Laugh, Cry or Go Postal?
Published by Lisa Kansas May 5th, 2008 in FUCKING IDIOTS, If I have to suffer you have to suffer, What Patriarchy?, WorkI spent a recent day offsite–my company hired an outside company to design and build a piece of equipment for our manufacturing plant and the outside company had asked us to come down to their fabrication shop and vet the design, see what we thought of the work in progress, etc. With me were another engineer from our manufacturing group (male), an engineer from the corporate office (male), and a machine operator from the plant (female). The morning went pretty smoothly; I was able to identify some potential functional issues in the design that in the still-early phases of manufacture weren’t going to be much of a problem for them to solve, so everyone was relatively happy by the time we all decided to break for lunch.
So, we’re all sitting around the table at the restaurant waiting for our food to show up, and one of the two guys from the outside company (they were the senior director of sales and the lead design engineer respectively, both male, the speaker in this instance was the sales director) was talking about how hard it was to get good welders in any quantity. “Kids these days, they just aren’t so interested in the trade schools!” (Yeah, he was in his fifties. At least.) “Our shop foreman, our lead welder, his dad actually teaches welding, but–”
“Actually,” said the other guy, “it’s his mother that teaches welding.”
Blank silence, coupled with wide-eyed stare, then… “Really?”
“Yeah,” said the other guy. “She’s probably one of the best welders in the area.”
“Really?” said the first guy. Pause. “Seriously?” (The other guy nods, looking deadpan.) “You’re kidding!” Longer pause. “That’s amazing!” Still staring bulge-eyed at the other guy, very much as if that guy had whipped a two-headed calf out of his pocket and plunked it down on the middle of the lunch table. “I really did not know that–”
Our two engineers were looking anywhere but at me. Our operator was looking sideways at me with narrowed eyes. So I perked up, beamed at the first guy and said brightly, “Yeah, the next thing you know, they’ll be driving and voting!”
I may let how this scene ended remain a mystery. 
I’m guessing awkward silence/nervous laughter from the guys, possibly a glare or a comical defense from the older guy and a very pleased female companion.
NOOOO! That’d be cruel.
I would guess nervous laughter as well, because I’m feeling generous, but I also hope you’ll tell us.
I’m going with nervous laughter from everyone, and maybe the older guy rushing out an explanation of how he thinks women who weld are great, and how he really isn’t a misogynist, he just really thought it was the father. And then ruining it by saying how unusual it is to find good women welders.
(sigh) Actually, the entire table, including Mr. Astonishment, burst into loud guffaws. Our engineer from corporate thought it was so funny he was crying. Their lead design engineer told me that was “a really good one.” They were all still giggling and snorting when the food showed up. Leaving me wondering if everyone was way more liberal than one might have suspected or if the point had been missed even more thoroughly than one might have expected. Oh, well, how interesting would life be without it’s little mysteries…