Random discrimation was always fun, of course. ranty/dialogue heavy

[smileyeagle1021]

I've not had the gender, but I have gotten the age. When I was interviewing for the reservations call center (way back when) the manager who did my interview said "I find it difficult to believe that you have sales skills, you haven't been in the field long enough" (translation, you're too you). I told her to give me the information on what was being sold, give me 5 to 10 minutes to study it and set me up at a station to take a test call. 3 minutes into the call she had her credit card out because she forgot it was a test call
I do get that at work occassionally for being male oddly enough. I've before called *ahem* women's doctors *ahem* who have asked if we could switch over to a female interpreter because there was no way I man could understand what was going on well enough to be able to accurately interpret. I pointed out that the deaf user had made no request for a handoff and that I was keeping up with her just fine she was shocked... after all, how could a man know how to type all those words (I never realized that women spoke a different language than men or that the spelling was different).
The other one that is fun is wearing a gay pride shirt and walking into best buy and watch the sales people lead you over to the shiniest thing in the store... after all, what do gay guys know about electronics... then shock the hell out of them by saying you were thinking of self building and listing off a bunch of components that you need

[PeeNarc]

I get this at work. I am the office manager at the clinic I work for. We don't have a receptionist, my brother in law (aged 20) and I take turns taking calls, etc. My office is the first one you see off the main door. Everyone from maintenance workers to clients to the UPS guy walks past my office (which has a giant floor to ceiling window so you can see I'm sitting in here doing work) to the second office where my brother in law is sitting watching youtube if we're not busy. I'm almost thirty but apparently the boobs throw people off?

[vstorevigilante]

The other one that is fun is wearing a gay pride shirt and walking into best buy and watch the sales people lead you over to the shiniest thing in the store... after all, what do gay guys know about electronics... then shock the hell out of them by saying you were thinking of self building and listing off a bunch of components that you need

I would love to witness this Good for you!

[smileyeagle1021]

I would love to witness this Good for you!

Yeah, too bad I don't have the money to do it really... I have though done the "I'm thinking of getting a new computer" only to watch them lead me to something shiny and useless only to turn around and say "on second thought, I think I'll keep my current one and just add another gig of DDR-Ram, do you have Kingston in stock?"

[earl colby pottinger]

It was the hidden policy at our store

I ran into a lot of these kind of guys when I worked Hardware/Paint at Crappy Tire. They just couldn't wrap their heads around a WOMAN knowing more about paint/tools/whatnot than they did. It would make me giggle when they'd find a guy (usually somebody from Automotive or Sports) and start asking them questions, and they'd point to me and say "Ask HER - she's the expert!"

Lorie use to be in photography, she had to leave the industry because of the chemicals.

This meant that when it came to colour balance or calibration she knew in her little finger than everyone else (20+ employees) combined.

No matter what the customer said, if they even hinted that they did not want a female tech working on their machine guess who's desk the work order appeared on.

I always wished someone tried to sue us for doing that.

PS. The percentage of women wanting to refuse a female tech was amazing!

[trailerparkmedic]

I do tech support work with a male coworker. When he's not at his desk, his phone rolls over to me and I answer it. I helped someone with an issue a few weeks ago and Bob got an email from them saying "Thank your secretary for helping me troubleshoot the issue."

[Magpie]

You know what's really fun? If the customer asks if there's a man around to help him, say, "But I am a man. You know, a lot of people say I look like a woman, and I just don't understand why... anyway, how can I help you?" It's extra funny if you have long, styled hair, a large bust, a skirt or dress, or stuff like that.

I really need an excuse to try this. Unfortunately, (well, fortunately,) so far all of my students have been bright enough to keep any sexism to attitude problems. And I'd probably get that just because of my size - 70/167, even if I was a guy. (Any of the students who think that the female MASc candidate is someone who can be talked down to are going to do it to anyone they figure can't beat them up.)

Sigh. And sadly, I DO get mistaken for a man. All the time. It's the uniform I swear, you just can't look...girly in it! And yeah, nobody wants to listen to a WOMAN with authority!

But then, I was out with the boyfriend in plain-clothes when the waiter asked "What can I get you gentleman" and I almost lept over the table at him!

My mom got "sir" when she was 8 months pregnant with me. I believe she was at a conference, and sitting down, but it's still the best story I have about gender confusion in engineering.

I do get that at work occassionally for being male oddly enough. I've before called *ahem* women's doctors *ahem* who have asked if we could switch over to a female interpreter because there was no way I man could understand what was going on well enough to be able to accurately interpret. I pointed out that the deaf user had made no request for a handoff and that I was keeping up with her just fine she was shocked... after all, how could a man know how to type all those words (I never realized that women spoke a different language than men or that the spelling was different).

For clarification: is your service one which is offered for Deaf/deaf people who don't have TTY, or is it for the Deaf/deaf people to use to call businesses/private individuals who don't have TTY? Because I thought that sort of concern was why doctors had TTY themselves. I can somewhat understand the doctor's concern, as I've heard all sorts of interesting stories about problems before Telehealth got their TTY line, but I can't see that it's a safe assumption that a female interpreter would necessarily be familiar with it. a) not every woman gets her checkups and b) not every woman pays attention to the doctor (or would be familiar enough with the terminology even then).

PS. The percentage of women wanting to refuse a female tech was amazing!

Well they don't understand it, so clearly women don't understand this sort of thing.

I always feel bad hearing these stories, as I honestly know very little about home repairs. As it stands, I currently can't do most repairs (even if we had a house and it was necessary), because we don't have a guidebook. My father-in-law worked in construction, so there really isn't a need for a guidebook currently, but once we move (and finally get our own set of drill bits), we're going to need to get instructions. Limit of my knowledge before going out with DH? Studs are on 16-inch centres. Drill into them. I've learnt a bit more since, but I wouldn't necessarily even know everything that I needed to buy. Nor can I solder as well as most of the guys I know. (Ironic, given that I've had a sparkie tell me that he could never knit like I do, because the work's too fine). I can, however, code better than a lot of my friends . I try not to remember that this is because they're mechies and I'm not .

[Andara Bledin]

The other one that is fun is wearing a gay pride shirt and walking into best buy and watch the sales people lead you over to the shiniest thing in the store... after all, what do gay guys know about electronics... then shock the hell out of them by saying you were thinking of self building and listing off a bunch of components that you need

If you're thinking of self-building, why would you go to Best Buy? For those prices, you could probably get a better system going through an online store like NewEgg.

PS. The percentage of women wanting to refuse a female tech was amazing!

Not really. Social indoctrination. It's completely subconscious and based on generations of actions daughters have watched their mothers and teachers and peers do and have emulated.

Some study about a decade ago watched the progress of girls in school, and up to a point, girls are way ahead of boys in general scholastic development. But about the time they hit puberty, the boys' scores stay on the same trend, and the girls' scores drop dramatically. Basically, teachers would subconsciously push female students to roles as homemakers and artistic endeavors while encouraging boys to excel in more productive roles. The gender of the teacher was largely irrelevant.

If you ever catch anyone using the phrase "boys will be boys" in a way that isn't ironic or sarcastic, you are witnessing a display of the social programming to which most of us have exposed and emulate to varying degrees. This is the same social programming that dictates that men hold doors for women, by the way; in and of itself, harmless, but a symptom of a much greater issue.

^-.-^

[Merriweather]

The other one that is fun is wearing a gay pride shirt and walking into best buy and watch the sales people lead you over to the shiniest thing in the store... after all, what do gay guys know about electronics... then shock the hell out of them by saying you were thinking of self building and listing off a bunch of components that you need

Yeah, and especially after some of the TV shows that have been on, people always think that gay guys have such great taste and class just cause they're gay - those people definitely haven' t met my brother Love him to death, but being gay hasn't given him more taste or class than the rest of our clan

Who says you'll need to post bail? I'll help to hide the body
Although I do think Cat5 UTP would be a better choice for a noose.

True, true, but a salesman would be more likely to have a USB cable handy, cause, of course I don't know of any other cable's existence

Thanks for so many offering support

And for the record, doing what I can for future generations - my daughter, back in the 70's, was very well rounded - parked her tonka trucks right next to her dollhouse, and her Strawberry Shortcake figures had great Star Wars adventures. I knew I was doing something right when she was 3, and we went to a Navy airshow, with the Blue Angels. After watching the show, she turned to me and said "they're not angels, just men in airplanes, right?" I told her yes, that was right. She then looked incredibly indignant, and said "well, then, there ought to be women Blue Angels!"

And her daughter is coming along nicely as well, especially with computers - I just helped her get her Brownie computer badge last year, and her dad is computer engineer, so she's on her way

[RetailWorkhorse]

The other one that is fun is wearing a gay pride shirt and walking into best buy and watch the sales people lead you over to the shiniest thing in the store... after all, what do gay guys know about electronics...

THIS I will do. And I will walk into an AUTO STORE. Because computers go over my head but I can buy alternators all day long.

I need a gay pride shirt.

[smileyeagle1021]

If you're thinking of self-building, why would you go to Best Buy? For those prices, you could probably get a better system going through an online store like NewEgg.

I build piecewise (really I have frankencomputers that are constantly being updated, I've never done from scratch) so what extra I pay at best buy I save on not having to pay shipping a dozen times. So I should say I semi custom build (or do complete upgrades, depending on how you want to look at it). The decision is really do I want to continue working on my existing piece of work or move onto a new computer to use as my base material.

[draco664]

This thread reminds me of the first time I was ever in a mechanics. (I was about 6)

I was with my Uncle getting something for his car when a chap walked in. The wife of the owner asked him if he needed any help.

Chap: Uh, is there a guy I could see?
Owner's wife: We're not a gay brothel.

Now, as a six year old, I had no idea what the words meant, only that from my uncle's reaction, it was somehow funny. He wouldn't answer my questions, so I went back to the car and wrote down the words on my colouring book so I wouldn't forget them. Mum went bananas when she saw the book that night.

She was however, kind enough to explain to me what a brothel was and why I shouldn't ask strangers what it was.

I hadn't thought about that memory in years.

[vstorevigilante]

She was however, kind enough to explain to me what a brothel was and why I shouldn't ask strangers what it was.

Three cheers for bossman's wife, and a million cookies to you for asking your mother what a gay brothel was! Haha, only a child I, too, used to write down things adults said that went over my head as a small child to ask my mother about later, so I enjoyed that story.

[BeeMused]

This reminds me of an incidents from about 40 years ago, I was 6 years old. My Mom and I were just moving into a new flat after my Dad had died and needed some powertools for that. Since it's somewhat pointless to buy expensive tools you only need once every 5 years, we went to rent them, plus my Mom wanted the pro tools and not the consumer crap.
Now... a woman with a little girl in tow? The clerk went and then tried to explain the use of those tools. My Mom: "My dear young man, I know perfectly well how these work, thank you very much. Oh and where is the chuck key?"
Yeah she knew... after all my Grandfather was a smith with his own shop, she was an only child, so she helped after school as soon as she was strong enough to handle the tools needed. As a result home repair and improvement was my Mom's job, even with my Dad still alive. For me it was normal to handle a drill, or to use a hammer. Playing with dolls, no not really, I rather pried an old clock apart.

[Midorikawa]

Although I do think Cat5 UTP would be a better choice for a noose.

It does. We have an empty room directly above my data center that used to be a call center for some long gone company. As a result, there's CAT-5 and phone cables all over the place hanging from the ceiling. We have to walk through this room to get to the restroom, since there's no restroom down in the basement, and the one upstairs is technically in another company's area, so we have to walk through this abandoned office to get there.

Some manic depressive admin likely made this, although, noone's come forward about it:
http://i917.photobucket.com/albums/a...otos/noose.jpg

Me too

Me three. I'm a guy, but as a Texan with a bit of a southern accent (that I've since been forced to hide to the point it's almost non-existent any more), everyone assumes I'm some redneck Larry the Cable guy type character, not a senior level tech, or Linux systems administrator or whatever, with 8 years experience with Linux, 5 with FreeBSD, and more than qualified to undo their happy little chmod 000 *.

I'd get customers who'd hear my voice, tell me "f*ck you redneck! go back to your field!" (alternatively "go back to your cousin's bedroom"), and hang up.