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Seeing Beyond

My friend M has interesting stories about her workplace which serves as a microcosm for the world of workplaces since M works in sourcing and gets to see the flow of people and technology in and out of her company. Some bring passing disruption, others lasting change for good or bad. She has been at the job for over a decade and will likely outstay the team of recent hires that she is on these days. M's team has a male manager, four women including herself and another guy - not a typical configuration for teams in her company. It would be a welcome and refreshing change at first blush but apparently it’s not. 

A lot of ink has been spilled on women being objectified, harassed and worse in the workplace, not enough is said about the kinds of behaviors that women can exhibit almost reflexively  that serves to undermine the very causes they want to fight for. Based on M's description her team is rather full of toxic females demonstrating a spectrum of unprofessional behavior that is ignored in the name of inclusion and it brings out the worst even in the non-toxic ones. 

It is part of the reason the bar is at the floor for their manager - B. His only qualification is that he is harmless. That said he does deserve extra credit for dealing even-handedly with these women despite them acting out against each other and against their best interest. That is all anyone can ask from around there it seems. The environment created by these women is such that it breeds and supports the kind of manager they have been blessed with. 

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