According to Wikipedia, an office manager is an employee charged with the general administrative responsibilities of any given office of a corporation. An office manager can have many duties ranging anywhere from payroll to facilities management.
However, I get the feeling that Office Manager means something quite unique in the start-up culture of the SF Bay Area. At an SF internet startup the Office Manger is an early employee and is usually the first female employee. She answers phones, schedules meetings, orders supplies and food, and cleans the office space. Please note that I’m not saying that those are the job responsibilities of every Office Manager or that every Office Manager is female.
Tantek reminded me that some of the responsibilities are an effective form of delegation (we’ve both read Tim Feriss’ The Four Hour Work Week), but it still churns my stomach to see the only other person who looks like me pick up the dishes and order lunch. When I visit offices with female Office Managers I feel like it’s a reminder to me that I’m in the wrong profession.
I hear a lot of talk about what a tough time women have in the tech industry. I’ve been reluctant to say much about it because I’d rather there was something we could DO about it. But now I know at least one thing I can tell the internet startup employees who ask - learn the term “pink collar” and don’t hire an Office Manager.
13 Comments
aubs
Well-written and sadly astute. I say: let the dishes pile up, or place them on the first MALE hire’s desk.
Or, hire a male intern…preferably, a young, cute, competent male intern, and get to delegatin’…
Andrew
I think last sentence doesn’t fit with the rest of your post. I think what you’re really suggesting is that startups don’t hire a *female* office manager.
Office managers in general are crucial. Don’t get me wrong, I schedule all my own meetings, wash my own dishes, clean out the fridge on occasion, etc. But without an office manager, I know everyone at my job would all be lost. I don’t know how big Pownce is yet, but I’m sure a place like Digg would be a shitstorm without an office manager, wouldn’t you agree?
Daniel
I know we’ve talked about this before, but I think your frustration with office managers is focused on the wrong thing. Office managers are extremely helpful and totally worth having on staff. Only hiring female office managers, however, is sexist. What we need is more diversity (more female developers, more male office managers, etc) not a blanket dismissal of office managers.
Nicole
Inaccurate.
walter
Agreed!
Another uncomfortable thing is that so many office manager responsibilities veer into the basic human mental helper things our parents used to do (ordering food, reminding people about appointments, making sure people have a place to sleep when they travel). This is the last thing a lot of people in tech need.
Marianne
Nice post, Leah. The duties you listed are all things that men and women can do, but I honestly think that females tend to do it better. I’m not saying all, but most women have it in their nature to do those things without effort. The women in those positions know they can do it and do it pretty damn well.
It’s true that the tech industry has been a little tough on women in the past, but I really see a big shift. At our web marketing company, there are more females(including the office manager), & 4 who are in design & development (including myself), which is a huge change from a few years ago, when I usually ended up being the only female(designer or otherwise) in the office.
Keep rockin the awesome!
Bob Ippolito
Are you saying that an early startup should specifically exclude women altogether? That’s kinda silly. Even weirder would be if you were saying that we should distract the CEO or some other busy and highly focused person with all of the miscellaneous tasks that would make it difficult to actually take care of the company’s best interests.
I’d love to hire more women (I’m the CTO, so these are all ops/engineering hires), but they’re awfully hard to find. I really just don’t run across very many in my “network”, at the small conferences I go to, the mailing lists and blogs I read, etc. For example, last weekend I was at C4[1] (indie mac conference in Chicago) and I think I counted four women — and I know for sure one of them was a journalist…
Our office managers don’t do dishes or bring lunch; they deal with travel, scheduling, incoming mail/phone calls, tech support for our user community, ordering stuff, managing bills, and all sorts of other business critical stuff.
Both office managers we’ve had so far have been women (our first one just left for Harvard), and they’re ridiculously awesome. I’m not sure we’d even function without them. We interviewed a bunch of candidates both times, probably about half men, and we always choose most qualified person that is the best cultural fit for our company.
Brian
Well…if you need an office manager, then get an office manager. Doesn’t matter if they are male or female. Find a good, capable hire and you’re set.
Same thing with developers and designers. Hire someone who fits your needs. Happens to be a girl? Great.
Peter
no idea what this post means.
Leah Culver
Brian - well put.
I guess I was trying to express that the job makes me uncomfortable because I naturally see myself as fitting the description of an Office Manager. I like helping other people and enjoy organizational tasks.
I would feel uncomfortable working somewhere that this issue confronted me every day and I wonder if that contributes to the small number of women willing to work at startups. It hurts me to see people do the hand wavy thing about this issue and just say that’s the way things are. Thoughts?
Brian
Ah, gotcha.
You’re right; the number of women in high-tech startup-land is small. See a woman in a new tech startup? Probably an office manager. See a good-looking one? Probably a recruiter.
*waving hand* That’s just the way things are right now.
At the risk of sounding melodramatic, though, I think that this is the way that a lot of social shifts happen. Someone breaks the mold, others notice, and (if there’s enough momentum) we start to see cultural ripples. As lead developer on a high-profile startup, you’re breaking the mold right now. Assuming Pownce moves beyond its invite-only stage and gets massively adopted, you’re going to get noticed (even more than you already are).
You’ll have college students reading about you. And high school students. And middle-school students.
And they’ll find your blog.
And they’ll read this post.
And they’ll say, “I can do that too.”
And they will.
You’re uncomfortable now, and for good reason. I think you’re sowing seeds of change, though. Best of luck to you in leading the charge.
Ken Keiter
Hey,
I jumped on Pownce a while ago, and I’m really impressed. I just started using Django + learning Python — I’m loving it already.
Anyway, I found out about your blog through Pownce — and in this comment I’m going to do my best to: a) not say anything sexist and b) not act like one of those crazed fans. Here goes.
I’m impressed. Like, amazingly impressed. You code like an angel, you’re (frankly) gorgeous, and from reading this blog you sound like an interesting and real person. By that last bit, I mean that even though you’re a “big deal” you keep it real.
I’m not prone to writing like this on random people’s blogs — so that must mean something! Hope life is good.
Hit me back,
-Ken
Kevin
Ah this is sadly some thing I have to deal with on a constant basis. This may lift your spirits a bit, here is someone very similar to yourself http://labunleashed.com/?page_id=4 at least in regards to being a young women in the software engineering business.
Oddly her name is Leah as well and is a software developer at IBM….