I wanted to ask....At my husband's office they celebrated professional administrative support week. My husband is extremely fond of the two ladies that he works directly with but even if he hated them it's not his nature to forget any occasion. Most of the guys at the office aren't really great about organizing anything but they are happy to open their wallets. With some prompts and encouragement they'll also organize something.
Anyway, what was done was that they each got a gift certificate at a local tea shoppe to go for a lunch for two, my mom and I brought in a luncheon on friday, and they got to go home 2 hours earlier and the phone lines were manned by the other professionals in the office. The latter was a bit of a disaster because they couldn't answer or transfer properly.
It is an office that is very male-dominated because engineering is male dominated. The one female at the office who works outside of the administrative support is an engineer. She and I are very fond of each other despite the fact that we are very different people. I think being in that faculty made her a bit more resilient and thicker skinned than I am. We also just see the world entirely different. Despite this we are not just superficially nice to each other we genuinely hold each other in affection.
She wouldn't support in any celebration or recognition of the week. I wasn't aware of that until I was setting up the tables and she was leaving the building. She said she had made arrangements to take the afternoon off so it didn't dampen any festivities but she felt it was wrong. To her she sees it as very wrong because it dilutes the whole idea that they have a professional role that they are compensated for and are an equal within the office. It creates this structure where ONE group is working for ANOTHER. In her eyes it's a mistreatment. It was clear that it was more about labour class issues than bout sexism. She went on and on and I gotta say I couldn't wrap my head around it.
Does anyone understand this?