Pleasing Men
The pressure to please was the focus of an article by Susan Dougherty on one of Inside Higher Education's blogs August 22. She cites an article by Ms. Mentor in Chronicle of Higher Education, called "Being Nice or Getting the Job Done" that concerned a feckless intern. This intern, with great background for the job she fulfilled, ignored the work if her boyfriend wanted her. She wasn't there much of the time. In one big fiasco, she didn't make arrangments to set up anything for a speech by a major figure in the field, whose presentation was poorly attended and lacking in basic support as a result of her behavior.
The article posed the dilemma of how to respond when the dean fired the intern and her faculy member supervisor pleaded for clemency. in the article, Dougherty says the problem lies in, "essentially, the contortions women tend to go through to please; to be liked; to fit in-and the punishment on tap when we don't. "Franny," the intern in the Ms. Mentor column, sacrifices her job to cater to an unworthy boyfriend. "Delpha," her ultimate supervisor, worries that she will be seen as uncooperative and unlikable for firing Franny, who screwed up big-time."
The intern stayed fired, but should that have been the end result? What do you think? Should she be given another chance as the professor requested?
A. Yes, let her have a warning and see if she will improve, since her former record is good.
B. Maybe. Look for evidence in her former activities that if warned, she can improve. If there isn't any, leave her fired. Maybe she'll pay more attention to the job next time.
C. NO WAY! Fire her with no reversal. She is incompetent and did something that was a great embarassment to her institution. She needs to have a good lesson in consequences.
I'd forgive and forget. I think her supervisor needed to have given her a warning for her to be fired. And where was that supervisor when she was supposed to be making all those speaker arrangements? Someone should have tracked her down and said do or die. Or else, she needs another chance.
C. Get her out of there! She needs to learn that in the real world, you have to actually do the job to keep the job. No one is doing her any favors by coddling her. It's like giving trophies to every kid on a soccer team for "trying". It doesn't matter when you grow up that you tried. What counts is that you won...the sooner young people learn that the better.
I would go with B. If there is any reason to hope she'd improve, I'd give her the benefit of the doubt. I suspect her supposed supervisor was not paying any attention to her on a regular basis, if she could screw up the visit of an important lecturer.
Uh oh. You are right. I meant C!! She needs a good lesson in life management if you ask me.
FBP
Hi Still Waiting,
Not sure you meant to answer this particular question. It looks like both you and FBP were thinking about another one.
cheers,
Laura
A I think in industry we are pretty close, at least on the scientific side. I'm not so sure we have it all taken care of on the management side, though.
B. I wish I could say A, but we're not there yet. I think it varies with who is in charge. With female dept chair, search committee chair, etc, or with some male ones, it's fine. With others, i've heard inappropriate comments about looks so I think beauty/sexiness is still in play in judging women in science. Argh!
