I’m debating whether I should go or not. Every time I do, I’m either eating too much, not helpful enough with cleaning up (I’ve apparently been reported by other female workers to my female higher-up that I don’t offer to carry out the trash bags so the ladies don’t have to), and I have literally hours worth of work to do. I’m NOT lazy by any means, I’m just incredibly focused on what I work on, especially my current project. I feel like working on it instead of eating (prettt great food, at that) with everyone would just leave me subject to their gynocentric criticism that I can’t stand.

I could deal with it easier if they weren’t so condescending and made it sound like I’d lose my job for not giving into what they want all the time.

Having to pretend to be the white knight at work is rather agonizing, I’d say.

While I was teaching, people in our office area had a tradition of going for lunch at the end of term.  I had long stopped attending as I was bored with those functions and I neither knew my colleagues better, I didn’t like them any more afterwards, either.

Shortly before I resigned, there was yet another one of those insufferable gatherings.  The office tart asked me if I was going, to which I said no.  I didn’t feel like it, plus I wanted to put that time to better use.  Rather than a polite response, she tore a strip off me:  “Just because you have a Ph. D., you think you’re better than everyone else.  Grow up!”

I sat there stunned, wondering what had just happened.  What made the incident even more bewildering was that it occurred nearly a year and a half after I finished my degree.  That zinger came out of nowhere, though it indicated to me that she resented my education.  (She attended university part-time, but gave that up when one’s academic credentials didn’t matter any more when it came to getting raises under the new contract.)  On top of that, being the office floozie, I kept my distance and paid little attention to her which probably meant, in her mind, that there was something “wrong” with me.

I submitted my resignation a few weeks later, though her blowout had nothing to do with it.