Katharina Buczek
Katrina reiterated that she needed the new employee’s station to be set up by the end of Friday’s workday since the employee was beginning on Monday.
“A couple of hours later, my boss came to my cube. He grabbed a chair, sat down next to me, and said, ‘hey, you’re not in trouble. I just want you to know that Steve from IT came into my office and said that you were being abrasive with his team,'” Katrina recalled.
Katrina was forced to– again– explain the entire situation and defend her communication. Her boss said he would take care of it, but Katrina still went home feeling uneasy.
“I was still really upset about this comment. I did not want to come off that way, and I did not intend to come off that way. But, I remember crying in my apartment because I was so upset that this happened,” Katrina said.
Katrina was so distraught that she actually decided to google the word “abrasive” in relation to women in the workforce.
“I found a study by a woman named Kieran Snyder that was conducted in 2014, and she had looked at two hundred and fifty performance reviews. She found that in seventeen of those reviews, the word ‘abrasive’ was used to describe women but never used to describe men,” Katrina explained.
Katrina is nowhere near alone in her frustrations. Her TikTok reached over five hundred thousand people and gained over one hundred thousand likes. Women from all over voiced their displeasure toward how they have been treated in the workplace and even shared their own experiences.
“This is so classic. Also, the fact that Steve did not just talk to you but instead spoke to your manager. Do your job, Steve,” commented one user.
“I was told that I was abrasive to my teammates– who are all men– because I asked if they were done with their breaks. We had work to do,” wrote a second user.
“For me, I’ve been labeled ‘bossy’ and ‘feisty’ anytime I speak assertively. The second is used to shame me for speaking with confidence and passion,” chimed in a third user.
Katrina actually created a follow-up video to specifically address this last comment and the use of the adjective “feisty” toward women.
