Women Do The Most 'Invisible Work' At The Office

[Demovictory9]

Every year, the organization I worked for would host an annual fundraiser and select an individual to chair the efforts. One year, my director let me know that her boss was going to be the executive sponsor for the initiative, and asked if I would chair the committee to organize the events for the nonprofit fundraiser.

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At the final fundraiser celebration on the executive floor of the company, all of the executives and people involved with the fundraising efforts came to celebrate the money that was raised. I still remember the moment the executive sponsor got up to make his remarks. As everyone circled around him, I tried to peer over a group of mostly male leaders and executives. The sponsor talked about the importance of fundraising and how much money was raised, and thanked everyone for their involvement and support.

“Oh, and also thank you to Kelli for coordinating this event.”

After weeks of planning and stressing, the “exposure” I was supposed to receive amounted to barely a two-second mention. I felt like a balloon deflating. I had put in 50-plus hours, and no one was going to leave that event and remember my name or my face.

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In addition to the two hours of unpaid labor women take on at home, research from Harvard Business Review found that women get 44% more requests than men to volunteer for “non-promotable” tasks at work. Non-promotable tasks are those that benefit the organization but likely don’t contribute to someone’s performance evaluation and career advancement.

These tasks include traditional office “housework,” such as coordinating parties and office events, as well as filling in for colleagues and serving on low-level committees. Men tend to get requests for and accept more strategic projects with higher-level networking or visibility. When the requests for non-promotable tasks are made, according to HBR, men say yes 51% of the time and women say yes 76% of the time.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/women-do-the-most-invisible-work-at-the-office-and-it-s-getting-us-nowhere/ar-AAVVeL1

[betsuni]

1. K&R

[smirkymonkey]

2. Absolutely!

[Demovictory9]

3. I don't think I've ever seen a man do the birthday-get the cake-decoration-cleanup thing

[smirkymonkey]

4. Never.

Especially clean up.

[Duppers]

5. Have seen them bring a cake...

But, as you said, NEVER the clean-up or even an offer.

(Especially true for many older, southern men.)

[Demovictory9]

7. at one job, it was an unwritten rule.. women scurried about clearing up, while males sat talking

after events. I spoke up about it.

[Duppers]

9. Good for you!!

This was exactly like Sundays' & holiday dinners at my G-parents growing up.

Most southerners back then were extremely misogynistic in so many ways...the stories I could tell.

[XanaDUer2]

21. My former male

Asshole boss made me set up a party for his two useless favorites, drive to get the cake, buy the cake-I got the money back- and never thanked me

[Hekate]

6. Senator Maizie Hirono's book "Heart of Fire" had several episodes that illustrated her reaction...

… to exactly this kind of thing.

One thing that helped her early on was her mother telling her to not allow a certain boy to take credit for her hard work on the school newspaper. He came in (was brought in by the teacher, actually) after she had done much already; then he did not work as hard, would leave things for her to do, and the teacher would expect her to do it. Her mother said, just keep doing your job, ignore the teacher, push the papers away and across the desk. And she did.

When she was in the State Legislature, years later, “giving lei” was a nice custom to honor visitors to the Leg. on various occasions. But somehow it was always women who were expected to make this presentation — perhaps because the secretaries always had? But she was an elected official. One of the male legislators dropped a pile of leis on her desk and told her to take care of it and she just said no.

Senator Hirono and I are within one month of each other’s birthdays, and reading Heart of Fire was a unique experience. Growing up, nobody ever told me I could say no to someone stealing my time or credit for my work. I ended up doing office work to support my children, and while there was much that was interesting and worth learning and doing — yes, it was as the author of your article said: very easy for others to overlook the “extras.”

The Senator from Hawai’i worked incredibly hard for everything she has achieved. She was and is many things I was not — keenly focused and goal-oriented among them. As Senator, when she says indignantly but softly, “That’s bullshit,” she means it because she learned to recognize and call out sexist bullshit early on in her life.

[Demovictory9]

8. i've seen women support the status quo... so it's great Senator Hirono was raised to fight sexism

at jobs Ive worked, women were the overwhelming majority of office staff. Once we hired a male student employee... with the plan that he help make copies, run errands, assist the secretarial staff... he fought it. and on his last day, when women put together and (partially paid) for the goodbye party treats, he turned to the male boss, in front of us, and thanked only him for the event.

[smirkymonkey]

17. Ugh!

S**t like that makes me so angry. It's just like "women's work" is what we are supposed to be doing, without any acknowledgement or thanks. I would really like to see how well they function if we weren't around to do any of it at all. I think they would find that everything would go to hell pretty quickly.

[Coventina]

10. At my place of work, the administrative assistants are treated like janitors.

Because I was formerly a secretary, I do not participate in that behavior.

They are the ones who have to clean out the fridge (well, upkeep of the whole breakroom gets shoved on to them).

They're the ones who are expected to do something about the trash overflowing before janitorial staff can deal with it.

If anything goes wrong in the bathroom, they're expected to fix things until maintenance can come.

If anything goes wrong in the building, really, it becomes their job to fix it until facilities can come deal with it.

None of those things are part of their job description.

Ugh.

[Demovictory9]

11. "Because I was formerly a secretary, I do not participate in that behavior."

you've walked a mile in their shoes.

[Coventina]

12. I sure have! It was 5 years of my life. Mostly good.

And I learned a ton of stuff about how to handle people and get along.

I also learned that making the effort to treat admins like REAL PEOPLE and care about their interests, families, dreams and aspirations can really make for a much nicer working environment.

[Demovictory9]

13. I worked as a hotel maid, one summer, many decades ago. it impacts how i treat the room

and I ALWAYS leave a tip. And I speak to the housekeepers. I remember being treated as second class.

[Coventina]

14. Same here. n/t

[smirkymonkey]

18. That is terrible! I am assuming you work in a small company, which is why they have to pitch in?

One of the benefits of working in a larger company is that we have an entire facilities department that deals with all that stuff, so that it doesn't get pushed onto the admin people in the office.

Our company culture is very big on treating everyone with respect, so even the maintainence/janitorial staff is respected by the corporate workers, which is the way it should be, but there are too many places where people like to throw their weight around and treat those who are "below" them like dirt, just because they can.

[alphafemale]

15. Well then just...stop doing it.

At least volunteering to do it without being paid.

If they want an event they can hire and pay outside people.

Don't volunteer to do it free and then complain you were not paid.

[Celerity]

16. +1

[meadowlander]

20. +1

I'd also add that sometimes these kinds of things can be staff initiated and driven and then somehow they morph into obligatory social events and you'll sometimes find people being martyrs a bit about optional stuff that they've created for themselves to do.

At my last job there were three women in particular who decided that our team didn't do enough social functions for their liking. So they instituted birthday parties and after hours events like bowling nights and regular Friday drinks and shared morning teas and scavenger hunts and Secret Santa and a way over the top Christmas decorating competition and holiday parties, etc. These were "optional" but they got offended and shunned anyone who didn't turn up for everything or participate to their level of liking because they had a life outside of work or just not that much interest in socialising at work.

Then they started complaining at every single team meeting that they were the only ones organising social events and how much work it was and half the team couldn't even be bothered to turn up to them. Then they tried to institute a roster so that everyone on the team had to take turns organising the "optional" social events.

I'm not saying this to minimise the very real phenomenon in the OP. But I do think there is an alternative scenario that I've seen where some women can decide they are the team social coordinator without being asked. Then they get bored or frustrated with all the extra work they've created for themselves and blame everyone else.

[FreeState]

19. Not at the company I work for

The company is 85% women. It’s always the men (usually us gay ones too) that do all invisible work and the leadership takes credit.