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May 04, 2007

hags united

When I was a manager, my boss thought it was funny to muck with my team while I was on vacation. He'd move deadlines, responsibilities, people—whatever it took to irritate me. He particularly specialized in hiring people and putting them under me without my participation. This is where Dorkass came from, which worked out well enough, but it's also where two travesties originated. I needn't go into detail (although I can predict with confidence who will ask me to), so suffice it to say that 1) these petite young women were wholly unqualified for any job I could conjure and 2) the boss spoke lecherously about screwing them on a piano.

At one point, my team was composed of seven females and me. Gossip abounded, despite the fact that I hadn't hired half of them—let alone that my own hires were married or gay. In all, I hired exactly one single woman, whom I deemed Misery Chick because of her Opheliesque inclinations. None of this stopped the moronic chatter about alleged improprieties. It was my personal "harem." As is the nature of such things, this malicious fancy grew into perception. No one enjoyed fanning it more than my boss, who conveniently neglected to mention that the retarded eye candy was his idea.

One day, a young woman named Annie walked into my office. Lovely and talented and with the light bulb obviously on, she was interviewing for a job on another team. I shifted uncomfortably. If I say 'hire,' I'm going to get fucking crucified. I did, and I was. In short order, beautiful Carla plopped in the same chair for the same reason. Oh dear god no. Another obvious hire. But sonuvabitch... Again, I braced and said "hire." The howls were predictable by now, but I still tried to do the right thing.

Annie's first week, some hag saw fit to warn her about my predatory nature. "Just look at his harem."

Ya know what? Screw doing the right thing. Pretty chicks: categorically out. And the next time a guy of even threadbare qualifications came along, I said hire with an enthusiasm appropriate only if he'd saved my mother's life. Well, maybe not my mother, but someone's.

And on it goes. My modern-day search for an editor has led me to my obvious star, the student who does much more and tests much better than everyone else, the student about whom a professor said yesterday, "If she fails in life, I bloody quit. Not just the job. I quit life." If you could buy stock in human beings, I'd sink my every last cent in her.

My problem is that like many college students, she's pretty. That will serve her well in business and life, so I don't feel too sorry for her, but no job offer is forthcoming from me. Someone else can mentor her. I can already hear the criticism, the vicious innuendo gleefully whispered by embittered, middle-aged, self-proclaimed "feminist" hags at Microsoft. So the hags have their victory; I will take the path of least resistance and discriminate. I'll find a less talented but less aesthetically threatening protege.

The kid will be their boss in five years, anyway. The right people will still win and lose. And thus do I put my trust in physics: cream rises, shit sinks.

posted by john at 06:29 AM  •  permalink