Unless kookla is head of HR or something, why is it her job to get her co-worker to perform his job appropriately?

It's frustrating that you get dinged if you do it and dinged if you don't. I was the person who cleaned out the fridge at my old office and even though I put up a notice 3 days before cleaning out (each month) with clear instructions I STILL got shit from people pissed that their moldy tupperware got tossed. Cleaning…

My solution has always been to just refuse to do these jobs. I will work in filth if that's what it takes to avoid cleaning my office! However, I had a co-worker who could not handle the mess, and we came up with a plan that worked well. She tracked her time, and estimated how much was spent on menial tasks that were…

Believe it or not, having a sense of community is very important within a workplace, even if it's fairly a formal and professional kind of community. Crucially important.

Women as "magical helpers." Same thing happens to female characters in films - they're always the selfless "helper" to the male hero/protagonist, never the active protagonist helped selflessly by the male character.

Related: Gawker Media men leave the seat up, but far less frequently than you might expect.

Once, at a company where I was the only woman, I got in the habit of making the 1st pot of coffee because I was always the first one in. The CPO said to me one day, 'I'm glad you make the coffee, it tastes better when a woman makes it.' I bought my coffee on the way in from then on and never brewed another pot.

One of my coworkers was out "sick" a whole bunch in December (I strongly suspect that at least half of her illnesses were made up but I can't/don't care to prove it) and I was picking up her slack because we're the only two admins in our particular unit. End of the year is already an unbelievably busy time for us and…

No shit. My colleagues insist on having video conferences where they deliver requirements verbally, and expect me to write that shit down, like I'm their fucking secretary.

This just reminds me of a scene in the hit film Super Troopers, in which the policewoman is expected to refill the toilet paper in the men's room, then when she refuses is told that if the male officer's wife were to act as disrespectful as she just did, he would "take [her] down a peg or two."

My super awesome mom, after years of working as a successful independent consultant, recently accepted a job as an executive/c-suite level employee at a financial firm. She is the only woman executive. During her first week, another executive told her part of her duties would be to cover the phones when the…

WHAT.

The thing is, I just don't buy that thing about men not "being as competent" at the admin shit as women. I've heard this a lot, and it's such a crock. Answering the phone is a simple task. So are things like opening a letter and seeing that the contents are actioned or filed appropriately. Don't even get me started on…

I've had 6 jobs since starting law school in 2006, and at every single workplace, this has been true, though I hadn't really ever thought about it until reading this.

I'm the only woman at my firm in a non administrative capacity out about 35 and - you know what - I'm having a really fucking crappy week of microagressions I want to SCREAM. These are good guys with good hearts but the microagressions, little comments, expectations, etc are just too much some days. There is something…

And if someone needs to take minutes during a meeting, and there is only one lady in the meeting, who gets this task? Ha.

I was hired as an office manager for a company, long ago. I read the job description carefully, of course, when I applied for the job in the first place. So color me surprised when, about a month in, I'm being asked to clean the office.

I work at a Japanese company that is old fashioned even by Japanese standards. Even though we currently have 3 male college-aged interns, it is the 30+ year-old female employees who are the ones fetching coffee, cleaning the office, and (no joke) mending the senior staff's clothes. Since I'm a foreigner I can get away…

I got so sick of people just leaving dirty dishes (luckily there was one other guy who helped out with the cleaning but only one out of a dozen) that I took all the mugs and locked them in a cabinet, never to be seen again. If you don't clean up, you don't deserve dishes. The other issue would be people leaving them…

Oh, you mean like how I'm the plant controller and in charge of month-end closure of the books but also I supervise the running and emptying of the kitchen dishwasher and also have to organize fucking events for when someone has a birthday / has a baby?