Friends, my FAVORITE STORY OF THE YEAR is finally out!!!

This is for every Millennial who's overworked and talked down to and underappreciated at the office, but is stuck in the job bc yanno, healthcare and rent and student loans and capitalism.

http://www.castofwonders.org/2019/12/cast-of-wonders-390-the-tale-of-descruptikn-and-the-product-launch-requirements-documentation/

It is my favorite story for many reasons, but one of them is because it literally came from snarking on a tweet typo. Because @LegalValkyrie is awesome.

"The Tale of Descruptikn and the Product Launch Requirements Documentation" has many of my own frustrations w capitalism, work culture, & people talking down to younger people. Also it's a fairy tale.

If you share any of these I hope you read & enjoy it! http://www.castofwonders.org/2019/12/cast-of-wonders-390-the-tale-of-descruptikn-and-the-product-launch-requirements-documentation/

Just for fun, here's my favorite "getting talked down to at work" story.

I look young. When I started my first "grownup" job at IBM, I was 20. My boss, the 2nd youngest person in our group, was 40. Everyone else was older. And I looked 16 *at best*.

A year later I started leading a workgroup. We met once a week by phone conference (this was 2005, multi-person video conferences weren't a thing, yes I'm old) and after a few months we were ready to present some findings to a larger team.

Let's be generous and say I looked 18.

Now, we had occasional college interns roaming around. It was not unheard of for there to be an 18 y/o roaming around.

Which made it all the more galling that someone *from the workgroup I'd been leading* saw me in person for the first time right before that presentation...

... ignored my very-visible badge (that had my name and photo on it) and said, "Are you lost? Are you looking for your mom or dad?"

At which point I stuck out my hand, said "Hi, I'm Effie. Great to finally meet you. I'm looking forward to giving our presentation."

In my 15y in tech, I can never tell how much someone is talking down to me bc of my gender vs how young I look.

And you gotta grit your teeth and take it - even if you're politely correcting someone it's gotta be polite - because marginalized folks can't afford to do otherwise.