Season 1 (OLD FORMAT) - Overcoming Toxic Work Environments

 This episode is part of our first season, which focused on gender bias in the corporate world. The show has since evolved to be about women on the front lines of social justice.

In this episode, I talk to a copywriter and people manager in the creative industry who shares her experiences as a woman working in a toxic work environment. 

You’ll probably relate to quite a few of her struggles, like feeling undervalued, grappling with toxic male bosses, and confronting unhealthy and unfair expectations.

In this candid conversation, we explore the power of intuition, the value of seeking support, and the importance of documenting subtle biases to uncover patterns. 

But it's not just about resilience—it's also about growth. We delve into the profound journey of self-forgiveness and the transformative power of reflecting on past experiences. Through it all, our guest reminds us to extend ourselves grace and acknowledge our inherent worth, even in the face of adversity.

If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. And share it with your fellow working women!

Transcript

0:12

Welcome to Working Girl, your safe space to talk about gender bias in the workplace. I'm your host, Rachel Mpala a.k.a. the Gender Bias Coach. I've witnessed firsthand the insidious effects of gender bias on women's careers. What's worse, no one is talking about it. That's why my mission is to end the stigma surrounding these conversations and to create a culture of openness and empowerment. It's time for women to stop shouldering these burdens alone and start receiving the validation and support they deserve. So sit back, relax, and welcome to the ultimate support group for working women. Hello, and thank you so much for being here and for having the courage to share your story. I know it is not easy at all, especially when you have no idea who's even listening to you. But I would love if you could start by telling our listeners a I'm a it's so weird to not start with my own name. I work in the creative industry as a We'll get it as you as an employee and also as a people manager, which I think provides a lot of depth to the experience as So let's start off with the basics. Let's hear about your experiences with gender bias in your career. And just give us a little overview of what that experience has So I have experienced pretty much a little of everything that you would expect. I've had managers and clients in public settings comment on my body, on what I was wearing. I have had people talk over me in meetings and ignore the thing that I say. Suddenly, yeah, the classic gender bias out of thin air. Yeah. And I have had major issues with the pay gap, where once I became a people manager, I could see that even people on my own team were making more than me. That's a gut punch. Yeah, a real big one. And I think the biggest drain of them all, because a lot of them feel like things that I probably could have worked around, but what really stood out to me in my career was that a lot of it, especially, I was very ambitious, I worked really hard, and when I was in my early 20s, I was working among men who were managers of their teams. I was not a manager at that point, just low-level copywriter, but I was doing all the work that they were doing I was directly responding to the same manager that they had, our creative director, and basically keeping up with these guys. And they were definitely making maybe twice as much as me. four times as much as me, according to rumors, and I never got the title of manager for the longest time. I was fighting to get this title, this recognition, and I was even fighting for people to treat the role of my craft, of writing, as important because it wasn't even valued in the company because it had a rocky start and then One woman, pioneering woman, decided to introduce copywriting among all the designers there and say, hey, designers, you don't have to write this. Brand managers, accountants, you don't have to write this stuff. You can hire a professional, which was great. But after that, once I came and joined this team, that So suddenly you were having to drive the success of this new area And you didn't Exactly. There was no one to back me up. No one to support me. I had to be everything that Isn't that the way for so many women have to be everything? What I'm hearing, too, is that it sounds like you were just on a boys club. And not only that, you were in a boys club. And then to make matters worse, the very thing that you're contributing, they don't really care about or give a damn about. Like you're already not welcome as a woman. And then on top of that, they don't even respect what No. Many of them actually tried to either bulldoze the role of my team, say, oh, well, your work isn't good enough, so we're just going to ignore it and not use it. Or they tried to become my manager and take control of my team in sort of kind of backhanded ways. Because, you know, they would be able to speak with the creative director. first. Career director would listen to them first. So when they said, oh, well, her team isn't doing stuff right. No one would tell me. No one said anything. They would just go to the career director and then I'd be out of the loop. And constantly, constantly they would hire in new managers. Like this is how you know how toxic the situation was, was that even when they would hire managers over me, I have had seven managers in the past seven years at this one company. It says a lot. says a lot. Nobody wanted to be in that position that I was in. And I was surviving it. I was doing it. I was training those managers, onboarding a lot of them. And, you know, they would leave or many of them would get let go. And it was always those periods in between when the director was at a loss for what to do. We do actually kind of need copywriting, I guess. So how do we keep this team running? Well, she's here. They knew I was quite capable, quite competent. And But part of me wonders, how much more likely do you think they would have been welcoming you with open arms, both you and your work and your expertise, had you not been a woman? Like, I wonder if a man had been the one brought into this role. how different that entire path you just explained, like how different would that have been? How much quicker would they have started making headway and started becoming a great stakeholder relationships and et cetera? Like, I do think it's interesting. You I know that that would have been the case because it wasn't anything I was doing. Because at that time I was trying to do something called leaning in, which is when you try to be assertive, when you try to be masculine in the way you approach stuff. Because the manager before me, the trailblazing woman, that's kind of how she did things. And she even said to me, I know how to play the game. I know how to work with this creative director. He's a lot like my dad. He's just kind of easy to manipulate. Oh, ew. Yeah, it was a little weird. But he's, he's one of those guys. He just wants to be a cool guy. He just wants to be light. You just kind of work with that and beat him in his own game. That's not even managing up either. It's toxic. Yeah, well, definitely. It's like but you're you're tailoring yourself to a man's wants. Yes. Versus what does the job actually demand of you? It's like now you're suddenly having to worry about how this man will see you. I No. Well, that was part of it. I had no job description, so he could pile on any work he wanted onto me. And many times I asked for things to be written down. No, he refused. Because he knew. He knew. He was playing that game. And it went against my principles. I did not want to play the game. I don't like to be an asshole. And that's kind of just what I was told was basically the only way I could survive. And it was a problem. It was a problem because it didn't come naturally to me and I constantly thought, well, maybe I'm just, do I not know how to navigate conversations? I even thought like, am I neurodivergent? Like, is it something like that that makes it hard for me to communicate and navigate these tricky conversations? No, but at the time I didn't realize it. It's just not in my bones to be mean to people and to crush people or to bow down to them and stroke their ego. I just want to get work done. Good work and be seen for it. I think there's so much to what you just said. And I think for me, it brings up two key points. First, you know, you talked about lean and I don't know if you ever read it. I highly recommend there is a book called Lean Out. Yes. I'm reading it right now. Yeah, I've spoken with the author. She's amazing. And her story is really incredible because she worked for Sheryl Sandberg. And this is not an ad, but I do recommend you read it. But, you know, she even talks in the book about how, you know, Lean In, while it had good intent, it very much was saying, act more like men in order to get what they have. And essentially what she challenges is, why do I need to act more like a man and not like a woman? And also, who is assuming that we want exactly what men have? And a big part of what I do in my work is I try to then challenge my clients and say, Are you sure that the success you've put in your head is really the success that you're going to be most fulfilled by or that you're most capable of? And if it is, that's great, as long as it's your choice. But I often find that so many women are like, wait, we can redefine success. I'm like, yeah, you can redefine success on your own terms. And I think so much of that is also just deciding if you want to be a really assertive, quote unquote, bossy woman in the workplace. Fantastic. I support you all the way. If you don't want to do that at all and you still want to rise up the ranks and be an amazing leader. Fantastic. I support you all the way. But the point is that you should have the choice to be able to be who you want to be. That shouldn't be dictated by your gender. And I just think that's such a nuanced topic that a lot of people aren't ready to get into just yet. But I just think that that's something that we really need to talk about. I agree. Okay. And then I would tell you my second point I was going to make, but I've already forgotten about it. So blame that on the woman's brain that has way too much going on inside of it. Hopefully I think of it a little bit later, but please, you were talking all about lean out and how you didn't want to have to act like a man in order Exactly. Yes. So I didn't want to have to do that, but I tried it. I gave it a shot. I did the whole be assertive. And I asked for raises that felt weird asking for. But I went in saying this is what I deserved and it was thrown back in my face. It didn't work. So I definitely don't think it's the you need to be more masculine. for It is the system. Yeah, I mean, you see a lot of times when women act more like men, quote unquote, they have those more authoritative personality things like being assertive or whatnot. I think there's such a double standard because an assertive woman will often be called aggressive, while a woman might be called bossy, a man might be called a strong leader. And so I think for a lot of women in our experiences, our careers have shown us that that is not true, that just by acting more like men, it's going to pay off. If anything, it's like, well, no, I just think it's my gender. I just think that they see that I'm a woman and And I want to add to that. I often get called something very specific. I get told I'm too passionate. They say it as a bad thing. I've only heard that as a compliment, but now that I think about it, I've only ever heard that as a compliment about men. Right. You're just so passionate and you're getting, it's saying you're getting too emotional. You're too much. No one has specifically called me too much, but this is a very PC way to get around it and say, you're, you're too passionate. You know, you need to distance yourself from the work. And no, I like the job I do. I like my work. And it's this expectation for you to be very stoic and very like, you know, it's all about the facts and the, we just need A to get B and C done and that's it. And I'm going to go home and not think about work. Sorry. But you know, I actually will challenge that. I can see why you would think that because of what you were told, but I've managed a lot of people. I've worked with a lot of other managers and directors who were predominantly men, and I just don't know that that is the case, that that's what companies are really looking for. If anything, I always would see them critiquing or condemning others who were just coming in to clock in and clock out. They always were looking for, why don't they care more about their job? Don't they know like, this isn't just a paycheck, we're a family here. And so it's so interesting to hear you say that because this is now the second thing you've said to me where I'm like, wait, But that's so weird that that's what you were told as a critique of yourself, because I've only ever heard that as a compliment. But then I realize I've only ever heard it as a compliment for men. So clearly, there is a disconnect when it's about a woman. And suddenly, this very trait you admire and love about male employees is suddenly not as cherished and respected. and women. And so to segue on that, because you know, what I'm kind of gathering, and I think anyone could put the pieces together, you're clearly being put in a position where you're set up to fail, right? You are coming in with someone who has incredible vision for your type of role, your expertise, what you can contribute to the company, then suddenly they leave, and you're all alone in the deep end trying to figure out How to not only just have a job and get a paycheck but also deal with all these weird toxic dynamics that you didn't ask for that had nothing to do with your job. And now you're also suddenly having to worry about your male bosses. ego, if I'm being blunt. And I'm curious, first, how did that make you feel? Because I'm sure the women listening are probably just like, Oh, my God, I have been there. It's so irritating to have to worry about the male bosses feelings when I my feelings were never worried about. And then I'm also just curious, how did you react to this? What was your game plan? What did you do? Or did you just kind of be like, you know what, I just have to deal with it So first off, How did I react to it? How did I feel about it? I felt that it was my fault. Very much in the beginning, I felt I wasn't assertive enough. I felt I need to lean in and do this. And it was very isolating. I felt like I couldn't go to anyone because if I did, then it would say that I'm not manager material. If I can't handle this problem myself, I probably shouldn't be made a manager. So I couldn't go to the creative director. I could not let other people in our department know, or else it would just reflect as incompetency. There was nothing I could do. And along with just a purely toxic work environment, it was killing me, truly. It had crazy impacts on me, just on my mental health, depression. It got really bad. I got to some really dark places that Luckily, some friends saw outside the workplace and they helped bring me out of it. But I still could not get out of the situation. I was so exhausted every single day. I didn't have the energy at the end of the day to do anything. I didn't have time to write a resume, to build a It is. And I just spent all of my time outside of work thinking about work, because it was in my brain. It was trauma, and I couldn't escape it. I would say all the time to my friends, I got to get out of here. I got to quit. And they're like, yeah, you need to quit. And then I just couldn't. There was a point when this all just came to a head. And basically, some of the employees who were on my team, I was not their manager at the time, I was not given that title. So I couldn't control them. But these employees were problematic. They were fighting, they were fighting with other people at the company. And The creative director was like, why aren't you managing them? He wrote down the thing. Basically, the company was about to experience a whole reorg, and we were asked to do things like basically kind It is pretty common, but you don't ask someone who is not a people manager. But I was asked to basically fill this thing out about my coworkers. I did not feel comfortable doing that. I refused to do it. And when I refused to do it, creative director said, oh, well, I guess we can't make you a manager. In my review at the time, my annual review, he was like, well, you're not ready to be a manager yet, even though I'm sort of dumbfounded. So first of all, I find the comment that he made to you so funny of like, why aren't you managing them? It's like saying, why aren't you doing a role I never gave you? that it just doesn't make sense. But also, it's so unfair. You know, I talk a lot about objective feedback when I do my workshops, because I think it's so important. And having a reason for why you aren't ready to be a manager, be that you didn't meet this like arbitrary, very subjective thing in his mind that he had not told you about that you did not realize was part of how you were being judged or graded as far as being a potential manager. Like you were already set up to fail. And now I'm just like, you're not even in the failure like field. You're now in a failure stadium. Like there's so much Yes, it was insane. And I was set up to fail. The goalposts kept moving. And one minute he says, no, you're not cut out to be manager. Next minute he says, OK, these two are bothering me too much, the co-workers. so i'm gonna give you the title of manager he gave me a pseudo title when you say a pseudo title did he specifically say i'm giving you this promotion despite the fact that you did not tell me who to let go of or was it more like a yeah yeah yeah you can do this other work for me that i don't want to deal with yes it was more these people were going to him and also you can't have her tell us what to do either. Like they were fighting me as well. And he was just fed up. So he was like, okay, I'm just going to tell the whole department that this is your new title now. So that those problem people would hear that. And then I could tell them what to do. It was just a whole debacle. I accepted the position thinking, Oh, this was a real position. I didn't know it was pseudo. I didn't know it was fake until Slowly, it came to light. Little things came to light, like, oh, I didn't seem like HR found out about it, didn't seem like they knew about it. I wasn't going to get any sort of raise, even though he kept telling me, well, next month, there's an opportunity to talk about it. Next month is when they settle the books. So just wait a month. And he kept, like, baiting me on and making me wait and telling me if I told someone else, then, well, I guess we're going to have to remove this role. He even told me, I think he misunderstood what Just a little bit of gaslighting, okay. The whole time. And so it came to this one discussion where I had taken all the advice I could. It was like gearing up for battle for this, where I spoke to mentors that I had. There was a woman in accounting who I was friends with. She was an older woman, and she was very good at setting her boundaries. I really admired her for that. And she talked me through, here are some questions to ask him. What does this acting manager role mean? How long does the acting last for? Have him put it in writing, you know, ask him these questions. Ask him if you can go to his manager and discuss the role. Really great advice like that. So I built this list of questions and things for me to say. And then I had that discussion with him when he's just a really eye-opening discussion. At the time, I had no idea how bad it was. But going back and looking at my notes changed everything. And that was the thing I did. I was taking receipts at this point. That's key. Yes. Twice I was told this. And the two people who had told me this were the only two Black women in our department. And they knew. They were like, look, we know this bullshit. They've got the double-edged sword, right? They've got to not only deal with the gender side, the race side, then you add in other factors, maybe age, disability, if they're mothers. So Black women will be the first ones to tell you Nope, that's not okay. And here's what I did. I have always found the best allies to be black women, which is sad because I don't think white women are very often good or supportive allies of black women in return. But that's a whole other conversation for another day. I did. That advice has always been really critical to me. So I transcribed that discussion I'd had with my manager, with the creative director, like I wrote all of it down and so that I could share it. with HR so that I could discuss it and had it in writing. So basically after that big discussion where he really revealed that, okay, he'd never told HR and that he was saying, oh, well, you know, you just misunderstood the role. And he even brought up that like, oh, well, people have been coming to me complaining about the quality of the work. And I said, I haven't experienced that. No one came to me. And he said, well, yeah, because I'm the manager. He literally said that. And even in that moment, I was able to throw back at him and I was like, yeah, you're the manager, not me. So why would you expect me to be able to address the quality of their work? In that moment, he was so dumbfounded. He was like backpedaling and like, well, and just diverted to something else I'd done wrong. It was so obvious. But even then, because I was in just such this bad mental state, this desperate situation to prove myself and also just thinking I was not good enough at this, I still thought, OK, it's still me. Looking back, I did not push enough in that conversation, but I was going to say, I mean, I think the last experience you have in the workplace It can be impossible or feel impossible at least to have those types of conversations, especially if you're in a workplace that has a toxic culture because then you know that there will be no accountability. for this kind of behavior, right? Even if everyone agrees they are toxic, if the infrastructure isn't right, and then there's mold growth in the garage, the whole house is going to fall apart. We just had to terminate a house contract because of that very thing. So it's very fresh on my mind. But I think the analogy stands. If you're going to have that kind of thing and you want to feel truly, truly confident that you can be more assertive in that situation without repercussions, you need to have people who will back you and be in your corner, whether it's the company or whether it's like a true support system of women who are higher up than you or It is. I will definitely say I thought constantly then I just kind of, I knew that there were problems. I'm not dumb. Back then I felt I might have felt that way, but I know that I was not. I could sense this is wrong. I could never have known how bad it was until I was out of the situation. But I couldn't get myself out of the situation because I was burned out beyond belief. I needed someone outside who I could trust. And there just wasn't anyone who was close enough in the industry to know what was happening, to understand it, but far enough from my network to not maybe kind of run into some of these people and whatnot and for it to be awkward and scary. Because again, I was terrified that if someone said that I had any problems with anything that was going on, it would come back to an issue of my competence That actually reminds me of something that you made me think of earlier. You know, I've found from personal experience, I won't even speak for other people, when I would complain or even if I would bring like constructive criticisms to my manager of issues that were going on that were maybe more personnel related. I was always portrayed to be like creating drama where there wasn't drama. Like, ah, things are going fine. Like, that's going to really just mess things up and make things more complicated than they need to be. But then when other men would say things about me, I would then get a talking to of like, well, we've gotten some complaints, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so it just felt like such a double standard of, how do you know there's validity to their complaints about me? And similarly, like, you should vet to make sure that there's validity to my complaints, but at the same time, at least take both of them just as seriously as Mm-mm. So where all of it ended up was I sent that along to HR and HR said, okay, well, go ahead, go to your boss's boss, set up a meeting with her. And it was all really like, yeah, we'll speak. It was a little bit woman to woman and also just, you know, HR trying to handle it. I was friends with HR. So I trusted her pretty well, but unfortunately with the reori, everything that was happening. literally the day that I was supposed to meet with boss's boss, who's who's a woman who's very, very impressive, like successful woman. And I was sure that she would want to hear me out. She left the company under, I don't know what kind of circumstances, but she left the company and there went everything. The HR person I spoke to eventually was no longer with the company. So that sort of record I'd had with her, that she knew what had happened to me, that was gone. Everything that had happened to me was erased essentially overnight in a reorg. because new management came in, so my creative director also out of here eventually. Fine, great, but now there's someone else. Sounds like it was for the best. It was definitely for the best, but once again, I basically started from scratch. I had to prove myself all over again and was running into the same problems. Although this time, I was a bit better at it and I did eventually get the manager position. I was a lot stronger in future conversations when speaking to the new creative director. And, you know, I don't want to say stronger. I was more confident. And by that point, I knew if I weren't good at what I was doing, they would have let me go. Yeah. They wouldn't be asking me to do all of this work. So I was able to become a manager. And with that came its other problems. There was still the Boys Club. I did gain some more allies who came to the company at that time, but you know, for me, but you still have that problem. And I still wasn't being compensated. That was basically coming in at a low pay rate and just never, ever getting the raises I deserved meant that I was almost permanently crippled for years at this company, not being able to get the raises I deserved. And they would tell me every year, they'd say, oh, well, you're getting a huge percentage raise. Huge percent of what? 20% of like 35K. That's not a lot. No, I get it. That equates to like one executive's flight, you know, somewhere. Yeah. But it made it really hard. Even when I did get other managers brought in over me, even they couldn't build the arguments for me. It took a while, but eventually, eventually, finally took good management, again, moved to a good team and I'm sure, and I think it probably always will, you know, even at the point I've reached in my career. there are still days where certain people or experiences will really test me. And I'll have to pause and ask myself, like, why am I getting so triggered by this? And I'll realize it's probably because it's triggering, like, an old experience, you know? And so I'll kind of have to work myself through, like, this isn't then and It doesn't necessarily mean that the present day issue isn't bad, but just you become more grateful for your experience because you realize as painful as all of that was, you now are so much stronger and more confident and you're able to approach things, like you said, with a lot more Confidence and resilience than you were able to previously and you kind of spoke to this too You were talking about when you were dealing something with your manager that you were in the moment feeling like I just I don't know how to navigate this I don't know how to deal with it because when you're in the thing at the time you It can be so hard to like disassociate from the problem and see like your part in it and their part in it and be able to see everything for what it really is. I mean there's a reason they say hindsight is 2020 and I do think like going through something that's really awful in any situation, not just work, but if you're able to self-reflect and then look back on it in the future, once you're feeling a lot more healed, ideally, it can be really helpful to assess, okay, through this now, this future lens that I'm looking at that through, what was going on? What other dynamics were happening that maybe I didn't know about? What do I wish I had done differently? And also, giving yourself a lot of grace that there might be a lot of things you wish you had done differently that there's just no way you could have known to do without the experience that you have now. And I think also just giving yourself a lot of grace and like, you know, in therapy, my therapist always tells me to like, talk to my younger child self when I'm dealing with my trauma. And I think it can be really similar to think of these bad work experiences similarly. It's like looking back at that younger version of yourself and just saying, yeah, there's probably a million things you could have done differently, or you could have been more bold or more assertive or stood up for yourself, but you were just dealing with it the best way you could with what you knew at that time. And if you don't have a lot of female allies or resources that can help you, you really are just on your own figuring it out. And I think just kind of forgiving yourself that you didn't do better in the time because you were doing what you could with Absolutely. Because over time, I learned a lot from those past experiences. In great part, I learned about myself and distance and time away from that. and removing problematic people out of the way, but also finally finding a manager and a team that treated me like a person, treated me like valuing what I had to offer. Finally getting that empowerment allowed me to see how bad things had gotten. allowed me to see what I had been missing all along, what I had been blaming myself for, which was not fair. And it's so much easier to forgive your younger self, your past self, which has been a journey that I've been on. But I think also, we have to pay attention to forgiving ourselves in the now. And it's hard to do. It's hard to do to still know that you're fine as you are. You're making this work however you are. You don't have to manage like some other really cool manager you've seen. You'll find something that feels right to you because if it's working, it's Yeah. And I think going off that, you know, I want to clarify for anyone listening, when we talk about forgiving ourselves, I know I speak for both of us when I say that we're not at all implying that we had done anything inherently wrong with our experiences in the past. It's more that I think that women, especially, but anyone, really, we are our own worst enemies, right? We will assess anything that we've gone through and how we engaged or interacted with it, and find fault in it. I'm that person who will like leave a party and immediately think, like I'm up all night thinking about how weird the thing I said was to so and so that he probably doesn't even remember my name. And I'll think about it for 20 years, you know, so I think it's It's more like commenting on like forgiving yourself and not just maybe a different way of saying it's just not beating yourself up. Giving yourself grace. Yes. So as we wrap up, I would love to know on top of what we just said, what advice would you give any women, especially younger women who don't maybe have the allies they need yet or the confidence that they wish they had? What advice would you give them if Listen to your gut. You are so much smarter than anyone is telling you right now if you're in this situation. And you are so much more capable than what they're leading you to feel. So if your gut is telling you that something is wrong, feel free to listen to it. It's right. You're right. Something is off. It's okay if you can't figure out what is off. It's okay if you can't tell, like, Is it me? Is it them? It's okay if you don't know. You are still competent even if you don't know how to get out of the situation that you're in. So I would say reach out. Like I said, you can't tell, like the whole boiling frog metaphor, you can't tell how hot the water is. You know, you can't tell that it's boiling. You need someone outside to say, yo, stop, get out of there, get out. You know, it's, it's, that's not okay. That's a great analogy, actually. It is, it is. A little cheesy, a little used. spoken like a copywriter. You're like, I know. I know But for real, so whether that is a friend or a therapist or someone like Rachel, gender bias coach. And I'm not saying that as a plug. I really say it honestly. I think back then my problem was that I was nagging. No, I'm not going to say that. Screw that. I was not nagging. I was venting my issues to friends. I knew that I was in a bad situation, but I was not reaching out to professional help. And my friends could only help so much. I could only do so much for myself. And I was running into a wall. And if I had someone, some sort of professional of any sort to just guide me through this, it would have probably got me further than what I was able to do at the time. It would have gotten me out of that faster. Because I do feel a lot of regret of how much time I spent sort of spiraling a drain in my career. and not moving forward. Instead, I was just in this sort of spiral where I couldn't get out and I couldn't, I couldn't succeed. I think I probably could have done so many more things had I just been able to get out of the situation. And also take receipts, get receipts of everything, write down everything. So a lot of what we women experience is very subtle bias. Like, yeah, when a client says, ooh, that dress is so becoming of you and whatever, and it's just like looking you up and down. Okay, that's easy to call out. But when a male employee that you just became manager of keeps Making things slightly difficult. Not, you know, nothing easy to call out. Oh, he just kind of sent you a broken link one time. I know it seems petty, but add that to a list. because I did that before. My gut was telling me something is wrong here. I added it to a list, didn't do anything about it at the moment. But over time, because so many of these little tiny things happened, and I kept receipts and they added up, I was then able to say, this employee is causing challenges because they are not paying attention to detail. Because you can't just say, oh, well, he's picking on me. But I can say, well, I can consistently see that he has delivered poor quality work to me than to this male counterpart that I'm working with. So receipts can help you identify trends, keep you feeling sane. And it's also really interesting to look back on years from then and Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Well, thank you Thank you so much for being part of this week's conversation. For more information and additional resources, be sure to visit Rachel and Paula.com slash podcast for the complete show notes. And you know the drill. Make sure to subscribe. leave a review, and if you love the podcast, make sure to share it with another working woman in your life. You never know who could use the support. Thank you again for spending this time with me, Rachel Mpala in this episode of Working Girl. Until next time, keep breaking barriers, shattering stereotypes, and redefining success on your own terms. I'll