We’ve all felt the all-too-familiar upper management pressure at some point in our lives. No matter where you are or what profession you are in, you may be constantly getting looked down upon by your boss. What’s even worse is that it’s become completely normal to you. You’ve become oddly comfortable with being treated like you are less worthy, just another woman (or man) on the totem pole.
The thing is, I don’t have trouble with taking direction at all. I’ve gladly done every task ever asked of me in a sufficient amount of time with no complaints or frowns. What I’m talking about is, being socially outcasted because of your known low position.
Let me explain. I work in a rather small (small compared to other NYC offices) but still diverse environment. It’s an office where everyone knows each other; and not just who they are, but what they are. There are many different levels: presidents, managers, executives, supervisors, and then my group, the assistants. The assistants are the group who are first to get the blame for errors, the awkward “good-mornings,” the oh-so-kind leftover bagels brought in for upper managements’ morning meetings, and the pleasure of being constantly put in their place. Now before you get angry, let me explain.
Weekly, part of our job is to watch over the reception desk for the office since there is no individual specifically hired for that position. This means being in charge of phone calls, mail, and guests who come into the office (most of whom are most likely there to visit those in management positions).
Last week, I was quietly typing away at the reception area when a gentleman walked into the lobby. I politely smiled and greeted him as he entered, expecting him to tell me who he wished to visit. The first words out of his mouth however were “Is there a place I can hang my coat?” A little odd I thought since there are several leather chairs in the lobby as well as substantial space in the offices, but who am I to judge? Be advised that in the year and a half I have worked at my company, I was never informed of a closet and or coat area in the office. My coat hangs modestly over the back of my chair, sometimes dragging on the floor.
I looked to my left and my right to see if maybe I saw a door that I hadn’t noticed before, or to scope out a fellow co-worker I could ask, but there was no one in sight. Before I could utter another word out of my mouth, I saw the gentleman standing in front of an open door with a hanger in his left hand and his coat in his right. “Do you work here?” he said with a slight smirk. “I, what? Yes I work here.” I was dumbfounded. “This is a closet, isn’t it?” he replied. I think and hope he saw the look of utter confusion and disgust on my face when I told him blandly “I apologize, I wasn’t aware that it was there.” He closed the closet door and said, “Don’t worry about it, no worries.” Well, of course he had no worries. He was not the one humiliated and put down as if incompetent for something so petty and ridiculous.
Maybe the fact that this situation upset me is ridiculous in itself, but do I deserve to be treated like a fool, especially by a complete and utter stranger simply for the fact that he believed he was Mr. Big Shot and I was “just the receptionist”?
Let me play devil’s advocate for a moment here, and please don’t get me wrong; I am not lumping everyone who is a big time executive into one negative category. But I’m sure there are people who believe that if they are in a power position, make a lot of important decisions, and have a lot of money to show for it, that they should get what they ask for and not have to worry about who is in the way of it. Let me tell you this, however—there is a big difference between respect and catering to someone’s every need. I can guarantee that whether I was who I am today or if I was Bill Gates’s predecessor that I would never make such a comment to a fellow employee, nor would I have such a great concern for my material possessions that my jacket would be of greatest importance.
