Warning: rant about work.
I work in a molecular biology lab with 4 other summer students. Our lab is located in a government agricultural research center. It is already semi-stressful:
- Coworkers want to skip out early and complain about pay.
- Only male coworker does everything half-assed.
- DNA extraction kit is NOT working with the tissue we need to extract from. PI keeps getting us to keep doing extractions and changing little things when we have been told (and we have seen) that it is not going to work.
- The company that shares are space has accused us of crashing their internet, stealing their forks and using up too much space in their fridge.
- We brought fire blight into the area on one of our cultivars. GOODY.
- My carpool refuses to wait even 5 minutes for me. He leaves me notes and sends me texts, asking if I can get a ride when someone else because he took off. He has also been overcharging me for gas (no license, no car so I am naive when it comes to paying someone for gas)
Anyway.
When we started work, we were told there was not really a dress code. Close-toed shoes were to be worn in the building. We were told to wear whatever we wanted in the orchards as long as our parts were covered. Our PI joked that we could wear bikinis if we wanted to.
When I am working in the building, I prefer to dress casual/nice. Usually in jeans, a nice shirt and a cardigan. One of the girls wears lululemon yoga pants every day. I find that a little inappropriate. Whatever. Everyone else dresses okay.
The four of us girls have been recruited to work in the orchards. Yesterday, it was very humid and pushing 30 degrees C, so for the last hour of work outside, we worked in our sports bras and shorts because we were under the impression that we were allowed. I happened to have on long, lose athletic shorts that day. My butt was covered.
Today, we headed out to the field. We passed a very visible plot where a young guy we knew was working in the field shirtless.
Today, our lab manager got bombarded by 3 women. They told her that our asses were hanging out and that it is inappropriate for us to be wearing spandex and underwear in the field. Apparently some men who worked at the station have noticed it to. A man told my lab manager that men have noticed it but chose not to complain. The joke is that the men love the summer because of all of the young female students running around the station.
So...
1. The men around the station are leering at young girls.
2. Guys are allowed to go around shirtless. Guys are allowed to go around shirtless with their boxers hanging out of their pants (our male coworker worked like that before he got stuck doing things inside). Girls are not allowed to wear shorts and sport bras.
3. Our PI lied to us by saying it was okay for us to dress like that.
4. Whoever spoke to my lab manager lumped all 4 of us under the spandex/asses-hanging-out umbrella. I do not own spandex. Or short shorts.
5. We are not the only girls in the field. There is an entomology group that does work in our plot made up of four girls. After we got spoken to by our lab manager, they came up to do work. One was wearing a skin tight spaghetti strap top, cleavage hanging out and short shorts. We were targeted when it may not have even been us.
Our lab manager told us that she did not have a problem with how we looked today. We were all wearing shorts, varying in length, and tanks with a sports bra underneath.
I have NEVER been told that I dress inappropriately. Now I have been accused of running around in my underwear with my ass hanging out. LOVELY. And apparently guys leered at me the ONE day I was out in the field in my sports bra. Our plot isn't even really that visible, so wtf?!
Funny how they notice us the ONE day we are in our sports bras... but they have yet to notice any of us going off the plot to pee in the woods, which is illegal (yes, it is illegal to pee on land where food is grown.)
