Excuse Me Sir, Get Your Own Coffee

(Photo: Using iPhone 6 on Business Meeting by Viktor Hanacek via picjumbo)

One of the reasons I love my job the most is one that I don’t often talk about, and perhaps that is because gender in the workplace is still a somewhat taboo topic for society.

I love my job, because my job loves women.

My mom recently sent me a New York Times article titled “Madam C.E.O., Get Me a Coffee.”  Reading the accounts of women working in various professional services being overlooked, under-appreciated, and stereotyped by their coworkers made me realize something pretty remarkable; Delucchi Plus doesn’t do that.

It is a testament not only to the men in our office, but to the women as well.  Men and women alike are expected to be team players, and equal recognition is granted to those who go above and beyond for a coworker (whether subordinate or superior).

In our annual awards ceremony (which includes awards both serious and humorous accolades), it was a male who won the “Best Dishwasher” award and a female who won the “Most Likely To Succeed” award.

But these types of “office housework” jobs that women pick up aren’t just a waste of time, they often have much larger repercussions.  The article states the following astonishing insight:

For every 1,000 people at work, 80 more women than men burn out — in large part because they fail to secure their own oxygen masks before assisting others.

At Delucchi Plus, I like to think that even though we fail to secure our own oxygen masks first, there is always someone there (man or woman) who is doing the same for us.  It’s a culture of accountability and teamwork that transcends gender boundaries.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how a gender-respectful culture develops, and even harder to pinpoint how to fix a pre-existing problematic culture, but I like to think that at Delucchi Plus the following items attribute to our success:

• Female Senior Management.  Having a woman CEO and EVP certainly helps enforce a top-down respect for female leadership.

• Male : Female Ratio.  Unlike most offices, our male to female ratio is skewed heavily female with entire departments consisting of only females.

• Zero Tolerance Policy.  Not in the sense that those who don’t play by the gender rules are tattle-tailed to HR, but rather when someone violates these unspoken conventions there are immediate repercussions from the team as a whole.

Whether you are male or female, manager or coordinator, young or old, take a step back from your day-to-day grind and think about these gender stereotypes.  The next time you’re handed a coffee, ask someone to bind a presentation, or offer to help a coworker in need, make sure you are not falling into the trap of gendered “office housework”.