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The thing that keeps tripping me up is the cost of sexual harassment.
The first time I dealt with a serious bout of sexual harassment at work, I ended up quitting that job for my physical safety (a privilege— i lived with my parents), leaving that profession, and leaving town.
The first time I dealt with a serious bout of sexual harassment at work, I ended up quitting that job for my physical safety (a privilege— i lived with my parents), leaving that profession, and leaving town.
The next job I took was a part-time internship that was a career step back of roughly three years.
If I hadn’t fallen into podcasting, I think I’d still be trying to recoup the time and progress I lost on that career interruption (putting it mildly).
If I hadn’t fallen into podcasting, I think I’d still be trying to recoup the time and progress I lost on that career interruption (putting it mildly).
Do you know how hard it was to concoct and then *practice* a believable lie to explain that gap/ step backward on my resume to potential employers? To have to finagle a reference for that job because my direct manager was the reason I quit?
I got so good at the lying part, sometimes I’d actually forget why my career was so off course and get angry at myself. I’d be angry at myself for not wanting to open up to new colleagues or make friends at work, the marks of a “team player”.
I still get anxiety in new work situations, and I’m either privately skittish or outwardly standoffish when meeting new colleagues. I know even those peculiarities have cost me professionally. I still struggle, and it’s been a decade.
But overall I’ve been extremely lucky and (I’ll say it!) quite successful. I was more or less edged out of the profession I wanted to be in, but I fell into something even better. But that happens like 0.01% of the time, and immense privilege played a part in that outcome.
It doesn’t work out like that for most people who survive workplace harassment/ assault. Most of us become a “whatever happened to...?”
For every abuser who gets quietly reshuffled to another position of power, primed for more success, there are at least a few whatever-happened-tos who are sitting in front of a mirror, trying to see which resume gap lie sounds the most natural, hoping to make up for lost time.
