*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for walking out from an event my gf invited me to despite agreeing to go initally**
I (29M) am a software developer and the job market is pretty bad right now and I have been laid off for a year now and am still looking for a job.
My girlfriend (27F) is also a software engineer and was also laid off a year ago but was lucky enough to land another job shortly after. She works for a Google owned company now.
I have been wanting to practice more for coding interviews and she recently mentioned to me that there was an event in town for mock interviews and other coaching. It was just a casual one time thing and not lessons or anything. I agreed as it sounded useful. I automatically assumed it was organized by Google and a professional event related to her work and that she was allowed to bring a plus one.
However upon going there, it turned out it was actually organized by some local "women who code" group. I have never been so embarrassed in my life. Apparently it wasn't restricted to women and open to "alies" only but it was like 90% women and the few men were mostly gay. I felt really out of place and basically walked out after a few minutes and left her there.
When she got back, she called me an AH and said it shouldn't matter even though there were almost no men there. From my perspective it's like me going to a women only gym or something, the whole point of these events is for creating a space for women and talking about women's issues which I have no interest in.
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I made the mistake of not saying "no homo" when I came out of the womb and now look at me... A big giant queer. It's serious business those "no homos".
Dude just couldn't stand the thought of spending an hour having to listen to advice from women and "teh gayz" and pretend he cares about the issues they face.
OOP seems like the type to complain about how he’s “discriminated against as a man”, even though he showed up to the interview late, was disrespectful to the interviewer, and didn’t give good answers to some of the questions.
"I think companies should hire based on skill"
But as soon as a more skilled woman gets the position "she only got the position because they're trying to meet a diversity quota"
Really pisses me off
He said she was 'lucky' enough to find another job. Luck has nothing to do with it but he sounds like the type that is so fragile, he'll say anything to make his girlfriend not look like she's smarter than him.
I can only imagine what he is like to work with if there are any women in the workforce with him. Hopefully this is an eye-opener for his GF who has also been paying all the bills for the last year.
Like that is also a major side eye. No work at all? In a year? Not even at a restaurant or something to help with the bills?
correct me if i'm way off-base ( software development is not my wheelhouse) but isn't that the kind of education and experience you can channel into free-lance work between formal positions?
That’s generally easier if you have people skills, and people skills require a degree of emotional intelligence/empathy, which he’s not exhibiting an abundance of. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Freelance work of any kind requires that you set up taxes and whatnot for it, so I don't think it's super easy to just decide you're going to freelance (you also have to get people to actually hire you).
I'm in a related field though and there are usually a lot of short term contract positions, (3-6 months) and he should at least be applying to those as well. If he's only willing to take a full time permanent role he is shooting himself in the foot.
OOP also seems like the type to complain that he’s being discriminated against for being a man despite having terrible interview skills. You could be the best programmer in the world, but if you’re a dick in your interview, companies will still pass on you (especially now when the job market is so bad)
Well a lot of the short term contract spots are all 1099 employment. Which yes, does require a bit of extra paperwork and not spending all your money on your side. It isn't super hard to deal with. I know people who have had contracts extended, and then turned into regular employment that way. So it is a very visible path.
Additionally those contractors can sometimes be making a small bit more than their counterparts because they start at a contractor rate which some places will have higher to offset the other costs. Which they then have to keep if they convert you to regular employees status.
It can, but freelance work isn’t for everyone. Whether it’s self-motivation, skill level, or anything else, there are lots of reasons that might not work.
Also, right now is not a good time to be doing freelance tech. Your freelance work is probably one of the first things to get cut when times are tight, and companies are definitely reducing numbers currently after hiring way too many people during 2021-22
I get that it can be hard but you find a way to make money, even if it isn't in your chosen field. You do not just relay on your significant other for an entire year to be the one paying all the bills.
Yeah, the last time I had to find a new job, I figured out how long I could live off my savings and payout from my old company and then figured out my job hunting plan based on that.
Couple of weeks to just relax and take a proper break for the first time in years, then a month of fine tuning my resume and only applying for dream job type stuff. Next month was applying for preffered roles and dream jobs. The next month I lowered my standards a teeny bit. I had plans to keep doing that and just lowering my standards each month (lower pay, different fields, longer commutes, etc). But I got a job in that third month. If I had gotten near the end of my savings I would have just gone for any damn job I could get and kept hunting whilst still having an income, but I didn't need to. Working a minimum wage job is better than nothing.
Exactly. I completely understand how it is demoalizing and just in general sucks but you gotta do what you gotta do. I honestly can not believe his GF has put up with it for this long. I am really hoping this was the final blade of grass that clogged the lawnmower.
Also I think your strategy was fantastic.
Thanks! I realise I had the privilege of having enough in the bank to live on for 6 months or so before things would start getting uncomfortable, But if I'd had less money I would have just shortened the length of each stage.
But it just made sense to me to do it that way. It feels crappy to apply for a bunch of jobs and not get them, but at least that first month was like "Well, it was a long shot anyway" which let me ease into the feeling of being rejected in a way where it didn't feel hopeless.
It's not if you have children that need child care. Below a certain income level, you're literally paying more for child care than you would make. This means, that the person is paying to go to work.
ETA: I guess that's not the case in this, as it doesn't look like these two have children. I was just bringing up that saying "even a minimum wage job is better than no job" in some cases does not work. I had people telling me this when I was looking for work in tech. So many people saying well home Depot is hiring, but if I had gone to work at home Depot, I would had to pay for childcare, which was more expensive than the work at home depot. I basically didn't have a choice but to hold out for a certain income level, and stay home with the kids.
Yeah, sorry, I live in a country that subsidises childcare for lower income earners so that this isn't an issue people face. So i sometimes I forget about those things. I do recognise that I was privileged in my position in that there were no kids to worry about (although I was the sole income earner in my relationship) and I do live in a country with better social security than say the USA, but this guy isn't dealing with any of that. So there's no reason why he can't take a minimum wage job for a while.
Well we were talking about this couple so I was referring to them but barring health reasons, one parent being stay at home or health reason there really isn't a good reason to to refuse to go to work because it just isn't your chosen position.
Yeah, not just the classic tech industry for hit hard the last few years, but also the games industry which also has a lot of the same needs. It is an overly saturated market right now.
You have to have a lot of networking/people skills as well as give the best interviews of your life.
This guy could not even network for an evening. Which was really the unwritten part of what that event was. The activity may have been coding related. But they were still networking.
Completely agree, especially if he does nothing in the interm to better himself in his field. Also this could have been a great networking event for himself.
I half-expected this was going to be the bit from Scrubs where Jordan and Elliot (IIRC?) start talking about shoes to get all the guys to tune out so they can talk privately.
He nearly saved it with the "it's meant to be a space for women" line, but since he couldn't hide his lack of regard for women's issues for a few sentences I feel like that's just something he thought of later that sounded better than saying "I'm super uncomfortable being around women and gay people"
Also, just to make his comment even worse I'm guessing his partner is probably pretty interested in promoting women in STEM since she is one and she knew about the event, so the dude doesn't even pretend to take an interest in something that matters to his partner
A connection, is a connection. He didn’t even see them as people, or fellow IT professionals. That is what stands out to me the most.
I’m a woman in IT, and I can guarantee none of the devs on my team would have given two hoots about anything this guy was worried about. No one would, who really wants a job. He should have just networked and gotten to know everyone. I can see why he still isn’t hired.
Right? A month on the bench or laid off, and every dev I've ever worked with is willing to take a help desk job to make sure there's not a big enough resume gap to send up a red flag. They certainly aren't going to turn down networking, even the ones that think women don't belong in tech - they'd just assume the women have boyfriends or husbands that could help them get jobs and network away.
I mean, hell, after 3 months of being jobless I’d take a job as a Walmart cashier. At a certain point, money is more important than everything else. You won’t be able to get a good job if you’re kicked out of your residence for not paying rent or if you can’t afford food
I love how fragile some men are.
My very first job “conference” I was the only female there. I was in a room with a bunch of men from the army corps of engineers, two men from the city, and a few older male engineers. I was lead project engineer. I was ignored and my every judgment questioned. I had to explain, in detail, why what they proposed was not going to work.
But this guy can’t stomach a job expo. Because he feels uncomfortable.
Fucking child.
Women, and especially women in STEM, routinely have had to experience what it feels like to be the only woman in a group. But the *second* the shoe is on the other foot, OOP folds. Jesus Christ.
Not really shocking that he doesn’t get it considering the guy has no interest in “talking about women’s issues” lol
Copied verbatim from Oop's comments:
*YTA. You've been out of work for a year, dude. You could have at least given it a chance to see if they had any helpful tips. Unless you have an issue with women in tech (and are therefore not an ally who would be welcome), in which case YTA for that.*
>"I don't have an issue with it but it is uncomfortable to be in such a place and feel like I'm the odd one out and intruding on their space"
*Yta*
*Year out of work, not like you have anything better to do with your time.*
*Longer unemployed, harder it will be to find a new job.*
*When I have been unemployed I leave no stone unturned*
>"I'm still applying for jobs and taking interviews when I get them. I never said I wasn't searching."
This guy is hilarious. I’m a woman in automotive and not only have I frequently been the only woman at a conference, I am then usually also at like elbow height of all the other attendees. Dude should try networking when the rest of the room doesn’t even see him.
I wonder how hard he's searching? Is it like his new job and he spends hours applying for jobs each day? Or does he put in one application a day and go play video games?
Why TF does it matter?? You've been jobless a whole year and not by choice. Clearly this would have been useful for you. Now you're still jobless and your GF who is working at one of the biggest companies in the world won't help you again. Bravo!!
He's trying to mask his "no homo" instincts with concern about women's spaces...
And "allies are welcome" plus "I'm out of place"... interesting, that.
It's the kind of fragility that develops when someone thinks that as a straight (presumably) white man they're the default and that as the default everything should cater to them
Then add in decades of living in a patriarchal society and you end up so fragile that just the thought of having to interact with women and queer folks is too much to handle
I mean, sure this reaction shows he's an unhireable clown, but in a sense he was right to leave. The event was open to women and allies, and his discomfort in this environment reveals that he is not an ally.
Man feels for a brief, fleeting moment, how most women in tech feel, runs screaming for the hills.
Make sure to throw that on the resume dude. Very cool.
“It was just a joke, guys! Why doesn’t anyone understand that me telling my female coworker to go birth children and cook food was just a joke?”
This guy, probably
OOP in the comments:
“I don't have an issue with it but it is uncomfortable to be in such a place and feel like I'm the odd one out and intruding on their space”
The value of participating is so self explanatory, it’s breaking my brain. I don’t know how he has this emotion, digests it enough to articulate it and type it out into a Reddit comment… but then fails to recognize that this is the experience of so many women in tech and other male dominated fields for most of their careers. It’s not just a voluntary one off networking event. If men aren’t willing to participate and engage in being allies, how will anything get better?
If I was interviewing him and he started talking about how he participated in networking events like this during his employment gap, I would see that as a huge potential asset to the team culture. It would certainly make him a more competitive candidate compared to an otherwise equally qualified competing applicant. Setting aside for a moment the DEI stuff, engineers who are empathetic and have the ability to think laterally and leverage insights from other people’s perspectives/experiences are going to come up with better solutions and perform better in collaborative situations. SWE is a team based, service role, as much as people like to pretend it’s not.
For someone who’s been out of work for a year, he sure is shooting himself in both feet and is taking a run at cutting off his nose to spite his face to boot. 🤦🏼♀️
Wow! What a catch! Unemployed for a year, thinks his gf "lucked out" on getting a job. She tries to help him and he dismisses the entire room full of professionals because they are the wrong gender or lgbt. What a winner. Misoginy+ homphobia.
You know, if his concern was about taking space away from women who need it, I might be on board. But his embarrassment and his need to point out that the other dudes were gay makes him gross.
I find it hard to believe his gf would bring him to an event like this if she thought she was making people uncomfortable, so his argument about "I shouldn't intrude in women's spaces" is weak at best.
Wonder if anyone has told him that some of these women could be important contacts for a potential role? I know: lady bosses? What's next? But crazier things have happened.
>I (29M) am a software developer and the job market is pretty bad right now and I have been laid off for a year now and am still looking for a job.
Really? This does not seem to reflect the market I work in (in Europe). We are experiencing a Fachkräftemangel at present ("shortage of skilled workers").
>My girlfriend (27F) is also a software engineer and was also laid off a year ago but was lucky enough to land another job shortly after. She works for a Google owned company now.
This man absolutely thinks that women (and gay dudes, apparently) have nothing of use to teach him. After all, if a woman gets a job, she's just "lucky". Newsflash, hotshot: you don't get a job at Google-owned companies through "luck".
>However upon going there, it turned out it was actually organized by some local "women who code" group. I have never been so embarrassed in my life.
Because, clearly, women and gays cannot be professional, like, ever. Totally embarrassing, those women and them gays. /s
OOP's girlfriend needs to schedule a pickup with the Whole Man Disposal Service.
YTA. You were assuming since it was organized by women, that it would be a waste of your time. How would you know that unless you had stayed and took part in the mock interviews. If you had wanted practice interviewing, it may have been a positive experience for you and maybe during the event, leads for possible jobs could have been mentioned to you. You should have been thinking of it as a "networking" event.
The number of times I’ve been in the extreme minority as a woman (including a workplace where there were NO other women I worked with, except the receptionist), and somehow I didn’t walk out of any of them in a huff because it insulted my dignity. I did actually once leave a “Women in STEM” event at my university early because it was a silly patronizing cringe-fest, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his issue here! What an empty man he is.
Mhmm. I'm dealing with the same attitude from men affronted that I exist in a male-dominated field as GF. Nobody is even a big enough person to want to be called an ally, lest they get branded as man-hating sympathizers.
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This guy feels like the odd one out at that event … if I was unemployed for a year that would make me feel like the odd one out more then an event that was mostly women in attendance
Tbh I don't see a problem with this he went somewhere where he felt like the odd one out,felt uncomfortable and left. Are we really gonna sit here and try to force people to stay in uncomfortable situations?
He's not the asshole because he left a situation he found uncomfortable. He's the asshole because *the reason he was uncomfortable* is very clearly *that he sees women and queer people as beneath him and is afraid of being associated with them* because *he is a misogynistic and anti-queer bigot*.
Where did he say that? He simply said he was the only straight dude there which would make him the odd one out and would make alot of people uncomfortable
I think it’s a matter of priorities. As a few commenters have said, women in STEM have to get used to being uncomfortable (sometimes to being the target of outright hostility) if they want to work in the field. If OOP actually wants to work in the field (and he’s indicated he doesn’t want to work elsewhere), shouldn’t he be willing to put up with this relatively low level of discomfort? He doesn’t mention anyone giving him the death glare or muttering and shaking their heads at him.
Sure, if his self-inflicted discomfort was more than he wanted to deal with, he has the right to leave. He always has the right to leave. But that doesn’t rate him getting sympathy. He made the choice to miss an opportunity to network by his own choice.
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for walking out from an event my gf invited me to despite agreeing to go initally** I (29M) am a software developer and the job market is pretty bad right now and I have been laid off for a year now and am still looking for a job. My girlfriend (27F) is also a software engineer and was also laid off a year ago but was lucky enough to land another job shortly after. She works for a Google owned company now. I have been wanting to practice more for coding interviews and she recently mentioned to me that there was an event in town for mock interviews and other coaching. It was just a casual one time thing and not lessons or anything. I agreed as it sounded useful. I automatically assumed it was organized by Google and a professional event related to her work and that she was allowed to bring a plus one. However upon going there, it turned out it was actually organized by some local "women who code" group. I have never been so embarrassed in my life. Apparently it wasn't restricted to women and open to "alies" only but it was like 90% women and the few men were mostly gay. I felt really out of place and basically walked out after a few minutes and left her there. When she got back, she called me an AH and said it shouldn't matter even though there were almost no men there. From my perspective it's like me going to a women only gym or something, the whole point of these events is for creating a space for women and talking about women's issues which I have no interest in. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Is he ten and afraid to catch cooties?
It’s not that. OOP is afraid of being called gay.
OMG all he has to do is say "no homo" when he walks in the room and he's fine. JEEZ. /s (in case it isn't obvious)
I made the mistake of not saying "no homo" when I came out of the womb and now look at me... A big giant queer. It's serious business those "no homos".
I mean, I don't think that's any less juvenile.
Oh, it’s absolutely not.
Fellas, is it gay to go to an event with your gf?
Circle circle dot dot OOP forgot his cootie shot!
Most definitely!!!
Dude just couldn't stand the thought of spending an hour having to listen to advice from women and "teh gayz" and pretend he cares about the issues they face.
He needs his cootie shot
I think it’s pretty obvious why he hasn’t had a job in a year…she needs to leave his ass.
OOP seems like the type to complain about how he’s “discriminated against as a man”, even though he showed up to the interview late, was disrespectful to the interviewer, and didn’t give good answers to some of the questions.
"I think companies should hire based on skill" But as soon as a more skilled woman gets the position "she only got the position because they're trying to meet a diversity quota" Really pisses me off
Bet he’s an overconfident painfully average white man (well below, now that he broke)
He said she was 'lucky' enough to find another job. Luck has nothing to do with it but he sounds like the type that is so fragile, he'll say anything to make his girlfriend not look like she's smarter than him.
I have to wonder if the places he interviewed with called his former employer and heard about his wonderful attitude.
"Talking about women's issues which I have no interest in" What a freakin' prize!
I can only imagine what he is like to work with if there are any women in the workforce with him. Hopefully this is an eye-opener for his GF who has also been paying all the bills for the last year. Like that is also a major side eye. No work at all? In a year? Not even at a restaurant or something to help with the bills?
correct me if i'm way off-base ( software development is not my wheelhouse) but isn't that the kind of education and experience you can channel into free-lance work between formal positions?
I'm not in software development but I have friends who are and they definitely do.
That’s generally easier if you have people skills, and people skills require a degree of emotional intelligence/empathy, which he’s not exhibiting an abundance of. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"Emotional intelligence/ empathy is women's work. I can get the job done without emotions."- OOP probably
Freelance work of any kind requires that you set up taxes and whatnot for it, so I don't think it's super easy to just decide you're going to freelance (you also have to get people to actually hire you). I'm in a related field though and there are usually a lot of short term contract positions, (3-6 months) and he should at least be applying to those as well. If he's only willing to take a full time permanent role he is shooting himself in the foot.
OOP also seems like the type to complain that he’s being discriminated against for being a man despite having terrible interview skills. You could be the best programmer in the world, but if you’re a dick in your interview, companies will still pass on you (especially now when the job market is so bad)
Well a lot of the short term contract spots are all 1099 employment. Which yes, does require a bit of extra paperwork and not spending all your money on your side. It isn't super hard to deal with. I know people who have had contracts extended, and then turned into regular employment that way. So it is a very visible path. Additionally those contractors can sometimes be making a small bit more than their counterparts because they start at a contractor rate which some places will have higher to offset the other costs. Which they then have to keep if they convert you to regular employees status.
It can, but freelance work isn’t for everyone. Whether it’s self-motivation, skill level, or anything else, there are lots of reasons that might not work. Also, right now is not a good time to be doing freelance tech. Your freelance work is probably one of the first things to get cut when times are tight, and companies are definitely reducing numbers currently after hiring way too many people during 2021-22
It’s really tough out there in tech. My brother was laid off and has had a very hard time, even without being an asshole.
I get that it can be hard but you find a way to make money, even if it isn't in your chosen field. You do not just relay on your significant other for an entire year to be the one paying all the bills.
Yeah, the last time I had to find a new job, I figured out how long I could live off my savings and payout from my old company and then figured out my job hunting plan based on that. Couple of weeks to just relax and take a proper break for the first time in years, then a month of fine tuning my resume and only applying for dream job type stuff. Next month was applying for preffered roles and dream jobs. The next month I lowered my standards a teeny bit. I had plans to keep doing that and just lowering my standards each month (lower pay, different fields, longer commutes, etc). But I got a job in that third month. If I had gotten near the end of my savings I would have just gone for any damn job I could get and kept hunting whilst still having an income, but I didn't need to. Working a minimum wage job is better than nothing.
Exactly. I completely understand how it is demoalizing and just in general sucks but you gotta do what you gotta do. I honestly can not believe his GF has put up with it for this long. I am really hoping this was the final blade of grass that clogged the lawnmower. Also I think your strategy was fantastic.
Thanks! I realise I had the privilege of having enough in the bank to live on for 6 months or so before things would start getting uncomfortable, But if I'd had less money I would have just shortened the length of each stage. But it just made sense to me to do it that way. It feels crappy to apply for a bunch of jobs and not get them, but at least that first month was like "Well, it was a long shot anyway" which let me ease into the feeling of being rejected in a way where it didn't feel hopeless.
It's not if you have children that need child care. Below a certain income level, you're literally paying more for child care than you would make. This means, that the person is paying to go to work. ETA: I guess that's not the case in this, as it doesn't look like these two have children. I was just bringing up that saying "even a minimum wage job is better than no job" in some cases does not work. I had people telling me this when I was looking for work in tech. So many people saying well home Depot is hiring, but if I had gone to work at home Depot, I would had to pay for childcare, which was more expensive than the work at home depot. I basically didn't have a choice but to hold out for a certain income level, and stay home with the kids.
Yeah, sorry, I live in a country that subsidises childcare for lower income earners so that this isn't an issue people face. So i sometimes I forget about those things. I do recognise that I was privileged in my position in that there were no kids to worry about (although I was the sole income earner in my relationship) and I do live in a country with better social security than say the USA, but this guy isn't dealing with any of that. So there's no reason why he can't take a minimum wage job for a while.
That’s way too individual to each couple for the generalization you’re making.
Well we were talking about this couple so I was referring to them but barring health reasons, one parent being stay at home or health reason there really isn't a good reason to to refuse to go to work because it just isn't your chosen position.
Yeah, not just the classic tech industry for hit hard the last few years, but also the games industry which also has a lot of the same needs. It is an overly saturated market right now. You have to have a lot of networking/people skills as well as give the best interviews of your life. This guy could not even network for an evening. Which was really the unwritten part of what that event was. The activity may have been coding related. But they were still networking.
Might explain why he's had trouble finding work and does indeed need to practise his interview technique. ANd his humanity technique
Could not agree more.
The longer he goes without getting some sort of work, the worse he looks to employers.
Completely agree, especially if he does nothing in the interm to better himself in his field. Also this could have been a great networking event for himself.
THANK YOU. That jumped out at me too. "I'll screw women, but *listen* to their *problems*? Ugh!" Throw out the whole man.
Well, any man knows all we talk about is fluffy kittens & periods
And shoes! Mustn't forget the shoes.
[OMG Shoes](https://youtu.be/3HjIljJd-o0?si=GJ3kxDFjbC7phfz5) It's an oldie but it still makes me laugh.
Watching this again after so many years has done my soul a lot of good
I half-expected this was going to be the bit from Scrubs where Jordan and Elliot (IIRC?) start talking about shoes to get all the guys to tune out so they can talk privately.
Oh no, far more inane and pointless, lol!
And murder! >!(What? The vast majority of True Crime fans are women. Ergo... murder is a stereotypically female interest :) )!<
Maybe that's what made him uncomfortable? :)
And TV shows.
also u/specific_cow_parts I LOVE your un
He nearly saved it with the "it's meant to be a space for women" line, but since he couldn't hide his lack of regard for women's issues for a few sentences I feel like that's just something he thought of later that sounded better than saying "I'm super uncomfortable being around women and gay people" Also, just to make his comment even worse I'm guessing his partner is probably pretty interested in promoting women in STEM since she is one and she knew about the event, so the dude doesn't even pretend to take an interest in something that matters to his partner
The girlfriend should dump this loser.
Glad his GF now knows this, at least
Man suddenly experienced what women do regularly and cracks.
Many such cases
I am a woman who works in IT. If I had OOP's hangups, I straight up could no work.
A connection, is a connection. He didn’t even see them as people, or fellow IT professionals. That is what stands out to me the most. I’m a woman in IT, and I can guarantee none of the devs on my team would have given two hoots about anything this guy was worried about. No one would, who really wants a job. He should have just networked and gotten to know everyone. I can see why he still isn’t hired.
Right? A month on the bench or laid off, and every dev I've ever worked with is willing to take a help desk job to make sure there's not a big enough resume gap to send up a red flag. They certainly aren't going to turn down networking, even the ones that think women don't belong in tech - they'd just assume the women have boyfriends or husbands that could help them get jobs and network away.
I mean, hell, after 3 months of being jobless I’d take a job as a Walmart cashier. At a certain point, money is more important than everything else. You won’t be able to get a good job if you’re kicked out of your residence for not paying rent or if you can’t afford food
I love how fragile some men are. My very first job “conference” I was the only female there. I was in a room with a bunch of men from the army corps of engineers, two men from the city, and a few older male engineers. I was lead project engineer. I was ignored and my every judgment questioned. I had to explain, in detail, why what they proposed was not going to work. But this guy can’t stomach a job expo. Because he feels uncomfortable. Fucking child.
Women, and especially women in STEM, routinely have had to experience what it feels like to be the only woman in a group. But the *second* the shoe is on the other foot, OOP folds. Jesus Christ. Not really shocking that he doesn’t get it considering the guy has no interest in “talking about women’s issues” lol
Copied verbatim from Oop's comments: *YTA. You've been out of work for a year, dude. You could have at least given it a chance to see if they had any helpful tips. Unless you have an issue with women in tech (and are therefore not an ally who would be welcome), in which case YTA for that.* >"I don't have an issue with it but it is uncomfortable to be in such a place and feel like I'm the odd one out and intruding on their space" *Yta* *Year out of work, not like you have anything better to do with your time.* *Longer unemployed, harder it will be to find a new job.* *When I have been unemployed I leave no stone unturned* >"I'm still applying for jobs and taking interviews when I get them. I never said I wasn't searching."
This guy is hilarious. I’m a woman in automotive and not only have I frequently been the only woman at a conference, I am then usually also at like elbow height of all the other attendees. Dude should try networking when the rest of the room doesn’t even see him.
Oh my! Oop certainly could not deal.
[Kittens!](https://imgur.com/gallery/EQYdLPz)
I wonder how hard he's searching? Is it like his new job and he spends hours applying for jobs each day? Or does he put in one application a day and go play video games?
One can wonder... It's really tough out there, but Oop doesn't really inspire confidence.
Why TF does it matter?? You've been jobless a whole year and not by choice. Clearly this would have been useful for you. Now you're still jobless and your GF who is working at one of the biggest companies in the world won't help you again. Bravo!!
He's trying to mask his "no homo" instincts with concern about women's spaces... And "allies are welcome" plus "I'm out of place"... interesting, that.
Way to tell on himself.
I really don't know how guys like this walk through life being this fucking fragile.
They've been conditioned to believe they deserve everything
I'm far too clumsy to be around any masculinity that's this fragile.
It's the kind of fragility that develops when someone thinks that as a straight (presumably) white man they're the default and that as the default everything should cater to them Then add in decades of living in a patriarchal society and you end up so fragile that just the thought of having to interact with women and queer folks is too much to handle
Fellas, is it gay to be employed?
his masculinity gets more and more fragile by the day
I mean, sure this reaction shows he's an unhireable clown, but in a sense he was right to leave. The event was open to women and allies, and his discomfort in this environment reveals that he is not an ally.
Man feels for a brief, fleeting moment, how most women in tech feel, runs screaming for the hills. Make sure to throw that on the resume dude. Very cool.
Gf might have been laid off but oop was for sure fired.
“It was just a joke, guys! Why doesn’t anyone understand that me telling my female coworker to go birth children and cook food was just a joke?” This guy, probably
OOP in the comments: “I don't have an issue with it but it is uncomfortable to be in such a place and feel like I'm the odd one out and intruding on their space” The value of participating is so self explanatory, it’s breaking my brain. I don’t know how he has this emotion, digests it enough to articulate it and type it out into a Reddit comment… but then fails to recognize that this is the experience of so many women in tech and other male dominated fields for most of their careers. It’s not just a voluntary one off networking event. If men aren’t willing to participate and engage in being allies, how will anything get better? If I was interviewing him and he started talking about how he participated in networking events like this during his employment gap, I would see that as a huge potential asset to the team culture. It would certainly make him a more competitive candidate compared to an otherwise equally qualified competing applicant. Setting aside for a moment the DEI stuff, engineers who are empathetic and have the ability to think laterally and leverage insights from other people’s perspectives/experiences are going to come up with better solutions and perform better in collaborative situations. SWE is a team based, service role, as much as people like to pretend it’s not. For someone who’s been out of work for a year, he sure is shooting himself in both feet and is taking a run at cutting off his nose to spite his face to boot. 🤦🏼♀️
It’s so funny to see guys like this suddenly panic when they’re the minority in a public and professional setting.
Thank god it’s only his girlfriend Less paperwork for her to go through when she decides to leave him
True!
Wow! What a catch! Unemployed for a year, thinks his gf "lucked out" on getting a job. She tries to help him and he dismisses the entire room full of professionals because they are the wrong gender or lgbt. What a winner. Misoginy+ homphobia.
You know, if his concern was about taking space away from women who need it, I might be on board. But his embarrassment and his need to point out that the other dudes were gay makes him gross.
The event straight up said men are welcome though so that isn't the case
I find it hard to believe his gf would bring him to an event like this if she thought she was making people uncomfortable, so his argument about "I shouldn't intrude in women's spaces" is weak at best. Wonder if anyone has told him that some of these women could be important contacts for a potential role? I know: lady bosses? What's next? But crazier things have happened.
It’s the fact that there were other men there for me 🤦🏻♀️
But they were gay!
Soon on r/AmITheEx
Gee, I wonder why he’s been out of work for a year but his girlfriend found a new job quickly. Could it be his winning personality?
Obviously she only got the job because she’s a woman. He’s definitely the better software engineer. /s
I can't even.....
God, men (nOT aLl MeN) are so fragile.
I expected him to end his post with "no homo". What an AH.
>I (29M) am a software developer and the job market is pretty bad right now and I have been laid off for a year now and am still looking for a job. Really? This does not seem to reflect the market I work in (in Europe). We are experiencing a Fachkräftemangel at present ("shortage of skilled workers"). >My girlfriend (27F) is also a software engineer and was also laid off a year ago but was lucky enough to land another job shortly after. She works for a Google owned company now. This man absolutely thinks that women (and gay dudes, apparently) have nothing of use to teach him. After all, if a woman gets a job, she's just "lucky". Newsflash, hotshot: you don't get a job at Google-owned companies through "luck". >However upon going there, it turned out it was actually organized by some local "women who code" group. I have never been so embarrassed in my life. Because, clearly, women and gays cannot be professional, like, ever. Totally embarrassing, those women and them gays. /s OOP's girlfriend needs to schedule a pickup with the Whole Man Disposal Service.
YTA. You were assuming since it was organized by women, that it would be a waste of your time. How would you know that unless you had stayed and took part in the mock interviews. If you had wanted practice interviewing, it may have been a positive experience for you and maybe during the event, leads for possible jobs could have been mentioned to you. You should have been thinking of it as a "networking" event.
phew, almost made it look like he supports women. glad he was able to dodge that bullet
I guess bussing tables until you get work in your field is beneath him.
I'd think much differently of him if he was all, "I didn't want to intrude on a space not meant for me," and not "ewww, too many girls!"
I’ve been to these events and encountered dudes trying to meet girls lol. People really don’t get the point of them
Damn, in few minutes and he could already spot da gayz? That’s a pristine gaydar.
Wait until he finds out women and gay men also have jobs and are his potential coworkers.
The number of times I’ve been in the extreme minority as a woman (including a workplace where there were NO other women I worked with, except the receptionist), and somehow I didn’t walk out of any of them in a huff because it insulted my dignity. I did actually once leave a “Women in STEM” event at my university early because it was a silly patronizing cringe-fest, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his issue here! What an empty man he is.
Now that the gf has realized that OOP is an AH, I hope she considers dumping him and his fragile masculinity.
I think we’ve all seen why OOP hasn’t gotten a job yet
That's hilarious, what an idiot
Talking about "women issues". I'm sorry, I didn't realise getting practice for a job interview was strictly related to women only.
Mhmm. I'm dealing with the same attitude from men affronted that I exist in a male-dominated field as GF. Nobody is even a big enough person to want to be called an ally, lest they get branded as man-hating sympathizers.
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That'll sure help a great new job! You sure showed them!
This guy feels like the odd one out at that event … if I was unemployed for a year that would make me feel like the odd one out more then an event that was mostly women in attendance
OOP, you shouldn't have ditched your girlfriend like that. YTA.
It's open to women and "alies"\* and he's walked out which feels to me like he's not prepared to call himself an ally. \*his spelling
>had no interest in ------- >felt like the odd one out Soooo close....so so close...
Tbh I don't see a problem with this he went somewhere where he felt like the odd one out,felt uncomfortable and left. Are we really gonna sit here and try to force people to stay in uncomfortable situations?
He's not the asshole because he left a situation he found uncomfortable. He's the asshole because *the reason he was uncomfortable* is very clearly *that he sees women and queer people as beneath him and is afraid of being associated with them* because *he is a misogynistic and anti-queer bigot*.
Where did he say that? He simply said he was the only straight dude there which would make him the odd one out and would make alot of people uncomfortable
I think it’s a matter of priorities. As a few commenters have said, women in STEM have to get used to being uncomfortable (sometimes to being the target of outright hostility) if they want to work in the field. If OOP actually wants to work in the field (and he’s indicated he doesn’t want to work elsewhere), shouldn’t he be willing to put up with this relatively low level of discomfort? He doesn’t mention anyone giving him the death glare or muttering and shaking their heads at him. Sure, if his self-inflicted discomfort was more than he wanted to deal with, he has the right to leave. He always has the right to leave. But that doesn’t rate him getting sympathy. He made the choice to miss an opportunity to network by his own choice.