Co-worker editing documents with "(s)he" to just "he" about generic people

getmore4less

Time to brush up the CV.

I am fairly sure that your approach and attitude displayed in this thread is evident in the workplace and it is very unhealthy for everyone.

A classic case of Mirroring, this will probably be why you feel people don't like you it is a reflection of yourself.

gettingtheresometime

PossiblyOverworked wrote: »

"What success looks like"..... I want the Senior colleague (John) to be brought up in front of HR and given some kind of discipline that goes on their permanent record.

John should not be allowed to abuse their position by implying that "we only have male Teapot Inspectors so it isn't a problem" etc without any insight into things like: what if one of these guys left and was replaced by a woman (or would John not recruit a woman because UGH , maternity leave blah blah blah gross, etc)

As a woman myself I find it "exclusionary" even though I'm not part of the team being referred to, because I could easily be.

Edited to add: John hasn't ruled out "women" to my knowledge but has voiced other discriminatory beliefs and thrown "ruled out" CVs due to nationality etc into the bin.

It's women like you who give women a bad name.

I don't care if a process document says he, she or it so long as teapot inspectors, make or female, know the process.

getmore4less

getting back to the main point.

PossiblyOverworked wrote: »

I did use "he or she" the first time and then (s)he afterwards -- Would you use "he or she" every time even when it is very frequently mentioned?

reading back through the posts, I think that one sums it up.

You have recongised there is an issue with the gender in the docs but rather than address this proactively with the team you have taken a stand on the way you think it should be using probably the worst option available "(s)he" and engaged the reviewer of the document in(as you put it) a passive aggressive way.

I do wonder if you did this deliberately, even if subconsciously because your judgement is clouded by your attitude to certain people in particular the choice of document reviewer.

This is an issue that needs resolving but your approach has potentially made it a battle and certainly made it personal.

jessex1990

Just use 'Teapot inspector' no need to mention any gender and that way it's inclusive. I understand where you are coming from that you shouldnt be giving any chance that someone could make a decision inference from the document but as others have said (s)he looks ugly, s/he is better but still looks strange, they is better but vague on singular/plurality but 'the teapot insector' is probably best to avoid issues of looking weird or vagueness.

Nicki

PossiblyOverworked wrote: »

"What success looks like"..... I want the Senior colleague (John) to be brought up in front of HR and given some kind of discipline that goes on their permanent record.

Well that's not going to happen. Even if you did refer his to HR the most you could hope is that he gets some training on using gender neutral language if HR agree with you on this point (as this thread has shown there are a range of views on what is appropriate).

This one incident would not be sufficient in itself to trigger any form of disciplinary action against John, so he's not going to get a verbal or written warning over it and therefore nothing is going to be r corded on his personnel file either permanently or temporarily.

You sound consumed with bitterness about John's new job title. Have you actually had a conversation with your own line manager about opportunities for your own career progression either within your team or by moving sideways into an other area in the same business. That would be a far more constructive use of your time and energies. At the moment as others have commented I suspect you are not very pleasant to work with due to the level of spite you're exhibiting here.

robatwork

What a lot of nonsense spouted on this thread.
You really all need to get a handle on yourselves.
I realise there is serious trouble brewing for the OP.
The relationship between the inspectors and the senior manager is a little too cosy.
The OP needs to water down his/her (oh yes) complaint before it all boils over.
This can be best dealt with by a personal discussion, tete-a-tete-ly.

I'm done, off for a cuppa.

silverwhistle

I used to write system specifications and documentation, but fortunately so long ago that I can't remember the convention I used!

I've also gained quite an insight into gender issues, taught English abroad and have also taught a modern foreign language. Language _is_ important because it does shape attitudes and values. When I'm chatting to a foreign friend we often switch language, even in mid sentence, because one of them expresses what we want to say in a better or more apposite way. Anybody who has done translation will be aware of the issues that arise. For what it's worth, the use of 'they' has a long history, and is perfectly acceptable. It's also been useful on a number of occasions when I didn't know the gender of a person, or more importantly, how they wanted themselves perceived.

So all those dismissing the issue out of hand I feel are wrong; as others have highlighted it's possibly more to do with how the issue is approached. Whenever I had to do a new type of documentation I always had a look at other examples. Any move the OP makes needs to be based on facts,standards and appropriate examples of what they are trying to achieve.

TBagpuss

PossiblyOverworked wrote: »

"What success looks like"..... I want the Senior colleague (John) to be brought up in front of HR and given some kind of discipline that goes on their permanent record.

John should not be allowed to abuse their position by implying that "we only have male Teapot Inspectors so it isn't a problem" etc without any insight into things like: what if one of these guys left and was replaced by a woman (or would John not recruit a woman because UGH , maternity leave blah blah blah gross, etc)

As a woman myself I find it "exclusionary" even though I'm not part of the team being referred to, because I could easily be.

Edited to add: John hasn't ruled out "women" to my knowledge but has voiced other discriminatory beliefs and thrown "ruled out" CVs due to nationality etc into the bin.

OK, that is not going to happen. Even if HR agree with you that using 'he' is sexist, at most they may say that the document is to be amended.

At its highest, on this specific issue he is guilty of nothing more than following old-fashioned rules of grammar.
The other issues are things which you can report to HR as and when they occur.

So far as the drafting point is concerned, you could raise it, but rather than say 'John is a sexist pig and he is deliberately doing this' your approach should be 'I noticed that the draft I produces had been amended to change (s)he to he. I realise that (s)he is clumsy and it's important that the document is clear and easy to read. I would like to suggest , moving forward, that we use 'they' rather than either 'he' or 'she' to avoid any perception of sexism or sexist attitudes - it can feel very exclusionary when documents use 'he', particularly in areas where women are already under represented. I think it it would be a small, but really cheap and simple way of following our equal opportunities policies' (I assume your company has equal opportunity policies)

(If you think that the grammar issue will be raised, you can add: 'I know that using 'they' as a singular used to be thought of as bad grammar but it is now recognised as correct but most authorities, including the OED')

That way, it doesn't come over as someone with a grudge raising trivial issues about another staff member, but more as a head-sup to management that there is something which does come across as sexist but which can be very, very easily addressed, so you assumed that they'd want to know.

Don't criticise or blame John at all, acknowledge that your original solution wasn't great and make it about having found a better alternative.

And if at some future point you hear John making sexist comments then report that at the time it happens

PossiblyOverworked

Nicki wrote: »

Well that's not going to happen. Even if you did refer his to HR the most you could hope is that he gets some training on using gender neutral language if HR agree with you on this point (as this thread has shown there are a range of views on what is appropriate).

This one incident would not be sufficient in itself to trigger any form of disciplinary action against John, so he's not going to get a verbal or written warning over it and therefore nothing is going to be r corded on his personnel file either permanently or temporarily.

People here, including myself but also many other people have been given numerous verbal, written and final written warnings about things that I would consider fairly minor e.g. speaking harshly to someone after being repeatedly provoked, being "unhelpful" (by referring someone to a document rather than go through everything when the "how-to" already exists), dressing inappropriately because of a visible tattoo that was known when the person was recruited but is now suddenly against the dress code, making mistakes that were due to a lack of documentation and the person was perceived as "untrainable", etc.

For myself (don't know about the others) John has "tattled" to our mutual manager on many an occasion about things like how I'd resolved a problem but he doesn't see that it's part of my duties so we should go back to basics, (although the person who's duty it ostensibly was, didn't know how to fix it, and I had developed the system initially to help them out so it was natural that I fix it) prompting yet another unofficial warning.

Nicki wrote: »

You sound consumed with bitterness about John's new job title. Have you actually had a conversation with your own line manager about opportunities for your own career progression either within your team or by moving sideways into an other area in the same business. That would be a far more constructive use of your time and energies. At the moment as others have commented I suspect you are not very pleasant to work with due to the level of spite you're exhibiting here.

I wouldn't say I'm bitter about the new title as such, but more that someone with such a history of incompetence, bigoted behaviour and just general bad-employee-ness is now being given perks above the better people (me but also many others) just because he made noises about leaving and we are so much in need of staff and can't recruit (the most recent new recruit lasted 3 days).

PossiblyOverworked

Regarding "HR don't give out warnings, Managers do" (sorry can't find the specific post)... At this company the disciplinary process is that HR send out a meeting request and then you turn up, HR give some kind of preamble and what you are "accused" of, you get a chance to give your side, Manager chimes in with their observations and then HR says "So we are proposing to give you a written warning" (or whatever) and then hands over a document.

The Manager's input is just to tell HR that so-and-so did this, and then HR decides what the "sentence" is going to be.