TLDR at bottom of post
I'm dealing with a new-ish boss at work and I'm unsure at this point if he is just really bad at his job or is discriminating against me because I am a female in a male-dominated industry.
I've been at my job as a Software Support Engineer for almost 2 years. For the last year and a half, I've been head over heels in love with my job. I work closely with end-users to solve their issues or teach them how to use my company's very specialized software. The company was a small startup when I began, and has ballooned after the past two years, tripling in size. With our growth came some changes, and it's been different, but not terribly bad....until my manager was replaced with my current boss. My previous manager certainly had different managerial styles than the new one, but at this point it feels like things might be beyond that.
I will mention details such as age, gender, and location as I am not sure whether they are important or not.
My new manager (Batman...40's male) replaced my old manager (60's female) several months ago. Since then, he has relegated me (20's female) to doing only administrative work. I am not allowed to do any technical or "complicated" work, and have to give those to my teammates, all of whom are male (except one, who is female and also only allowed to do 'easy' or admin work). While I'm good at things like excel and SQL and did them on occassion to help out my old manager, Batman has decided this is my full time duty, despite the fact that I carry the same title as all the other male members of my team and have worked here longer than most of them.
This dramatic shift in my workplace environment has had a major affect on my personal life. I'm not proud of it, but I've picked up smoking and drinking to ease my nerves, and am gaining weight and losing hair from the stress. Because I recognize this, I am actively looking for another job. Since I work for a software manufacturer and our product is very specialized, it would make sense to go into another job that utilized the software I support right now. Since I've been forced into this admin work for so long, I'll need to get reacquainted with our program. Problem is, Batman won't let me. When I proposed that I set aside two afternoons a week to allow me to do technical work, he said if I want to do that, I can do it at home, and that I have a responsibility to do his administrative tasks. In a meeting, I asked him how I could then 'advance' to being allowed to do technical work again. He said he would need to get the Office President's approval, and then I would need to go through training (to be allowed to do the job I was hired for and was doing well at before he started). When I explained to him that he's essentially demoted me (by restricting me from technical work) and that it might seem odd to an outsider that only the females on the team are restricted from doing the jobs they were hired for, he just kept saying "This isn't about gender. This is how your old manager did it. Blame her for sexism."
So here's my dilemma. My job duties have changed though my title has not. I believe this is due to my gender. I am not sure what, if anything, I can do about this, either while I work here or after I leave.
Notes I feel are important:
1) I have only one other female coworker, she is in a Eurasian office (not my or Batman's local office) and is content with what she is doing. She emigrated to that country specifically for this job, only had admin experience and has, since her hiring, only done admin work. I'm not sure what her job title is, but she is quite happy doing the admin stuff and seems intimidated by the technical work I long to get back to.
2) I received an unscheduled raise of over 5% prior to my one year anniversary, and the month before Batman started, I received a bonus based on being the highest rated person in my department (performance review from my previous manager).
3) I have recently at times struggled with handling these new duties, as they were not something I've been trained in and have had no experience doing. During our meeting, Batman brought this up as a 'roadblock' to me getting approval to get back to my previous technical duties. (I explained it to him like this "I have essentially been demoted from my position, to a position I never applied for and was never trained for. I am now being judged based on my performance in this new position in order to get back to the job I was actually hired for and doing successfully before you got here."
4) Batman is constantly threatening my job security here, to the point of my coworkers pulling him aside and telling him to knock it off. He uses phrases like "I expect more from you", or "I'm very disappointed in you". I've talked to my (male) coworkers and he does not use this wording with them. I feel like he tries to talk to me like he's my father, which is not appreciated, but could also just be my interpretation.
5) I would typically go to HR about this, however, we do not have an HR manager in our local office. We have someone who handles the paychecks and benefits but our real HR (hiring, promotions, etc) is located in our Eurasian office.
6) After I came back from my ad-hoc maternity leave this winter (I was off all of 4 days before returning to the office since we were not big enough for FMLA at that time), I was allowed to start work an hour later than manager as to expand our office hours (and because I was much more awake then lol). To help Batman's initial transition, I offered to temporarily change back to the manager hours when Batman started. Once he transitioned in, I went back to my old hour-later schedule but that was immediately revoked by him because "he was excited to tell me something and hated waiting an hour to discuss it" [ with me]
TLDR; Got a new boss after 1.5 years at my specialized technical job. He changed my role within our team so I am stuck doing only admin work while the other team members (male) are allowed to still do the technical work I used to do (and was hired for).
Source by tsukemono
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