Me? A Curmudgeon?

I have to recognize a curmudgeonly streak in me. Truth? More than a streak. I think I justify it in the name of past injuries and various reasons not to trust. It runs against what I think I am and what I aspire to, but it is there.

I think a big piece of it has to do with my relationships with women. From my mother onward I have always felt at the effect of women and not known what to do with them. I haven't felt that I fit well with the traditonal masculine ways of being either, so maybe it's just my introversion at root.

When I began my working life the workplace was primarily male and where there were women it was a caste system. The women were secretaries. That word isn't PC anymore except for a few senior ones who are very proud of the role. One worked for me in one place I worked. Early on in my career I did some writing and editing work for a research group, and after I had accepted the job "oh, by the way, you'll be managing the clerical staff." Five women. The researchers were all men.

More recently I have worked in two different groups that were predominantly women and where my immediate superior was a woman. I've had something like half a dozen women bosses in my working career. On the whole I have liked them better than the men I have worked for with a notable exception or two.

One of those exceptions managed a group of 17 of which three were men. When the inevitable reorganization came, none of the men were going to retain their jobs. The Director was one who pursued every opportunity to increase her title and compensation and never stopped complaining about the men she worked with as peers and superiors, or the other two who were her subordinates. I'm quite sure she had words about me behind my back. Oddly enough there was one other job to be eliminated, held by a woman, who was undergoing cancer treatment. Much was made of this and she was found a job.

At the time I was able to bounce and landed in a better spot with the same company working for a great woman boss. Alas I was on a list and still dotted line to the old department, and when the opportunity came I was laid off despite my own cancer treatments beginning at the same time.

So, life isn't fair. What was that book that was big in the seventies, made into a country song, "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden?" And sexism is ugly no matter which gender is at the pointy end of the stick. I think probably I can actually choose whether to be cranky about it or not. And I can be really glad that I'm not starting out a career now. For guys it has to be The Exciting Game Without Any Rules. [Check out Mark Harris's "Bang the Drum Slowly."]

Curmudgeonly? Moi? I guess it has some entertainment value as long as it doesn't get out of hand.