In Praise of Praise

It doesn't seem to matter what I achieve, what good I do, how many staff I motivate or how many initiatives assist in the smooth running of the business in which I work, the principals of this business are for the most part incapable being complementary or even basically polite. Getting a hello or goodbye out of some of them is like pulling teeth, quite frankly, I'm sick of being patronised on all levels.

After a very public hauling over the coals this morning for intimating that one of the partners had neglected to inform me of something rather important, I was left feeling like a schoolgirl being chastised by the headmaster . . .

The point of this entry is how did men get to be such patronising assholes. I blame the women in their lives. Mother's who mollycoddle or were bullied by their fathers and wives who do 'everything'.

Even DrummerBoy, raised by a single female parent, brother to ClareBear who last time I looked was quite a girly girl, has turned out to be the most blokey, brusque, all farting, all boozing, all swearing boy I know who thinks that the cleaning fairy does his bidding. He's good to women but still harbours some intensely patronising and sexist views that shock me on a daily basis.

Anyway, as I was saying, what gives men their sense of total superiority, particularly I might add, men in the business world. I find men in laborious jobs or those where equality between the sexes can be more easily attained such as Teaching, IT, Web or Graphic Design, Retail or Hospitality . . .don't harbour the same patronising attitudes - "Yes Chef . . . three bags full Chef . . " However men in the medical and corporate world are a completely different kettle of fish. In many workplaces they:

• Never change the water bottle when it's empty, that's left to a diminutive ButterflyGirl despite the fact that it weighs about 20k
• Disappear whenever there's physical labour to be done such as moving furniture, trolleying archive boxes, assembling workstations
• Wash their coffee mugs, lunch plates or dirty knives and forks - seems that's women's work
• Patronise their workforce with comments such as 'great job on that . . . " when it was the most pathetic and insignificant thing such as organising a Melbourne Cup Lunch - and they never offer to help clean up afterwards.
• Even worse . . "You sort it out . . I'm focussing on core business . . .". I'm getting angry just writing this. And my job is to? Fuck up your core business? Get in the way? I'm just a fly on the wall am I? . . Fine, I won't tell you about the power outage this afternoon . . .or the client you've just lost because you're too busy doing meaningless spreadsheets or ordering wine online or the fact that your PC has a virus that's going to eat through your cables and blow up your hard drive!

So how do we change it?. . I fear it might be too late for me but the Gen Y's who I am so quick to disparage on so many occasions, actually may have this bit right. Gen Y's don't focus heavily on work, they're intelligent, qualified and aren't interested in long service or corporate loyalty, so they don't get disappointed when they're not paid compliments or given accolades . . no . . they get even . . . they up and leave until they find a workplace that suits THEM. Work for them is just one lifestyle priority not the be-all and end-all.

Therein lies my mistake.