What's wrong with me that I seem to have problem working with female supervisor

[Anonymous]

I am a female, in early 40s, 15+ working in the industry. It just happen that I seem to have problem working with female supervisors, and I don't know why. My personality is easy going, genuine, a little bit tomboyish, and all of my friends are female. I find that I work or click better with male supervisor, so what is wrong with me? I have given it a thought, and I think it could be that I don't know how to build a relationship with female supervisor and probably not talking things that we have in common. For me, it is easy to talk to male supervisor, and I can talk about anything. I think women supervisors are tend to be more sensitive.

Anyways, I am not from here, so maybe I don't get what people like to talk or interests or hot topics about from here. Any advice for me will be appreciated!

[Anonymous]

be more specific. what kind of problems exactly do you have?

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you have issues respecting women as authority figures.

[Anonymous]

Most people have issues working with or working for females. It is so very painful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you have issues respecting women as authority figures.

Op here, can you share examples that what are examples of showing a respect women as authority figures that I could learn from?

[Anonymous]

Can you give some examples of problems you're running into?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:be more specific. what kind of problems exactly do you have?

Op here. I can't really say what exactly the problems are. It just happen to be in my past 15+ years of working experiences, I just happen to click more with all male supervisors/VP/director. They are nice to me and they are more patience and caring about me in company and personal life. By the way, I am not attractive and I am married with kids.

I notice about the same things when I was in college years working part time back then. I think male supervisors are nice to me overall. I think some women supervisor may find me intimidating or boring or weirdo and just they don't care about me much at professional level or my personal life outside of work. I have tried to be more fun and chat to them once in a while, but it is so hard to build relationship with them. For men, they are more straight forward and seem to be more open minded. We could sometimes talk about things that we can laugh out loud. I think in the early years of my career, even though I am not attractive but somehow I am kind of the person that seem to get a bit favoritism/protectionism from male supervisors even though I have done nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you have issues respecting women as authority figures.

Op here, can you share examples that what are examples of showing a respect women as authority figures that I could learn from?

NP. When your boss says "I need you to jump on this project. I'm emailing you all the relevant data - can you take lead on the call with clients Tuesday morning?" your answer should be "Sure, I'll reach out to your assistant to get dial-in info for the call."

Don't sit at the head of the conference table.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you give some examples of problems you're running into?

If my supervisor happens to be a woman, they don't give me opportunities to grow my career ( don't give me works even though I want to learn) or care about me even I am sick badly/come back from vacation or personal life etc. She will chat happily with my other female coworkers as best friends in the same team, but she will kind of exclude/isolate me making me feeling so sad. I feel lonely. I don't understand why.

[Anonymous]

I don't have a solution, OP, but I find the same thing. I am female and I frequently find women who have achieved higher levels of success are more organized, rule followers, more uptight, etc.

I don't think they could have gotten where they are otherwise. As such, in my experience, they aren't as "easy" to get along with . . . or maybe they just aren't as easy going for fear (perhaps rightly so) of being taken advantage of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you give some examples of problems you're running into?

If my supervisor happens to be a woman, they don't give me opportunities to grow my career ( don't give me works even though I want to learn) or care about me even I am sick badly/come back from vacation or personal life etc. She will chat happily with my other female coworkers as best friends in the same team, but she will kind of exclude/isolate me making me feeling so sad. I feel lonely. I don't understand why.

If this is you, OP, then you sound kind of needy. She is not your friend, not your mother. She might not talk to you as freely because you come across as needy. Just your first sentence makes you read as not willing to do the work to even reread your sentence, which is grammatically incorrect.

Work harder, OP. Do a better job.

[Anonymous]

I’m a female and have been a supervisor for about 15 years. I get along great with my people who are good performers, even if they make mistakes as long as the are up front about it. They rate my highly in 360 reviews that are anonymous.

I have a hard time with poor performers, male and female, and I’m a lousy actor.

[Anonymous]

Op, you talk about women supervisors being more sensitive, yet in your examples, youre the sensitive one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a female and have been a supervisor for about 15 years. I get along great with my people who are good performers, even if they make mistakes as long as the are up front about it. They rate my highly in 360 reviews that are anonymous.

I have a hard time with poor performers, male and female, and I’m a lousy actor.

Same. I also have a hard time coddling people. If you're sick or need a break, call out sick. Our leave is very generous. But don't come in and either half ass your work and expect people to be okay with it or expect people to fawn over you because you're poorly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:be more specific. what kind of problems exactly do you have?

Op here. I can't really say what exactly the problems are. It just happen to be in my past 15+ years of working experiences, I just happen to click more with all male supervisors/VP/director. They are nice to me and they are more patience and caring about me in company and personal life. By the way, I am not attractive and I am married with kids.

I notice about the same things when I was in college years working part time back then. I think male supervisors are nice to me overall. I think some women supervisor may find me intimidating or boring or weirdo and just they don't care about me much at professional level or my personal life outside of work. I have tried to be more fun and chat to them once in a while, but it is so hard to build relationship with them. For men, they are more straight forward and seem to be more open minded. We could sometimes talk about things that we can laugh out loud. I think in the early years of my career, even though I am not attractive but somehow I am kind of the person that seem to get a bit favoritism/protectionism from male supervisors even though I have done nothing.

One thing to consider is that your female supervisor likely would get more blame for your mistakes than your male supervisors, because sexism is still a thing. The female supervisors may not have the luxury of being as patient or giving you as many accommodations as a result.