Many years ago when I was but a lowly helpdesk underling, I got a call about very deep details concerning how an in-house custom application worked on the back end.

It was not a front-end question, and was not possible to answer from the user interface or I would’ve answered it. In other words, the developer had to answer it. This application had only one developer, a very clever and competent woman who sat near me.

I said, “I don’t really know how that application works on the back end – I will have to transfer you to Maria to get that answered.”

The caller said, “No, no, she can’t help me. Is Brian there?” Brian was another tech. I said that he wasn’t around.

The caller said, “Well, is Charlie there then?” Charlie wasn’t around either, and would have known absolutely nothing about the application as he was a networking guru.

After the caller went through two or three more names as well as inquiring again if I was sure that I could not help them, I said “Why don’t I transfer you to Maria? I’m quite sure she can help you as she developed the application.”

The caller said that they were very sure Maria would not be able to help and that she certainly couldn’t know anything about it.

I’d already figured out, you see, that the caller was asking for anyone who was male. Anyone at all. Didn’t matter if the person had the first clue about the application. Penis good; vagina bad.

So I was done at this point and said, “I know you don’t believe Maria can assist you, but she wrote the application from scratch and is the only person here who knows anything really about it. So why don’t we just try?”

I then transferred the call without waiting for much of a response.

Maria sat 10 feet away so I could overhear what came next.

She answered the caller’s question in about 20 seconds. I’d already spent nearly five minutes on the phone wasting time with the clodpate prior to that.

The very sad thing is that the caller was a woman, hence why I concealed the gender with “they” and “them” until now. Sexism doesn’t respect gender boundaries, alas.