs to be done. He picked the date and time; I rescheduled around him. I have my own project to oversee.”

“You are interim project director on that project, so it’s not like it isn’t your job.”

Diane sighed. “Yes, I know. But he’s project director now, so he needs to learn how to do it. How can he learn if he won’t let me teach him?”

“I’ll teach him”, Ryan announced. “I’ll take him out next week and we’ll get the samples.”

“No need. I collected the samples and got them to the lab. I had no idea when we would get a chance if I didn’t, and as interim project director, I thought I should make sure they were collected on time.” Diane couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice this time.

“Good for you. So, next month, I’ll take him out and he can learn from me. Problem solved.” Ryan turned back to his computer.

“Wait. That’s that? You’re not going to say anything to him about his attitude? Explain that he has to work with women? After all, as you explained so brilliantly yesterday, this is the twenty first century, not the eighteenth.” Diane no longer cared that her voice dripped with sarcasm.

“I mean, you knew Caleb had a problem with women, why didn’t you do something to…I don’t know, work around it or something?’ Ryan glared.

“Wait. You’re blaming me?” Diane thumped the wall. “I can’t believe this. Always blame the woman. For rape, for domestic violence, and now for some punk kid that can’t show up to do his job because there is a woman training him?”

“Oh, come on, Diane, don’t be so bitter. You’re acting like a feminazi. Yes, as a project director, it is your responsibility to make the necessary adjustments to your attitude to allow other people to work with you. Geesh, I thought someone as old as you are would have learned that by now.”

Diane flew out of Ryan’s office before she could hit him. She was innocent in all this, and didn’t want to have it end in an assault charge. She stomped to the women’s room to cool off, the only place in this office you could be free of macho masculinity. She slumped on the couch, taking deep breaths and telling herself to calm down.

“No. I don’t want to calm down. I won’t calm down”, she thought. “I will stop calming down when men tell me to. I will…do something.”

She didn’t see Nancy enter the women’s room until the other woman sat on the sofa beside her. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not. You won’t believe what just happed to me.” Diane briefed her friend on the experience of the last two days. “I’m going to file a complaint.”

“No you’re not.” Nancy shook her head.

“But…I know, we usually accommodate…by which they usually mean, dumb down”, Diane grumbled. “But this…is so blatant. It’s so…medieval.”

“I know. But filing a complaint…the only one hurt will be you.” Nancy took a deep breath and plunged into a story Diane had not heard before, about a woman who used to work there, shortly after Nancy started and shortly before Diane did. Diane had been her replacement. The woman had experienced the most egregious sexual harassment.

Diane nodded. She remembered when she started, when she was still young, fresh out of college, the hands that slid onto her knee at meetings, onto her bottom at the copier, the casual brushing against her breast whenever a man could make it look like an accident.

“Worse than that”, Nancy said. “She was forced to her knees by the director, ordered to earn her keep.”

“Oh my God!” Diane shouted, then remembered to tone her voice down. This was work, after all.

“She filed a complaint. They investigated, found nothing…because his secretary, who knows what goes on, is too scared of him to tell the truth. They fired her for…oh, I don’t remember, exactly. Some trumped up thing they devised, since her performance evaluations had been good. They will do the same to you…it’s your word against Caleb’s. And Caleb is a man.”

“Wow.” Diane fell silent.

“But…we can’t do nothing.” Nancy said what Diane was thinking. “I am sick of the crap.”

“We have no recourse, nothing. What can we do?” Diane floundered, for the first time faced with a problem she couldn’t solve. All her science classes gave her no method for dealing with this situation.

 “Here.” Nancy handed Diane a flyer.

“What’s this?” Diane turned it over in her hands; it was an announcement of an ecological company that specialized in restoring wetlands…her specialty. “So?”

“It’s run by women. They are only hiring women. It’s a…safe space job.” Nancy pointed at the relevant spot on the flyer. “They have a great reputation. They’ve been around for fifteen years. I don’t know why we didn’t hear of them before. I found this at City Hall, you know, in one of those things where they have all those pamphlets about the city? The ones no one ever looks at?”

“But…”

“No buts. I called this morning. I have a job if I want it.” Nancy held up her hand to forestall comment. “You, too. The woman was very impressed with our credentials…she said she’s heard horrible things about this office, and how they treat women. I confirmed.”

“What’s…the pay?” Diane held her breath. It sounded so good, but starting over, when she had a teenage son to support…her deadbeat ex hadn’t paid child support in six months.

“She will start us at our current salary. If she likes our work…we’ll get a raise in three months.”

“Raise? Three months?” Diane exhaled. “We won’t get a raise here for another…what, year?”

“The way I read it, it’s win-win.” Nancy stood. “I was coming to look for you, to tell you. I think it’s crappy what they did, putting Ryan in that position when you knew how to do it, and he didn’t.”

“But…starting over…at my age.”

“Not age, Diane. Experience. You’re still far enough from retirement, and you have vested benefits here, so you aren’t losing what you’ve already got. You’re…moving up.”

Diane watched as Nancy washed her hands, wanting to say yes, but scared. This was a big step. When she finished washing up, Nancy leaned on the sink and looked at her friend. “And it would mean Ryan would have to actually do the job he’s being paid for. Without us to do it, they might discover just how incompetent some of these guys are.”

Diane nodded, then shook her head. “No, they’ll just give the work to the competent guys. I mean, face it, only a few of them are incompetent.”

“Yes, but…how many of the guys are going to put up with that? They’re not going to take on extra work so Ryan can play Free Cell and Caleb can text his girlfriend.”

The women shook on it. Two weeks later, they cleared out their desks and said goodbye to the office where they spent the last twenty years. A handful of the men held a small going away party for them in the lounge. Ryan and Caleb were conspicuously absent. The older men, the ones who had been young when the women were young, gave them hugs and wished them luck in their new jobs.

“With you two on board, that place will be even more successful”, Martin said as he hugged them.

When the time came to leave, Diane actually had tears in her eyes. She was going to miss this place. Oh, but…there was an entire future ahead of her, one that looked bright and welcoming. She turned off the light and closed the door to her office. It was time to look forward, not back. She would be able to use more of her skills in this job, too. She was starting to get rusty. Oh, well, she knew that she could learn plenty from a woman.