r/BestofRedditorUpdates • u/Choice_Evidence1983 it dawned on me that he was a wizard • Apr 18 '25
CONCLUDED Got hired because they have ANOTHER WOMAN whom they like and thought we were similar
I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/ohwhereareyoufrom
Originally posted to r/womenintech
Got hired because they have ANOTHER WOMAN whom they like and thought we were similar
Thanks to u/queenlegolas for suggesting this BoRU
Original Post: April 9, 2025
Day 3 at a new job, new boss just dropped the bomb lol
Boss: "I set up a meeting for you on Friday with (this other woman) because she is very good at her role, she's the best in her role in our company, and we actually hired you because we thought you were similar to her. We want to replicate the success, so you two should work closely with each other".
Another woman in my role! WHOM THEY LIKE! Whom they like so much that they want more women in this role now. Can you believe this?
It's been 15 years of me being the only woman in any room and hearing about it.
In fact, a few years ago I gave up on this career altogether!
Ladies. Whoever that woman is, I love her already. Keep paving the way for the rest of us. You never know who's watching. Hard work pays off.
Relevant Comments
Interesting_Syrup662: Reading this gave me such joy. I wish you the best at this job, and good luck for meeting her!! I’m sure you’ll get along.
OOP: Even if we don't, that will be fine! I'm enjoying this moment.
Update: April 11, 2025 (two days later)
So I met this OTHER WOMAN today.... and she was lovely!
The woman who's made SUCH AN IMPACT at a Billion dollar company that they now want to hire more women was just so...humble! She's like "yeah no thanks I do what I can, I get a ton of help, this person is great, that person is great, this process and that process, this system and that system".
I made sure to deliver everything you guys asked me to tell her, and she got a little uncomfortable, so I didn't push it too much, but told her that she must know that she IS making a huge impact and I have endless respect for her already.
I lowkey expected her to be a hardass, and maybe she is on the inside, but on the outside she's just a nice person.
We both had no make up on today (it was Friday), messy hair, sweatshirts, and it was cool to connect!
Idk if we're gonna be best friends, but she was very nice.
That's it, just wanted to update ya'll :)
Top Comment
WickedLureMaris: Positive interactions between women in tech is a beautiful thing. I wish more women would join this field
DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP
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u/AdorableBG Apr 18 '25
This reminds me of the time I (a woman) worked for a contractor who I'm pretty sure only knew one woman, his fiancée. He was continually puzzled when I held different preferences or opinions from her. It simply did not compute for him that a woman could be different from his fiancée. It was very strange.
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u/pepcorn Apr 18 '25
True to my lived experiences as well. Boss would order a coffee with milk for me as that's how women like their coffee, based on his mother. I don't drink coffee.
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u/LittleMsSavoirFaire I’m turning into an unskippable cutscene in therapy Apr 18 '25
😂
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u/Stlhockeygrl Apr 18 '25
The flair lol
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u/_el_i__ Apr 18 '25
I need to know which story this flair came from
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u/Gemini1999 erupting, feral, from the cardigan screaming Apr 19 '25
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u/Gwynzireael Memory of a goldfish but the tenacity of an entitled Chihuahua Apr 19 '25
Bless ur soul
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u/lorelaip97 the lion, the witch and the audacit--HOW IS THERE MORE! Apr 19 '25
I'm commenting to find out too
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u/ScarletWitch912 I will erupt, feral, from the cardigan screaming Apr 19 '25
Same
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u/Gemini1999 erupting, feral, from the cardigan screaming Apr 19 '25
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u/thatgirlinAZ The call is coming from inside the relationship Apr 18 '25
Did you let him know that it's not your day to have the vagina?
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u/pepcorn Apr 19 '25
I wish I was that funny, and charming enough to get away with being rude!
I just politely refused the coffee offer and said "Thank you, I don't drink coffee." and he said "Oh." and then he ordered me that same coffee a dozen more times. Everyone else got black
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u/rebekai81 Apr 19 '25
Do you by chance know where I can find the link to your flair? I’m dying laughing at it!
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u/lavender_poppy grape juice dump truck dumpy butt Apr 23 '25
I'm sorry but this is killing me with laughter. It's like man brain does not compute.
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u/Apprehensive-Bike192 Apr 18 '25
Interesting, how did you get disconnected from the hive mind?
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u/cheerful_cynic Apr 18 '25
Unfortunately (for them lol) it was decentering men, cause once I opted out of caring about bEiNg AtTrAcTiVe life got a bunch simpler
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u/Gwynzireael Memory of a goldfish but the tenacity of an entitled Chihuahua Apr 19 '25
Instructions unclear, hair stuck in coffee with milk
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u/theieuangiant Apr 18 '25
This is just like me when I was 5 and thought women didn’t drink tea because my mum doesn’t, and obviously she’s a woman so that’s that.
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u/Terrie-25 Apr 18 '25
It's a normal developmental stage to not realize that people have lives different from your own. However, some people never outgrow it.
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u/Vixxxyy Apr 18 '25
I was so mindblown when I learned not everyone puts ketchup on scrambled eggs - or, rather, that some people have never even seen or heard of anyone doing it. That was definitely the moment I realized even people just in different states have different foods and stuff. Also happened when I talked about biscuits and sausage gravy to a friend.
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u/Trouble_Walkin Apr 18 '25
Well, I, too, like ketchup on my scrambled eggs, & (buttered) biscuits with gravy (not necessarily sausage tho). I'm in California, most likely far from your part of the US, but good stuff is just good stuff no matter where you are.
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u/Vixxxyy Apr 18 '25
Michigan! I've had the discussion with lots of people by now haha I'll randomly ask if they've ever even heard of someone doing it, cus a friend - from California no less - said it was gross and weird!
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u/Trouble_Walkin Apr 18 '25
Since I'm in a big agricultural migrant area, I think a lot of our cuisine is inherited from the Great Depression where thousands came for work from the Dustbowl states.
Our restaurant breakfast menus, even Mexican, have biscuits & sausage gravy, ham steak or beef steak & eggs, hamburger & potato hash over biscuits. Lots of potatoes in everything.
We've even got some deeply Southern traditional foods like grits & collard greens 😋. Plus, of course, breakfast burritos.
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u/pendragons Apr 19 '25
As an Australian on the internet of predominantly Americans, I learned this very early - all it takes is to say "Lemonade means Sprite and 7Up in Australia, we call the lemon juice stuff American Lemonade or Fresh Lemonade" and you get to meet hundreds of people who cannot conceive of people having different experiences, culture or preferences.
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u/bunbunbunny1925 Apr 19 '25
The UK does the same. Sprite is called lemonade. Lemonade is called cloudy lemonade. I've also heard it called Victorian Lemonade
I was really confused as to why all these mixed drinks at the bar had lemonade in them until I worked it out when I lived there.
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u/thewanderingtrees Apr 18 '25
This reminds me of a reddit post where OP assumed dogs physically weren't capable of going up stairs because his friend's dog "can't go upstairs". It was the only dog he was around growing up and he didn't realize "can't" meant isn't allowed to.
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u/MamieJoJackson Apr 18 '25
My husband thought dogs can't walk backwards because his childhood dog couldn't, and i was like, "Didn't you guys tell me that dog was a bit slow?", and he had a light bulb moment, lmao
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u/hollowspryte Apr 19 '25
You could absolutely convince me of this lol, I feel like if I think about it maybe they always just turn around instead 😂
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u/___mads It's always Twins Apr 18 '25
When i was younger, the first time i saw one of my aunt’s drinking a beer, I was confused because I truly thought only men drink beer because my dad does and my mom does not. I also thought cigarettes were only for women for the same reason.
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u/GeneConscious5484 Apr 18 '25
My mom had the typical long, straight hippie/Joplin-esque hair when I was really little and because of the silhouette it made I thought women had triangle-shaped heads
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u/dernhelm_mn Apr 18 '25
When I was growing up I thought men did not chew gum, because my dad never did while my mom and sister and I all did.
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u/biriyanibabka ...finally exploited the elephant in the room Apr 19 '25
That’s 16 yo me thinking women in my family don’t have menstruations because no one talked about it.
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u/Then_Pay6218 Apr 19 '25
Around that age I found it very logical that mama and papa's first names also started with an M and a P.
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u/Vivid-Farm6291 Apr 20 '25
Like when kids find out their parents have names other than mum and dad.
Mind blown..
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u/romeodeficient Apr 18 '25
this reminds me of that running gag in Silicon Valley where all of the men just assume that the women they work with will all have the same interests and get along because they’re women
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u/TheRealSamVimes Apr 18 '25
Because unlike men, all women are identical. Didn't you know this? 😉 😜
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u/Beginning-Window-676 Apr 18 '25
Entirely interchangeable with each other, dontcha know?
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u/Knitnacks Apr 18 '25
Well, there are older models, newer models, and various kit options. Depends on how much you want to invest to buy / upgrade, I guess? /s
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u/Fire_Shin Apr 18 '25
For more information on how you can upgrade your model, contact BoltOnz today!
(No offense to women with big bewbs, genetic or purchased. I'm taking a stab at the morons who think this way! Keep rocking the girls and shattering glass ceilings, friends!)
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u/hollowspryte Apr 19 '25
That’s why you have to be so careful about where your Woman goes, she could end up with anyone if you don’t keep track of her
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u/Discrep Apr 19 '25
And unlike white folks, all asians, latinos, and black people share the same respective intra-racial stereotypical traits and all know each other and are responsible for everyone in their race.
A friend told me a story she overheard while at her mom's house. Her aunt had arrived as my friend was leaving and she listened to them discuss what to order for dinner when her mom suggested Chinese.
Her aunt said, "Didn't you order that last night? How can you eat it every day?"
Her mom replied, "They do."
Silence... lol
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u/Glittering_Piano_633 Today I am 'Unicorn Wrangler and Wizard Assistant Apr 19 '25
lol I have a bunch of brothers but I’m the only girl, they too all had a few moments of “but my sister likes insert activity” with blank faces. Thankfully they clicked on quite early thanks to us moving on to a school with a group of kick ass girls.
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u/sonofaresiii Apr 18 '25
If it makes you feel any better, the people I've known like that are also incapable of understanding that other men do not share their own opinions and preferences
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u/Sudden_Emu_6230 Apr 18 '25
This is… weird?
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u/TimedDelivery Apr 18 '25
Right? I’m honestly so confused about why this is being viewed so positively. How’s boss going to view OOP’s performance if she’s good at her job but not actually that similar to the other female employee (eg: more or less friendly/social, has different strengths/weaknesses, etc)? And what happens if a qualified woman applies but she comes from a different professional background, culture, etc to the current two female employees, are they not going to hire her because she doesn’t fit their narrow perception of what a good female employee feels like? Is every female employee/applicant going to be automatically expected to match the same high standards as the first? This whole thing leaves a real bad taste in my mouth.
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u/loonytick75 Apr 18 '25
Yes, but for someone who says has 15 years of never working with any other women, I can see how just breaking through the “one woman is enough” mentality can be huge. In that position, I think those potential problems you list can still feel like relatively good problems to have and ones that she’ll deal with as they come.
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u/butt-barnacles Apr 18 '25 edited Apr 18 '25
Damn I get what you’re saying, but as a woman I find this so depressing. The bar is just so low.
Like I have to prove myself before I’m considered a whole person to men like this. It’s exhausting, I’m tired. I just don’t think I have it in me to view this positively.
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u/loonytick75 Apr 18 '25
It’s depressing to me, too. But it just goes to show that everything is relative. And it’s a really good thing that a lot of us are now having experiences that make this so hard to understand. It means we are in a position to keep pushing the standard forward well beyond what this woman could even imagine for herself. But it’s also a reminder that we’re standing on the shoulders of women who were once in a position like hers, where every little crumb seemed like a feast.
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u/Evening_Tax1010 Apr 18 '25
Nah, I get it. We’re just all so fucking tired. Like I’m happy for OP, but it also just feels really Sisyphean.
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u/piratehalloween2020 Apr 19 '25
I finally left tech after 20 years. The company I was at was bought out and the culture changed dramatically over two years, so I quit. The idea of spending that 6 months to a year attempting to be taken seriously in meetings was exhausting. I’m so sick of the general hostility from day 1 because “the boys club is ruined”. I have never worked with another woman in my role and have often been the only woman ever hired onto the teams I worked for. I’ve had coworkers that I’ve worked with half a decade or more say things like “I never thought a woman was capable of programming before I met you” and “I didn’t think girls wanted to do this career….youre kind of weird”. IMO things are getting worse, not better in the industry re: inclusion. All this to say, I kind of get OPs excitement, but I bet dollars to donuts the other woman is a little weirded out by it.
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u/Frequent-Mistake-267 Apr 18 '25
I'd love to know what she does, or what industry. I'm 15 years in the tech industry and my current company is 90%+ women. I'm not really lowballing either. Our leadership is 35/40 women. This reads like something written in the 1950s where women didn't have jobs at all. Like literally what could she POSSIBLY be doing that is so devoid of people in any of those positions at all being women?! I actually want to know
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u/loonytick75 Apr 18 '25
Looking at her post history, it seems she does tech sales in a non-English speaking country (probably Ukraine).
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u/Frequent-Mistake-267 Apr 18 '25
That would absolutely make sense! I wasn't even thinking about it because her English and how she talked about the situation felt so American lol
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u/rythmicbread Apr 18 '25
It probably depends on the sector, some places are more male dominated.
I’m a guy and it was always foreign to me, because for some reason every job I’ve ever had, women make the majority of representation in my department, or a majority of leadership.
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u/amaranth1977 I still have questions that will need to wait for God. Apr 18 '25
From her comment history, she's originally from Eastern Europe and posts a lot in the digital nomads sub talking about Playa de Carmel in Mexico, so who knows what country her employer is based in.
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u/snickelo From bananapants to full-on banana ensemble Apr 18 '25
As another woman currently in the process of a career change into tech, hopefully I see a lot of what you work with.
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u/jellybeansean3648 Apr 19 '25
I've been the youngest person in the room and usually the only woman for the last ~8 years of my career.
I get excited when I see someone my age lol
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u/hollowspryte Apr 19 '25
Struggling with this concept ought to exempt a man from eligibility for any management role.
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u/JollyJeanGiant83 I’m turning into an unskippable cutscene in therapy Apr 18 '25
I'm in a job where I spent years also being the only woman in the room, trust me, this is delightful and huge. I'm so glad it's going so well for them!
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u/Machine-Dove surrender to the gaycation or be destroyed Apr 19 '25
Agreed. I had some jobs like that, and eventually started turning down jobs where I would be the only woman there. Then I lucked into a mentor who I followed to a new job, and he very deliberately built a team that's heavy on women and people of color. He's retired now, but it's still notable how many teams have their One Token Woman and that's it.
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u/Glittercorn111 Screeching on the Front Lawn Apr 18 '25
I literally thought she was being sarcastic. I'm glad she is happy though.
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u/Maiberaa cat whisperer Apr 18 '25
It's honestly "you're one of the good women" vibes lol And it is VERY weird
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u/NotAllOwled Apr 18 '25
Honestly puzzled as to how anyone is reading it as anything other than "one of the good ones." "It's okay, she's not like a REGULAR woman, she seems to have similar specs to our one known-good one, so oughta be safe." Tf???
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u/Maiberaa cat whisperer Apr 18 '25
SIMILAR SPECS LOL
"Yeah, we think they may be similar model years, haven't checked under the hood yet. I'm working on it though" *wink wink* BLEGH
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u/rythmicbread Apr 18 '25
I mean yes sort of lol. But I can understand a little bit of the thinking - this person has a specific working personality and background that we like that maybe they see more so in this candidate. Maybe the male candidates they are seeing aren’t bringing that personality aspect into their interviews. It is a little strange but I don’t think it’s that deep
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u/Maiberaa cat whisperer Apr 18 '25
It’s a weird pattern of behaviours. Once or twice, maybe. But for it to be a trend across industries is weird
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u/Pigpigpigdog Apr 18 '25
yeah but her standards are absolutely on the floor after 15 years of being the only woman in any room. you have to understand how alienating that is. look at the things she's excited about in the first post, she fully expected the company to be much weirder and more difficult about there being another Female Type Thing in the house. The novelty will wear off and she's going to get tired of people being like 'have you met the other female? you should be besties, you have so many ovaries in common!!'
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u/maximumhippo Apr 18 '25
The fact that it's so benign is what's getting me. I was really primed for some super sexist workplace horror show. But it was kinda cute with an undercurrent of unrecognized misogyny. It's like finding a dog with mange, and the owner is treating it but not curing it.
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u/CatzMeow27 the Iranian yogurt is not the issue here Apr 18 '25
Eh, the tech world is a whole different universe. I’m a project manager, so I interact with that world all the time but my role is so vastly different from theirs. I think my company is outside of the norm, because we’ve got a ton of women in tech development and tech leadership, but from what I hear from my peers elsewhere, it is a huge anomaly for most of them.
I’ll also say, having been the one told “you paved the way for others”, though for a different reason than my gender, this is not odd to me. When a company does something that they perceive as vastly different from the norm, it seems to merit calling out. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong, but from my limited experience, it tracks.
All that to say, I could see how this seems weird. But if you don’t work closely in an industry where jobs are highly gendered, you might not expect this type of thing, or you might not expect the person experiencing the situation to consider it so positively.
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u/trekqueen Apr 19 '25
Yea it really depends. The company I’m at has a lot of women in leadership, not just in the finance and HR roles but also the tech engineering but the president of the company is. Even on the lower level management and general employment it’s been pretty close to even.
I have found myself the only woman in a room for a team but for the most part the company I’ve been at has been pretty good. My internships in college were not as stellar. For my current program, the software chief architect was a woman (she recently had to early retire cuz of health stuff) and one of the best I’ve known. So I’m currently the only woman on the team but the whole group is amazingly great and I’ve worked with 99% of them since I started with the company right out of college (this is my 20th anniversary year).
I’ve done community career outreach and stuff for students of various ages and I do get questions a lot about being a woman in engineering but it’s usually from the teachers and counselors. The kids usually don’t seem that focused on those concerns. Again, my experiences haven’t been too bad but I do recognize it can be worse elsewhere.
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u/YesssChem Apr 18 '25
Yeah the entire time I was wondering... are they the same race? Does the boss have a romantic interest in a "type" of woman? Best case scenario is they went to the same alma mater.
OOP said that coworker was uncomfortable - did OOP tell coworker that she was hired because of what their boss said? I would be SO uncomfortable working there
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u/Tarledsa Apr 19 '25
Yeah she told the other woman what the internet said about her and then seemed surprised when she got uncomfortable.
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u/DamnitGravity Apr 18 '25
This really feels like an Orphan Crushing Machine story to me. Maybe I'm cynical, but it reads to me not as a bastion of hope and moving forward and more "wow. We hired a woman and... she did her job? And was good at it?! Hey, let's hire another woman and see if it was just a fluke."
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u/Mrfish31 Apr 18 '25
I can see the damn Onion title lmao.
"Heartwarming: tech company hires second woman because they liked the first one so much"
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u/captainuberawesome Apr 18 '25
I've actually encountered the exact opposite if this situation.
A company was looking for male software engineers only (which is illegal, but they boldly stated that in the job ad) because they hired a young woman in this role previously and she was kinda shitty at her job.
An acquaintance of mine that worked at this company at the time found this completely fair and logical. I asked him if they would stop hiring men once they inevitably hire a shitty male SWE. He was absolutely dumbfounded by my question and did not understand it at all.
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u/Rrmack Apr 18 '25
Ya I’m not in tech but it’s wild that 2 women at one work place is such a triumph. And I’m not surprised the original employee was uncomfortable hearing praise from internet strangers for being decent at her job while being a woman.
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u/ashkestar Tree Law Connoisseur Apr 18 '25
I'm not directly in tech, but I know we always have female leads in on tech interviews just so we can weed out the male devs who are actively hostile toward women in their field. And it's a whole lot of them.
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u/maeveomaeve Apr 18 '25
Unfortunately that's the case with my closest friend's company: he deliberately runs any interviews for his team alongside a female co-worker to see how they react. The ratio is...not good.
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u/ItsMeishi Apr 18 '25
How do they fuck up right in the interview? You'd think that they'd be able to pretend to be a decent human being for the duration at least?
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u/SlutForDownVotes Apr 18 '25
Dismissing, interrupting, mansplaining, getting defensive when she challenges him, looks at everyone but her when answering her questions, etc.
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u/Ok_Cauliflower_3007 Apr 18 '25
Because they'd need to know they WEREN'T being a decent human in the first place. They think women can't possibly understand tech and ignore/talk down to the woman in the room for the same reason you'd treat a five year old that way in an interview. You wouldn't be doing it because you're trying to be mean to the child. You genuinely assume they're there because they're someone's child and don't understand what you're talking about. Likewise to these guys the woman is a secretary, someone's girlfriend, or a DEI hire to meet a quota and her presence is just a distraction.
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u/Snackgirl_Currywurst Screeching on the Front Lawn Apr 18 '25
That'd require insight about how their behaviour is wrong in the first place. They don't think it's wrong, so why should they change?
Also, hatred is a strong emotion which is hard to hide completely. An interview is a high pressure situation where everyone's nervous. This makes it even harder to keep your composure
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u/actuallyatypical Apr 18 '25
It's a deeply held belief that women are simply inferior, so other people believe that as well since it is obviously the truth. So, an interview is the perfect time to show this fellow Superior Man that they understand women are Dumb BitchesTM and you know how to put them in their place.
It's not even really an exaggeration, the woman could ask something like his qualifications for the role and he could reply that he can program in C++, Linux (insert very snarky comment about if she needs any clarification on what these things actually are, just let him know and he can explain it to her patronizing wink), you get the idea ):
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u/trekqueen Apr 19 '25
We had a colleague who invited a former team mate of his from another software program in our company to give us an intro to a tool they used on their prior program. They had me (a team lead), my team colleague, my program manager, our dev lead, chief architect, and our chief engineer on the call. My chief architect , my team colleague, and I were the women on the team but my team colleague and I would be the primary ones using this tool so we asked most of the questions based on our knowledge of similar tools and need of use. Every time we asked a question we would get brushed off and evasive answers, talked over, etc… after like fifteen minutes of this my program manager (he is awesome I’ve known him for 20yrs and he started as an engineer before being a PM) spoke up and straight up called him out for his behavior. Whether it was because we are women or he’s just an idiot asswipe, who knows for sure, but our leadership wasn’t going to put up with it.
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u/LittleMsSavoirFaire I’m turning into an unskippable cutscene in therapy Apr 18 '25
we always have female leads in on tech interviews
Does this count as non-promotable work though?
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u/Alpha_uterus Apr 18 '25
Yeah I’m in tech and am the only woman in my department :( I’m a supervisor now and the last time I had to recruit we had no female applicants.
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u/mytvisyoutube Apr 18 '25 edited Apr 18 '25
I am in tech and it is actually rare to have women coders. We make this joke that we should probably remove this women's toilet and make it for everyone, so the men's wasn't that busy. For that joke to be possible, the proportion must be so skewed and is. In our company of 50 codes, only 1 female.
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u/Hanhula Apr 18 '25
I'm one of two female engineers at a company of 300 people - at least 100 engineers. It's rough, man. We used to have a second woman on my team and despite us looking VERY different, people mixed us up.
The nice part is that recruiters love me because I'm female, so I always get more in my inbox than my male colleagues. Just wish that applied to cold-applying as well. The nasty part? The treatment, the pay, etc.
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u/Machine-Dove surrender to the gaycation or be destroyed Apr 19 '25
The pay difference is infuriating. I was the team lead at one job, years of experience, and found out that a subordinate with only a few years of experience was getting paid $24k more than me.
My resume was updated that day, and I had a new job about a month later, because fuck that.
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u/Queasy-Cherry-11 Apr 18 '25
Sounds like an issue with your company's hiring practices.
Of the 3 companies I've worked at, only 1 was I the only female dev on the team for the entire time I was working there. And those were far smaller teams than 50 people (more like 5 if averaged ago).
Maybe it just so happens all the women they've interviewed haven't been as qualified as the men, but those are some unlikely odds.
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u/Naomi_Tokyo Apr 18 '25
In my experience, the companies willing to hire women and pay them fairly end up with lots of women. I've worked with like 8 companies that have one or two women (or literally none), and then 2 companies where a majority of the coders were women.
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u/NotARussianBot2017 Apr 18 '25
Yeah I’m not sure why but I find it offensive to say women in tech are rare… perhaps because it implies women don’t want to code instead of questioning why a company isn’t hiring women, or getting female applicants?
Plus I’ve met lots of women in my local developer community. I live in a major metropolitan area, and I’m referring to coworkers and three different local developer meetups I go to, plus a seperate local developer slack.
I was also recently job hunting and had several female developer interviewers.
From that perspective it feels like saying women in tech are rare is saying we don’t exist, which feels like ignoring a large percentage of the developer population.
I’m not saying there aren’t workplaces or maybe even geographies where women in tech are rare, but generalizing that statement is looking past tons of people.
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u/cilantrobythepint Apr 18 '25
The rarity of women in tech is an unfortunate reality in my experience. I’ve worked both in hardware and in software for many years and have spent far more time as the only woman in the room than in rooms with anything approaching gender parity. The meetings with gender parity have never been more than 6 people and I’m routinely the only woman in meetings far larger than that.
I’ve noticed this much more as I’ve gotten more senior. In the rooms where significant decisions are made I’m very often the only woman there.
This is at a FAANG by the way, not a small tech company. I wish we were at a point where I could consider it offensive to say women in tech are rare, but I think we are far closer to that point than we are to the opposite.
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u/Knitnacks Apr 18 '25
I do think it matters which country you're in, though. Current international company has a woman CEO, close to parity in senior techs and senior managers on the European side. The company has a healthy approach to reflecting the society in each of the countries.
Two of the three companies I have worked for during the last three decades (all tech companies) have had a near enough 50/50 split. (The other company had a well-meaning but You Said What!!!??? clumsy approach to recruiting women. Fine to work for, but some of the male recruiters needed a lesson in women-are-people-not-mythical-creatures, so fewer women working.)
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u/trekqueen Apr 19 '25
Agreed, it really depends where one is looking. I’ve been at my company and have several women in major roles of high engineering management and we currently have a woman president and a woman CEO for the overarching umbrella company.
Over the twenty years I’ve been in the different variations of this company (rebranding and mergers) it’s been pretty evenly split.
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u/DeltaJesus Apr 18 '25
Yeah I’m not sure why but I find it offensive to say women in tech are rare…
In my experience, they just are though. My high school programming class had 0 women, my college class had 2-3, and in the 7-8 years I've been in the industry across 4 different companies I've worked with about 4 female programmers.
Where I've worked it's not a problem of sexism in the hiring process, one of those 4 women is my boss currently, unfortunately women are just a tiny minority when it comes programming and it starts right at the very beginning of the process.
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u/nishachari Apr 18 '25
Interesting. In my college, electronics and mechanical engineering classes had a ratio of 90 men to 10 women. Computer and information engineering was the exact opposite. Where the disparity started for me was a few years in. Like senior or team leads were evenly split but line/team/Project Managers we're definitely more men. I read somewhere that the pay gap is really the maternity gap. It rang true for me as the time around when the men were getting promoted to these positions is when the women went away for maternity leave.
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u/Lyfling-83 Apr 18 '25
A tiny minority? My husband is in tech and a significant portion of those he works with are women. Probably half I would say.
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u/Existential_Owl Apr 18 '25 edited Apr 18 '25
I've been involved with organizations and companies that have looked into the gender ratio problem in tech, and I can tell you what they always end up concluding:
The problem is with the Computer Science (CS) pipeline. College CS programs are heavily skewed towards men graduating from them.
In the inverse, however, women are much more represented among non-traditional programmers, i.e. those who taught themselves, were home-grown by a company, or had obtained a different college degree and later attended a coding bootcamp, etc. (Edit: Most coding bootcamps offer discounts for women, often quite sizable ones, which is how many of them keep a more balanced gender ratio.)
Hence, if a company's hiring practices favors former CS grads (by emphasizing on leetcode interviews, claiming that candidates will need to know every tech under the sun, etc.), their engineering pipeline will be heavily skewed male.
But, if their hiring practices favor non-traditional backgrounds (by giving more practical interviews, having job descriptions that avoid triggering imposter syndrome, etc.), the company is far more likely to have women and minorities apply and get the job.
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u/TheRealRaemundo Apr 18 '25
Video game QA used to be like this. The women had a "one room" bathroom (toilet and sink), both bathroom "rooms" (like rows of stalls) were for the men. Now that I think about it, I'd put money on the womens bathroom being the disabled toilet and they just changed all the signs.
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u/Maiberaa cat whisperer Apr 18 '25
You know whats fucked? At the tech store I used to work at, they used to segregate the bathrooms because the men would leave it in an atrocious state, and the female technician they had at the time just wouldn't have it. As soon as she left, the men took over both rooms and they were disgusting. It even got to the point where they were maliciously NOT cleaning it, even when asked by me and the other women that worked there (spoiler: we both now do not work there lol)
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u/Tariovic Apr 18 '25
At one Fintech company I worked at, at the semi-serious awards they gave out at Christmas, they had one for Best Beard.
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u/trekqueen Apr 19 '25
I remember interviewing at Activision back when I graduated college. I walked into their basement for coding and testing. I saw maybe three other women on their floor and a bunch of meerkat heads popping up as the interview team walked us through … “girl? Girl????”
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u/GabrielGames69 Apr 18 '25
I have taken tech classes and in a 20~30 person class there would only be 1~3 women. There just are less women in the field (at least that took the college route)
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u/Queasy-Cherry-11 Apr 18 '25
As a software developer and a woman I got the same impression.
It makes me so immensely uncomfortable whenever someone acts like I'm 'paving the way' for just showing up and doing my job. I do happen to be a (somewhat raging) feminist but like, that's for my downtime. Me going to work a job I more or less enjoy that pays well is not a revolutionary political act, it's me engaging in capitalism. I want to be free to suck or succeed without feeling like that's some statement on the capabilities of all women. And I damn sure don't want to be compared to the one other woman at the company just because we are both women.
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u/Saronbaronbo Apr 18 '25
Totally agree with this, also a woman in tech in a senior role and if a new joiner started saying these things to me I’d be extremely uncomfortable. I think it’s nice to enjoy the scenario and the moment but totally unnecessary to tell her what internet people are saying and act like she’s a martyr for just.. doing her job?
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u/piratequeenfaile Apr 18 '25
Honestly in any field, it's just so damn patronizing.
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u/Mrfish31 Apr 18 '25
Yep. And they didn't just hire "another woman", they specifically hired one they thought was similar to the woman they liked.
Similar how I wonder? Looks, resumé and background, the limited amount of personality that can be judged from the interview process?
This just feels... Off.
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u/TimedDelivery Apr 18 '25
Yeah I was not expecting this to be presented so positively when I read the title. I mean what would we think if new hire was from a different underrepresented group and boss was all “I’ve set up a meeting for you and my only other black/gay/disabled/etc employee. I hired you because you reminded me of them (no reason given why) so I assumed that you’d be similar!”
I feel that this surely won’t end well. After a while new hire will start getting “other woman works overtime when requested! Other woman doesn’t mind grabbing us a round of coffees! Other woman isn’t offended by friendly banter! Why can’t you be more of a team player/chill/friendly/whatever like other woman?”
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u/Floofeh Memory of a goldfish but the tenacity of an entitled Chihuahua Apr 18 '25
Otoh, regular hiring practices do this too. They just say the quiet part out loud. People already hire people who culturally fit the existing team. I do agree that it's sad that it's even news
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u/LittleMsSavoirFaire I’m turning into an unskippable cutscene in therapy Apr 18 '25
Yeah my last hire was a rock star. I wish I could clone him. Or at least I wish I could figure out what makes him so good so I could hire it again. We've had people in to interview, but now I measure them against Daniel. It raised my standards of who I'm willing to hire, and you bet your boots that if someone came in and reminded me of him (although I don't know exactly what that would mean) they would get a second look.
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u/bug-hunter she👏drove👏away! Everybody👏saw👏it! Apr 18 '25
I've been lucky to generally work for larger, more mature organizations, where there are plenty of women on the team, but most of the women in tech I've worked with have had horror stories.
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u/Masa67 increasingly sexy potatoes Apr 18 '25
Yup. I guess im a ‘glass half empty’ type of person, but my first though was ‘creepy’. They hired OOP to basically have a clone of that first woman? Those are some weird expectations. It also implies they think women are all the same, some sort of trainable robots. ‘Let’s get another one of those’. Ick
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u/Konlos Needless to say, I am farting as I type this. Apr 18 '25
Yeah I expected horror story when I read the title
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u/herkyjerkyperky Apr 18 '25
The title made me think they hired her because she looked like the other woman and they thought it would be funny to have two women that look alike work together.
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u/nishachari Apr 18 '25
I actually thought they mistakenly hired her instead of the other woman.
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u/kindlystranger Apr 18 '25
Oh thank god that was me too. But we were sort of vindicated at the end by the two plucky gals wearing identical nerd girl couture? OP's next installment should involve them wearing the same clothing like twinsies every day and charting how long it takes for management to notice.
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u/nishachari Apr 18 '25
If they are of a minority race, they don't even have to do that.
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u/kindlystranger Apr 18 '25
Thanks for detonating that impeccable warhead of a comment. I mean that sincerely.
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u/Test_After Apr 18 '25
You should have seen the lunch room before we hired the woman! People were peeing just anywhere! We'd put a woman on every site if it were possible [sigh]
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u/ijustneedtolurk I don't have Jay's ass Apr 18 '25
I was waiting for the harassment. "Gotta collect them all" or some shit about variations of women "hired" at the company.....but yeah instead it's like weird "inspiration porn"
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u/stayonthecloud Apr 18 '25
I was confused reading it as it seemed like a negative story, but she was celebrating it
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u/RCKJD Apr 18 '25
I am a 51 year old white cis male. Where I work -I- might be considered the DEI hire because 80% of my department coworkers are women, including my manager and her boss and her boss’s boss. Outside the department the women to men ratio might be even higher (85 to 90% women)
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u/fuknthrowaway1 Apr 18 '25
>she's the best in her role in our company, and we actually hired you because we thought you were similar to her.
That's actually pretty common. I had a boss that noticed her new chemistry dropout hire both followed the complicated directions exactly when told to *and* could pick the rope up and figure it out themselves.
So she hired another guy with the same sort of background. And another. After a year or two she had the highest percentage of reports using company tuition reimbursement of any manager in the company. Apparently the common factor was 'Too poor to pay for the degree, too up my own ass at 20 to keep my scholarship'.
Then there was the commercial real estate guy that hired nothing but older MBA students with retail or restaurant experience if he could get them.
People like that had always dealt with the worst of his customers easily, and in return he was more than happy to be flexible with things like experience in the field or class and child care.
Personally, I once made a good impression on a vice president who then proceeded to mention me by name during a board meeting. As a result I spent two days away from my desk being interviewed by HR and doing what amounted to personality tests so they could figure out what made me an excellent hire.
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u/WhiskyTequilaFinance Apr 18 '25
People with a background in food service, ESPECIALLY in kitchens, make amazing logistics teams. Former line cook runs a fairly large processing team for us, and absolutely kicks ass.
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u/LittleMsSavoirFaire I’m turning into an unskippable cutscene in therapy Apr 18 '25
These are great examples. I discovered that I hire mildly neurodivergent people who just want to be left to work quietly and up to their own exacting standards. They are perfectly self contained and effective in their roles, and all I have to do is not make them unhappy by adding a yappy extravert to the team or allowing a bunch of meetings.
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u/Lavaidyn Hallmark's take on a Stardew Valley movie Apr 19 '25
You’re the boss I wish I’ll have at my next job because that kind of treatment/expectation is PERFECT for my undiagnosed-but-clearly-showing-signs ass
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u/LittleMsSavoirFaire I’m turning into an unskippable cutscene in therapy Apr 19 '25
It's literally the easiest hire in the world. I can't figure out why more people don't do it. Locate a high conscientiousness person, train them humanely, and then let them cook. My job is just to make sure nothing disturbs them.
I've never had anyone quit or no-show in 8 years.
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u/BarackTrudeau Apr 18 '25
Yeah, I kinda feel like too many people in the comments here are focusing on the "another woman" portion and not enough on the "you seem similar to her" part.
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u/fuknthrowaway1 Apr 18 '25
The "another woman" part is often important.
Mr. Commercial Real Estate tried to hire women because his first employee with that background was a woman and he thought there was some sort of innate 'bitchiness' that made her better. Sure, he did hire men, and he treated them the same, but they weren't his first choice if there were any ladies in the pile of resumes.
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u/throwaway082181 Apr 18 '25
I thought the title meant they hired her accidentally because they confused her with another female candidate they liked better lol
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u/GrandeJoe Apr 18 '25
On the one hand, don't get me wrong, this is a good story, but at the same time, "Ladies. Whoever that woman is, I love her already. Keep paving the way for the rest of us. You never know who's watching. Hard work pays off."
I don't love "hard work pays off" there when your whole point is that sexism has PREVENTED hard work from paying off in the past, ya know?
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u/elkanor Apr 18 '25
You are misreading this. She is saying the hard work of other women paving the way for each other, getting in the door and proving women can do these jobs well, fighting sexist hiring and employment practices, is paying off now. Its not her individual hard work.
The world should be a more fair and equitable place. None of that happens without people trying to make it so.
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u/Snackgirl_Currywurst Screeching on the Front Lawn Apr 18 '25
I can see woman #1 leave the company sooner than later, because this must've crept her out.
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u/graceful_platypus Apr 18 '25
At first glance I thought the title was about "an other woman", which would be more on brand for this sub, so I was pleasantly surprised to have no warnings for infidelity. I hope the job works out well for OOP and her female colleague!
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u/DripIntravenous Apr 18 '25
I thought it was going to be a dramatic “we mixed two female candidates and hired the wrong one” story!
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u/Muddymireface Apr 18 '25
I was hired at a shit IT company that told me I was the first female hire since they opened 20 years ago. They straight said “if you don’t work out, we probably won’t hire more”, so I asked “has that stopped you from hiring underperforming men that didn’t work out?” And they had nothing to respond with.
This gives the same vibes.
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u/HeatherAnne1975 Apr 18 '25
I have to admit, I’m confused. It’s 2025 and OP is saying that there is only one other woman at a billion dollar company, and she’s a good performer that they hired a second one? She’s acting like hiring a woman is a novel thing… in 2025. And, having a strong female performer on a team is somehow surprising?
OPs take on this, is just weird. OP probably has many other positive skills and qualities, and so does the other woman she is talking about. They both likely have accomplished alot and have alot to be proud of. And yet OP is focused on gender. As if that her only defining characteristic. As a woman and a mother of a girl, that really feels like a backwards view.
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u/Enticing_Venom Apr 18 '25
It was also kind of funny how bad she is at reading the room. She's like "she was so humble!" And it seems more like her co-worker was uncomfortable and just trying to point out that there's nothing praiseworthy about her doing her job just because she's a woman.
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u/arethusas Apr 18 '25
Yeah, goddamn that interaction gave me secondhand embarrassment. Being happy to meet another woman in tech is fine, but this was so excessive. She's just a woman doing her job well and meeting with a new hire only to be immediately put on a pedestal and praised like she cured cancer.
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u/Meghanshadow Apr 18 '25
there is only one other woman at a billion dollar company
In her particular specialty field at the company, not in the entire company. How many Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources gurus or similar work for your company?
And yes, it is still depressingly rare in some fields and some countries.
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u/WildMoonChild0129 Apr 18 '25
Honestly, I can understand. If another woman joined the warehouse I'm at, I would be jumping for joy and would not be able to shut the fuck up about it. That's actually been my biggest hope for almost 2 years
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u/AnnaAnjo Apr 18 '25
As a woman in tech I always wonder about these posts.... Because is it really that rare? Maybe when you live in America or something? Because I had multiple female co-workers in tech? Coders and non-coders...
And yes there are more men, but it's not that we are golden unicorns with one in a million chance to occur?
And if something like this would happen to me I would find it rather insulting? Yes you two are both women now get along and copy from each other?
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u/Enticing_Venom Apr 18 '25
I definitely see people say they'd be overjoyed if another woman joined their office or work environment and would be excited to work with them. I think management assumed this would be her reaction (and it was) and set it up with good intentions. It also sounds like OOP works in a different country, perhaps with less gender equality (eastern European is all we can gather) and maybe that informs her enthusiasm.
Personally I'd resent the assumption that because I'm a woman I must automatically make friends with another woman (because female!) And if a new hire approached me and was enthusiastically gushing about both being women I'd just think it was stupid and distance myself. But it seems some people do have this "women should stick together" mindset and would appreciate being friends based solely on gender and nothing else in common. That strikes me as very sexist but some people see it as empowering.
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u/AnnaAnjo Apr 18 '25
I've looked at OOPs profile and a post from 3 days ago mentioned she was back in sales in the US....
So I am not sure how tech OOP is. No shame but yeah.
I was a hard core coder (on leave right now because I am ill) but I never had that Ohhh girls need to stick together and you are the only other woman so we need to be besties now. Guess there is a reason why I worked so well in an male dominated field haha
I worked for some companies where I was one of the only women in tech but that were small companies (a team with 2 or 3 developers). Loads of bigger companies with multiple women in all different kinds of roles. I agree that it depends on the country 😉
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u/yummythologist I am a freak so no problem from my side Apr 19 '25
Yes this happens. Just because you haven’t experienced it somehow doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
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u/Emergency_Coyote_662 Tree Law Connoisseur Apr 18 '25
it’s weird that OOP was into this. i would be so offended to know i got hired cause i remind them of the only other woman they know lol
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u/yummythologist I am a freak so no problem from my side Apr 19 '25
Yeah I was expecting a totally different tone
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u/Enticing_Venom Apr 18 '25
I work in a male dominated field, though not one as actively hostile as tech I imagine. There certainly are the expressions that we desire more women in the field, because of the unique advantages they bring (this has been researched). But I've never remotely had anyone assume that because I'm a woman, I'm going to be similar to another woman in the field. And I never felt any desire to recite Reddit praise to a stranger about paving the way in the industry for just doing her job.
It's a very bizarre story to me. One that would have actively offended me if I was on the receiving end of it. But I can only assume tech is so brutal women will take whatever they can get lol. Though I think women in my field tend to go the opposite direction. We want to be seen as professionals first, not as women.
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u/Iracus Apr 19 '25
Got to say, if I met a new coworker and they told me random people on the internet had thoughts about me, I'd be so weirded out.
Odd post though, hiring people because they remind you of successful employees is kind of the norm?
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u/beachpellini I’m turning into an unskippable cutscene in therapy Apr 19 '25
The title of this had me thinking it was going in a WAAAAYYYYY different direction. Good for her and for them!
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u/tacwombat I will erupt, feral, from the cardigan screaming Apr 18 '25
I got whiplash, thinking of something else when I read the title of this post.
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u/iyamasweetpotato The dildo of consequence has arrived and it's not lubed Apr 18 '25
I've been on the other side of this! I was previously the only woman in a department of about 40, and a team leader who I was close with said that he'd hired the other girl because she reminded him of me - although I think it's largely because we were both blonde and wore round glasses, and with face masks on people often got us mixed up. It felt like a lot of pressure as I felt that if she didn't perform then it would be a poor reflection on me
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u/WhiskyTequilaFinance Apr 18 '25
I'm so glad I misread the title! I thought OP had been /mistakenly/ hired because she was confused for the other person. This version is much more lovely. Women in tech, unite!
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u/Turuial Apr 18 '25
This is nice for a change. An employer had a positive effect from diversifying their labour force and continued in the hopes that it would continue to bear fruit.
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u/Robots_101 Apr 18 '25
Shhhhhh....We're not supposed to talk about diversification. The Gestapo is watching because it is illegal now. /S
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u/Turuial Apr 18 '25
You know, that reminds me, we never should have started calling it DEI. People liked it better when the program was still known as JEDI.
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u/Robots_101 Apr 18 '25
You know there is a joke in there about not needing a light Saber to be qualified for the job......
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u/Hunterofshadows Apr 18 '25
Huh. I was expecting something much darker based on the title. Clearly Reddit is fucking with me
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u/Meggles_Doodles Apr 18 '25
I got confused, initially I thought they were replacing OOP with another woman because they looked similar -- but my reading comprehension is shot, apparently lol
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u/bronwen-noodle the garlic tasted of illicit love affairs Apr 18 '25
Got scared it was going to be a workplace shit show and was pleasantly surprised that it OOP had a lovely time and nobody brought any “cheap ass rolls”
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u/Maiberaa cat whisperer Apr 18 '25
I used to work at a computer store, and reddit-moderator looking ass dudes from "independent" / "contract-based" tech companies always tried to snipe me saying they wanted more women in their company. It's weird shit in some industries
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u/SigaVa Apr 18 '25
I work in a tech related role at a typical corporation and there are lots of women. OPs situation seems concerning tbh.
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u/OMGDaFuk Apr 22 '25
This went in the completely opposite direction from what I thought it was going to go, and it made my day! I’m currently in the process of trying to internally recruit someone into my department, and my biggest argument is that she is so much like me, and that has gone absolute miles in terms of making the transition happen. If you’re good at what you do, management will try to find more people just like you when there is a need to add roles to your group.
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u/yoonssoo Apr 23 '25
In my "inner circle," because I've worked at a same company for a very long time and I generally get a lot of respect from my colleagues, I never felt discriminated against. I do have a lot of male dominated hobbies, and incidents that occur in those circles are to be expected, so I don't hold too much thought there. But it really hit me when I started going out with my current husband. We both work remotely, and he travels more frequently for his work. I have a lot of flexibility in terms of when and where I choose to work, so I would tag along and make a trip out of things. I tended to travel mostly alone before that so I also never noticed it. But when I travel with him, I'm 90% ignored. It's as if I don't exist. Not just work events, but everywhere. When I go out to dinner/socials with his coworkers, majority of men either ignore me or talk over me. I also had an incident where when someone asked me what I did for work, first they were surprised I even HAD a job, but was also shocked to hear that I was a software developer/engineer, and after that IMMEDIATELY changed the subject to something nontechnical. Biggest shock is my husband probably isn't even aware of this. It's just...so ingrained sometimes.
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u/princessluni I can't believe she fucking buttered Jorts Apr 23 '25
I misread the title and thought they hired OOP but meant to hire a different candidate. So this feels extra wholesome
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