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This morning I got stuck walking in the cubicle aisle behind this five foot wide woman with an abrasive, annoying voice. She was clad in a green sweater dress, and her frame was taking up the entire pathway, so I was forced to overhear her conversation. It went like this: "I mean, she's not doing anything explicitly illegal per say, but I mean...I hired this girl and now she gets pregnant six months later. I mean I hired her, because she was this scrappy, ambitious person. Now exactly 6 months of employment later, ie - when benefits kick in, she gets pregnant. I mean, I'm just pissed off. I'm going to have to replace her one way or another. I'm having Legal comb through her emails."
Wow. Never before have I been so conscious of the discrimination that women risk when they become pregnant. More disturbing is that this comes from another woman...an angry, frustrated and nasty eyesore of a woman. Then, there is the bigger picture that disturbs me. That is that the corporate environment still fosters and allows this kind of thing to take place. If I felt like it would not blow up in my face and thereby risk my own employment, I would go to HR to report what I heard. This woman needs to be stopped. I reject a World where my ability to subsist is dependent upon a structure where this sort of malevolence is the rule rather than the exception.
This is not the first time that I have realized how soulless the workplace is. There is no true empathy or friendship there. I realized this a long time ago, and that is precisely why I do not have photos of my children or family members up on display at my desk. I do not email photos of my newborn to co-workers or managers. I am a professional, and I remain professionally distant and disengaged when operating in this treacherous, cutthroat environment full of phony people and their manipulative, self-serving agendas.
