WEBVTT - How to Escape a Toxic Workplace (Correct) 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.160 What would you do if it was your first day 0:00:02.200 --> 0:00:05.560 at a new job as an engineer and your manager 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:08.959 sent you a chat saying he's in an open relationship 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:11.920 and would like to find new partners to have sex with. 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:14.360 And then what would you do if you reported him 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:18.239 immediately to HR and they did nothing about it? This 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:22.200 week we are talking about toxic work environments. This is 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:36.120 game plan. Hi. I'm Francesco Leady and I'm her back 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.559 of Greenfield, And the scenario I just described is not 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.800 actually a hypothetical. You might have heard a lot about 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:45.760 Uber in the news last week. A former engineer there 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:49.440 wrote a fairly explosive article alleging that she was pretty 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.760 extensively sexually harassed and that so were other women working 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.840 at Uber, and the company really didn't do anything about 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.320 it and even sabotaged her and other female colleagues. Yeah, 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:01.440 that was what was striking about it, right, that it 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.520 was pretty institutionalized. And there was this follow up New 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.679 York Times article that dove into how that's the culture 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:13.040 at Uber, how there's bullying and people are protected if 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:16.880 they are quote unquote high performers, and how management is 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:20.240 against some employees and it's not just women. According to 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.399 this article, right, like, it isn't only women being sexually harassed. 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.760 There men getting bullied as well. Yeah. One example was 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:31.200 that a manager threatened to beat an underperforming employees in 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.959 the head with a baseball bat. Um. That was one. Yeah, 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:40.080 that's really weird and scary kind of can you imagine 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.319 that happening to No, I can't. And I think that's 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.119 where you cross over into what we kind of call 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.680 a toxic workplace. It's a little bit of a buzzword, 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.520 but I do think that it's useful to think about 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:54.920 what it means to work someplace that is toxic. What 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.040 does it mean to you? So when we dine our 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:00.520 sexual harassment episode, our guest said that had things will 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:02.720 happen when you get a lot of people together. So 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.480 the very fact that there is somebody sexually harassing someone 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.800 at work doesn't necessarily make the workplace toxic. It's the 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:13.320 fact that at uber it seems that they don't address 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.960 it and they may even protect these people. So that thought, 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.359 to me, is what really makes a place seem like 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.519 somewhere I wouldn't want to work. What about you, Francesca, Yeah, 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.280 I think it's exactly that that it's not just one 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:26.720 jerk or you know, one person you don't get along 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:28.760 with it work. It's it's a bunch of systems that 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.400 really make you feel powerless. I mean, I know I've 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:35.799 worked in places, certainly not now or any time recently, 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:38.200 but I have at least one job that comes to 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.280 mind that I would I would call a pretty toxic 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.960 work environment. And the reason it was that way was 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.240 not just because I had a mean boss or I 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.320 had a mean coworker. It was because there was a 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:50.840 manager pretty high up who I would describe as a bully, 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.920 and I think that his management style trickled down to 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.040 the managers below him and the managers below them, and 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.239 it really felt like there was nothing you could do. 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.200 There was no way you could get justice, so to speak, 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:05.040 for the way that you were being treated at the job, 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:07.760 and if you were going to stick around, you had 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.040 to kind of come up with coping strategies, Like it 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:11.600 was all about just how to get out of bed 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:15.040 every morning and go into work and know that something 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.760 you felt really unfair was going to happen to you 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.280 that day. That kind of brings me to my question 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.200 about this, which is how people get stuck in these 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.240 jobs and why they stay and then what finally gets 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:30.880 them to leave? Yeah, the obvious answer would be money, 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:33.440 Like it's hard to leave jobs and you can't really 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:35.520 leave if you depend on the paycheck. But it's it's 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:37.800 more nuanced than that, right. Yeah. I wrote a story 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.040 about why people stay in jobs they hate, which wrote 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.680 up some research that found often these people who didn't 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.720 link our jobs for one reason or another, stayed because 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:50.480 they were being overpaid basically at their current jobs. And 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.960 why would you leave? But that cannot be the case 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.120 for all these stories we're hearing. I mean Susan Fowler, 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:59.280 for example, as an engineer and uber. She got a 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:01.520 job me or weeks later, but it took her an 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.240 entire year. Right You hear all about the talent shortage 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.000 in Silicon Valley. There's really it's not that hard for 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:09.720 an engineer to find something new if they if they 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.320 want to switch jobs. And there are toxic work environments 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.280 and other high paying fields right here. These stories from 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.839 all sorts of workers, not just people, are stuck in 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.520 their positions. Right, So there's a lot of coping that 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.400 happens in mental thought processes that I think get You 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.680 may be stuck in these environments for longer than you 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:28.359 would like to be, and it's a perfect time to 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:32.040 introduce our guest, who herself worked in a toxic work 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:43.160 environment many years ago. Our guest today is Maureen Sherry, 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:47.000 whose book Opening Bell is a fictionalized account of her 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.560 time as the youngest female managing director at Bear Stearns. 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.160 Opening Bell is soon to be a movie starring Reese Witherspoon, 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.960 and we're very happy to have Maureen with us. Welcome, Maria, 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.320 thank you. I'm happy to be here. Maybe you can 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:01.080 start by telling us a little bit about what the 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:05.760 culture was like at Barristerns in the late nineties early two. Yeah. 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:08.120 So the culture of Bear and I think some other 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:12.000 investment banks on Wall Street, particularly on the trading floor 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:16.680 where I worked, was very much a meritocracy in the 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.960 way that you could whatever you There's this terrible expression 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.440 eat what you kill, but you were on commission and 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:29.839 people were quite motivated to really be successful by bringing 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.000 the most commissions or doing the most deal or that 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:34.919 sort of thing. And so as an outlier that you 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:40.039 had this incredibly competitive environment that was probably nine it 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:44.839 was male professionals, and so women were far outnumbered, and 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:48.000 as you can imagine, it was a very very loose 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:54.120 from a behavior standpoint. And uh, if you remember, the 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.920 economy at that time had gone through a a blip 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.640 and had really recovered nicely. So there was a lot 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.080 of energy, there's a lot of money being made, and 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:05.960 it was a pretty wild time. Can you give us 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:10.720 some specific examples of that wild time? So I think 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.000 that as women were coming more into their own on 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:18.120 Wall Street at that time, there was a feeling that 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.960 almost a question of of place. Where they really hadn't 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:26.599 been large breadwinners, they now were in some situations, and 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.160 so I think for some, especially more senior men, it 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.360 felt it was a little disconcerting. They felt a little bit, 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.279 uh that there was a power play. There was a 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.880 I think, a way that men asserted themselves in their 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:42.839 role of being more powerful. And one of the ways 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:46.080 they did that was through a lot of fraternal jokes, 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.039 a lot of juvenile behavior stuff that we've yeah, you've 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.800 talked about people moving at you. Yeah, that's right. So 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.040 one of the more awful examples was I had at 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:01.080 the time just had my first child, and I was 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:04.200 expressing breast milk, and so it is as you know, 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.320 a very familial environment, very much like a newsroom where 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.080 people sit quite close to one another. Nobody really has 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.320 office stores that they closed. So I did keep a 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.400 pump under my desk. I would have to go to 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.400 We had a barber shop at bear Stearns, and I 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.520 would go in there to express breast milk. And when 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.680 I would get up and pull the bag out, sometimes traders, 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.040 seeing me leaving the desk would move and you know, 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:31.720 you would blush and it was funny, and and yet 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.880 part of you felt very sad about it. It seems 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:37.880 like these incidents can add up like that wasn't the 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:41.400 only thing that happened right, right, And you have to 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.280 remember that part of it is acceptance. Like I don't 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.120 think these were necessarily bad men who were trying to 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:49.720 like objectify me in any way. I think it was 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.560 we worked very closely together. They thought it was funny. 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:57.360 Sometimes men performed for other men in a very fraternal 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.400 and as I know, some people call it now the 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.880 broke culture of Wall Street. And so that's the environment 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:05.960 I worked in, and so I think this was part 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:10.640 of it. Was the environment toxic for men in ways? Also, 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.840 I would say not because they had been the establishment 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.800 for for quite a while. I wouldn't say toxic. I 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.440 do think that the women who were coming in and 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.960 women that I recruited to join the firm, who were 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:29.120 younger than me, had a much stronger sense of of 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.680 right and wrong behavior. And so one thing that was 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.439 of great frustration to me was so many of them 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.439 would leave. They would last about two years, sometimes three, 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:40.800 and then just say, you know, I I can make 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:42.800 a living in a different way. I don't like the 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.280 culture here. And so so one thing that myself and 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:49.240 some of the other professional women did is we formed 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:53.600 this group and we didn't want to, you know, make 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.560 class action status or or or sue or do anything 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:58.360 like that. What we wanted to do is change the 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.360 culture of the place we worked. And so we called jokingly, 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.679 we called ourselves the Glass Ceiling Club, and the Glass 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.080 Ceiling Club just aimed to call men on behavior that 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.680 we thought was unacceptable and that we thought other women 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.000 that it was causing other women to leave. For ourselves, 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:17.400 we felt like we had been there for so long 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:20.839 that we almost had accepted it, or felt we had 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.240 a thick skin. But I really felt like with younger 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.000 women that was no longer going to to work anymore. 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:31.240 Why did you decide to stay and spend some time 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.400 trying to change the culture rather than just finding another opportunity. 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:36.840 You know what I think it's interesting about that question 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.120 is when you're in it, I didn't say to myself 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:42.600 every day, Oh, I should really leave this is this 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.400 is abusive. I felt a little beaten up sometimes by 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:50.920 this constant drum of call it sexism if you will, 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:54.480 But I stayed for so long because it starts to 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:57.200 feel familiar. Like a lot of people who are in 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.559 even a bad relationship, it feels familiar, it feels comfortable. 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:05.280 Obviously there's financial security, and so I think that had 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:06.920 a lot to do with it. To some of us, 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.240 this can sound like a time a long time ago, 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.439 and things have changed. And you even said younger workers 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:16.080 have different reactions to this. But you've been interviewing traders 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:19.200 working on floors now as part of research for your movie. 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.439 Are these things still happening? So yeah, it's been very 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.880 interesting to go around with the screenwriter and to go 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.199 to a trading floor, and we really targeted women who 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:34.120 are really on the professional track doing great, and to 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.959 talk to them incredibly frankly, and they're mostly women who 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.160 have been referred to us by other women because there's 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.600 a lot of this, oh you should hear what happened 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.559 to her, But they they share stories sometimes, but nobody 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:50.240 really wants to be the one who is raising her 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.040 hand and saying, you know, we need to do something 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:55.920 about this. But for us, because it is sort of, um, 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.080 you know, kind of this little safe environment to speak with, 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.200 we've gotten a lot of really good feedback and so 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:07.439 so things have changed as far as the overt, uh 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.640 really overt awful stuff that would happen on a trading floor. 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.760 We think partly that's because stuff is far more documentable now. Right, 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:19.280 everybody has a camera phone, We have messages and emails 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.160 and things like that that are evidence based. And so 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:24.880 what's different now is that they would say it has 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:29.840 gone to be a more covert sexism. So, for instance, 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.920 one woman gave us the example where she had had 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.880 she has a young child, she returned to work. Another 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:39.120 woman had a child and decided to be home with 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:42.360 her family, and so at her going away party, their 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.360 mutual boss stood up and said, I'll call her Jane. 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.520 He said, you know, let's all raise a toast to Jane, 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:50.600 she's going home to be with her baby. She's doing 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.440 the right thing, and everyone had to toast to that. Well, 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.160 you can imagine how this makes this woman who's not 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.360 home with her child all day feel. It's stuff like that. 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.520 We had really countless examples, and so to keep this 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:06.480 story current in the movie, we're trying to use examples 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:10.080 more like that. Do you have advice or thoughts for 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:14.040 how women can deal with that more more covert version. 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.560 One thing that has struck me with the numerous cases 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:19.840 not just on Wall Street, but we've seen this now 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.200 in the news area. Obviously we're talking about it now 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:27.959 and with uber women not speaking to one another, is 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.760 that something that nobody has really explained to me very well. 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:37.160 And so one very senior woman said to me that 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:41.200 she felt she was so kind of honored to have 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:44.199 been chosen to become a partner at an investment bank. 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.600 There are so few seats at the table for women. 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.720 She felt really grateful to be there for her to 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.920 start raising her hand and and kind of like kivetzing 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.360 with other women and sharing stories with other women didn't 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:02.240 really seem like a good career move. And so that 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.400 is one thing that I felt, if women can break 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:09.320 that habit and and look out for each other more, 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.960 but even more importantly to have men look out for 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.760 women in that way. So, for instance, we talk a 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.920 lot about mentorship, and often it's a senior women being 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.880 assigned essentially a younger women who she's supposed to to 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:26.760 bring in and to to help her with career advice 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.360 and things like that. And the women I spoke to 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:33.000 generally didn't like that relationship, only because sometimes it works 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:37.319 out and it's terrific, sometimes it feels very artificial. I 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:41.000 think that I would say to younger women, speaking to 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:45.120 other women is great. Finding organic relationships is great. I 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.520 also think when you do that, if there is some 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:52.000 sexism or or I al would say non promotion from men, 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:56.040 to have a male mentor or a good friend who 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.760 can look out for you, I think that helps immeasurably too. 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.599 So I talked a bit about why people's day and 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.520 why you've stayed and partly, yeah, it's because you've built 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.520 this great career and you've invested so much time and 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:13.080 this thing. How did you eventually get out? Well? I 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.160 didn't leave because there had been any one big event. 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.760 I felt beaten down because I had I have a number, 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.360 I have four children, and so after each maternity leave, 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.720 I would return to a lesser job. I think partly 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:29.920 that was because I worked with men who, in general 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:34.160 they were large income earners, their wives didn't need to work, 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:37.960 so it felt to them a little strange to work 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.800 alongside a working mother. That wasn't that common back then, 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.720 and I still think it's It's a much smaller percentage 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:47.720 in the in the higher ends of Wall Street than 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:51.640 than you can imagine. So when I did leave, it 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.880 was a feeling. Yes, I felt beaten down a bit 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.040 by my job. I had felt that when I came back, 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:01.080 my accounts that I covered rare, always fewer of them, 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:03.080 and I would often get them back, but it was 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.720 through a lot of uphill work again, and so I 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.640 felt worn out when I left. What was really interesting 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.080 is I went to our human resource department because you 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:18.240 have this mandatory exit interview, and I wanted to be 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:22.640 really honest because I felt like despite many meetings and 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:28.040 trying to defend some women who had signed you fours 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:29.880 and had left in the kind of in the dark 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:33.160 of night, and it had gotten uh, gotten nice checks 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.280 for their for their silence. I didn't want to do 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:39.160 anything like that. So when I sat down, there was 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.240 this lovely offer for me to sign a piece of 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:46.320 paper that was a nondisclosure agreement, and I had this 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.760 very expensive statement that I said where I said, I 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.760 said to her, well, how would my signing this help 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:57.240 any women? Her coming behind me, and so it's sort 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.280 of she sort of, you know, had her tongue for 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:02.520 a little bit. And then I said, and what exactly 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.080 is this money for? And again she really didn't have 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:08.040 an answer for me, and so I left, and I 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:09.960 didn't leave with this intention to go and write a 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.200 book about it. But as years went by and I 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:17.720 saw these occasional class action suits come to fruition, and 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:21.080 we saw enormous settlements, you know, Morgan Stanley, a smaller 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.320 one of Goldman Sachs City Group at JP Morgan. When 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.080 you see these happening at so many places and you 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.600 never hear the details because all the women are essentially 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:34.440 handed checks for their silence, I kept saying to myself, 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:38.160 whatever will make this change, And for me, the change 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:40.840 was something I could I could do because I had 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.000 not signed anything, and b I could novelize it. My 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.720 intention was never to get certain people in trouble or 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:49.200 name names. It was just to describe a culture that 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.280 previous I felt to this book had never really been described. 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.240 Just give us a little bit more detail about that system. 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:57.720 You know, what is the you for and what is 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:00.680 in nondisclosure agreement? And how do they keep us from 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:03.720 learning more about how common these stories can be? So 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:06.919 this isn't just a Wall Street phenomenous uh. And in 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:09.040 several industries, on your first day of work, when you 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:11.679 sit down and most people don't read the fine the 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:13.480 fine print because they're so excited to have a job. 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.399 It says that if you ever have an issue with 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.080 this firm, you will settle it in house. You'll come 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.640 to human resources, you'll describe what's bothering you. They will 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.760 either verify it or not verify it. And that's the 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.440 U for. That's right, that's the U four. And it's 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.160 an arbitration agreement. You will arbitrate and have this settled 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:37.080 in house. And so everybody signs it. And when you do, 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.639 you've given up your essentially your your civil rights to 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:42.480 a day in court. Some people get out of that 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.720 by forming class action when they have so many people 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:49.080 on board that they're able to present as a group. 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.159 But even with that, we we have never seen that 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.640 come to a court where people testified. I'm wondering, since 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.400 we've been talking about uber, when you read that, what 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:04.560 was your reaction? So I so my reaction was not 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:08.840 one of great surprise. My reaction was here she has. 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:11.840 I felt Susan Fowler had a tremendous amount of evidence, 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.560 right she had. I guess I can't remember if their 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.560 emails or text messages from her superior basically propositioning her 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:23.760 very blatantly, and so to me to present that to 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.640 a human resources department, that's a it's just a very 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.760 open and shut case. But when I read how long 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.640 it went on for because he was a large income 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:38.520 earner and and a great employee as far as bringing money, 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:43.160 did it surprise me? It didn't surprise me. No. Well, yeah, 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.320 I mean I think that it's just really interesting how 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:48.359 you hear these stories yours and Susan Fowler's, and they 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.399 sound really shocking, But the truth is that there may 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.800 be many, many more of these stories out there. I 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:55.439 just wanted to add, you know, I had written an 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:59.000 op ed about it, and one thing that really shocked 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.000 me were the amount of else I got, not from 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.480 women in Wall Street or banking, from so many industries. 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:08.400 It was women in research, women in education, women in science, 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.640 and it went on and on, and so it made 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.280 it made me feel emboldened to to talk about this more, 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:19.240 because it is obviously not just isolated to industries where 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:21.280 you do sign a you for, but many others where 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:25.320 women feel I think sort of they just have somehow 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.879 gotten themselves used to putting up with this coersive behavior 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:31.439 that that to hang on to their jobs and of 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.200 course financial stability, and maybe that's another reason why women 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.280 and people get stuck in these work environments. Where else 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.000 do you go if it's happening at so many places 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.880 and in so many industries. Yeah, likes you feel that way, 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:46.320 I've I felt that way, and the and the again, 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:50.200 the feedback made us, myself and the screenwriter, we were 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:54.440 sort of marveling about the broad brush of of industry 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.280 in the US and and how prevalent it is, and 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.280 you know, maybe women just feel that this is part 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:04.080 of the cost of money. Well, thank you so much 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.600 for talking to us, thank you, thanks for having me 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:18.280 so Marian tried to change that culture from within, and 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.719 clearly that did not work and sounded very exhausting. So 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:25.639 then her other option was to leave the field completely 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:29.200 and use the platform that she has now, which seems 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:31.639 to be working a little better. Right. It seems like 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.080 if you if you actually want to change a toxic 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:36.639 workplace culture and not just leave it, those are your 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:38.560 two options. You can stay there and try to make 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:40.760 things better from within, or you can leave and make 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.920 it really public what happened to you. But as Maureen described, 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:46.199 that carries its own penalties, and if you want to 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.159 stay in your industry, you might be really reluctant to 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:51.439 do that and burn bridges. But it also seems like 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:54.600 it's the more effective strategy. Like even at Uber, in 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.400 the wake of these two, you know, really high profile articles, 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:00.720 the company and now it was going to do an 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.480 independent investigation and bring in former Attorney General Eric Holder 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:06.960 and Arianna Huffington and all these other people to figure 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.880 out what had happened there and take it really seriously. 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:12.359 And I can't imagine that happening if all the stuff 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:14.880 hadn't come to light. Oh, no way, no way. And 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:17.960 it's a little unfair to make the victims do all 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:20.760 the work if you're going to stay within the culture 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.320 and try to change things, like that's just unfair that 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:25.720 not only are you being bullied at work, but it's 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:27.679 on you to fix it. It's kind of nice to 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:32.080 see Uber getting aggressive and kind of on the defense 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:35.080 about it. And even if it's under these unfortunate circumstances, 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:37.800 that this is how things are going to change, right, Like, 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:40.520 companies really aren't going to have that much pressure to 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:44.560 change if every time somebody leaves a toxic workplace they 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:46.080 do it kind of quietly and they have to sign 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:48.479 an NBA or do the you for arbituation and she 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:50.840 was talking about, right, or even if you don't have 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:52.639 to do those things, and you just don't want to 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:55.400 ruffle feathers, you don't want to leave on a bad 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.239 note because you might have to work with somebody at 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:00.560