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A lady team lead lectured me for 5 minutes because I started with "Hey guys" in a 25 minutes call.

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not-on-reddit-bro
February 16, 2020
56 upvotes
antifeminists

Hi everyone, so I was attending a web meeting and it was really important for me in the sense that I wanted to present my startup idea to them and know their feedback. The fund is from the US and I'm from India.

I had to spend a lot of days cold emailing them to set up a call with me. It's a big venture fund and they agreed to sponsor my tickets to their office but since it wasn't possible for me to travel to their office being a college student, I asked them if we could zoom a meeting and they agreed.

After their introduction, I started off with "Hi guys, my name is -->" and there I made the biggest mistake of life. The team lead was a lady and she said "guys" isn't a gender-neutral word and how I should be taking care of it. She also went on to criticize me for not being mature enough to even know this and how will I be able to convert my company without girls in the team. She spoke for at least 5 minutes and then other people started agreeing with her too.

They didn't seem that interested afterwards and I just got my mood off too.

I've bee using guys all my life & I will try to change but I don't think I can. It's just stupid according to me. What do you think I should have done?

I think I just didn't say anything in return because 1. she was the manager 2. I didn't want a wrong label for myself.

What should I have done? Another lady also recently tweeted about how casually everyone uses "guys" in corporate especially tech industry and how they should take care of it.


Post Information
Title A lady team lead lectured me for 5 minutes because I started with "Hey guys" in a 25 minutes call.
Author not-on-reddit-bro
Upvotes 56
Comments 17
Date 16 February 2020 03:35 PM UTC (9 months ago)
Subreddit antifeminists
Link https://theredarchive.com/post/707126
Original Link https://old.reddit.com/r/antifeminists/comments/f4s742/a_lady_team_lead_lectured_me_for_5_minutes/
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Comments

[–]ANIKAHirsch23 points24 points  (4 children) | Copy

She embarrassed herself here. You did nothing wrong. “Guys” is gender neutral. Even if it wasn’t, she shouldn’t have been offended.

Sorry you lost the business, but it’s probably not worth it to do business with a person like this. She obviously had it out for you. If it wasn’t this, she would have found something else to criticize you for.

[–]not-on-reddit-bro[S] 2 points3 points  (2 children) | Copy

yeah, I guess, she also said on the email that their company is trying to fund more all-women startups & we don't have any girl as a founder. We're just two people and both are guys.

[–]ANIKAHirsch2 points3 points  (0 children) | Copy

It sounds like she has a pretty clear agenda then.

[–]not-on-reddit-bro[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy

did you see what I did there? :P

[–]Pz51 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy

The lady was an obvious feminist

[–]sanrio-sugarplum8 points9 points  (2 children) | Copy

That's so dumb. I'm a girl and I've never felt excluded by someone saying "hey guys." I use it myself all the time, even when I'm talking to a group of girls. "Guys" is absolutely a gender-neutral word in that context. The other thing that really confuses me is I've heard that referring to a group of females as "girls" is also offensive. So what are you supposed to say? "Hey everyone" sounds a little formal. "Hey people" and "hey peeps" sound stupid.

The fact that feminists get so mad over the use of a completely non-offensive word shows that they don't have many legitimate things to complain about. That's how we got "manspreading" and "himpathy."

As for what you should have done, honestly, I have no idea. But it seems like dealing with shitty managers, crazy feminist or not, is just part of life. There has been at least one manager that I hated at every job I've had. It sucks, but if you're not in a position to quit your job, I would say the best thing to do is remind yourself that you did literally nothing wrong and try your best to avoid any altercations with her in the future.

[–]not-on-reddit-bro[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child) | Copy

Thanks, she isn't my boss. I'd a startup idea and wanted to pitch to them. They run a venture fund basically and I had a meeting with them.

[–]sanrio-sugarplum1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy

Oh in that case fuck all of them and their shitty takes

[–]laptopdragon7 points8 points  (0 children) | Copy

if anything you found a group of people who are not worth working with under any circumstances.

Hope you get more support and success from moving on.

[–]Little_Princess19971 point2 points  (1 child) | Copy

What the fuck???? Seriously 😒Sorry she gave you a hard time.

[–]not-on-reddit-bro[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy

Thanks. I'm over it now, writing & sharing here helped :)

[–]VestigialHead1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy

Be thankful the business did not go through.

Anyone who places that level of importance on a nonsensical thing such as pronouns or genderfication of words is not going to make a good business partner. They will be spending more time on making sure wording is correct and not enough time on making sure the business is correct.

So you dodged a bullet.

[–]midwesttradwife0 points1 point  (1 child) | Copy

I say “you guys” to everyone; my male friends, my female friends, my kids, my extended family. The only thing I might suggest is that if your workplace environment is more on the formal side, I’d replace “hey you guys” with “hello, everyone.” But for your supervisor to lecture you on “guys” simply because she doesn’t see it as gender neutral (when pretty much everyone else in the world does) is ridiculous. You didn’t do anything wrong.

[–]not-on-reddit-bro[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy

Thanks, man. I'll try to say "everyone" from now but it just came out automatically as it naturally does & should. Appreciate your comment :)

[–]JZSquared0 points1 point  (1 child) | Copy

Hi everyone

I see you learned your lesson. /s

In all seriousness though, the only person who isn't "mature enough" in this situation is the deranged lunatic with the gender studies degree, who feels the need to call out someone based on the innocuous use of a word. I would say that you dodged a bullet by not working with these people, it would have been an inevitable disaster.

[–]not-on-reddit-bro[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children) | Copy

Haha I didn't catch that. I think when I write I automatically chose "everyone" & when I speak, I just say "guys"

I'm over it now. I also reported her LinkedIn, Facebook & Instagram profile as spam lol.

[–]not-on-reddit-bro[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children) | Copy

Here's a tweet on alternatives to hey guys: https://twitter.com/olofster/status/1232351337536348161?s=19



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