While some people argue that men and women are treated equally in the workplace, a Philadelphia man switched email signatures with his female colleague for a week and was shocked to learn how differently she was treated by clients.
The whole thing actually started by accident. Martin Schneider had noticed he was suddenly getting “rude, dismissive” responses from a client, and realized after some back and forth that because he shared an inbox with his co-worker Nicole Pieri her signature was on his emails. After Martin informed the client who he was actually conversing with he saw “immediate improvement” in the tone of the emails.
Martin was convinced the client’s tone changed because he was no longer speaking to a woman, so he decided to test out the theory by switching emails with Nicole for a whole week, and he was definitely proven right. Martin reported that his work week began to “f***ing suck,” while Nicole claimed she had the “most productive” week of her entire career.
- Martin, who is Nicole’s boss, had been pressured in the past by his boss to try and improve Nicole’s productivity since she took longer to get things done, and the email experiment helped him see why that was. “I figured the reason I got things done faster was from having more experience,” he shared on Twitter. “I realized the reason she took longer is because she had to convince clients to respect her.” He added, “I wasn't any better at the job than she was, I just had this invisible advantage.”
- Martin was also surprised that Nicole had come to accept such treatment. “She just figured it was part of her job,” he wrote. “I mean, she knew she was being treated different for being a woman, she's not dumb. She just took it in stride.”
Source: The Daily Mail