If I Had A Nickel For Every Time This Happened…

The way my company organizes itself is that we’re split into three- to five-person teams that each handle a certain specialty. I’m a woman and the team lead for four men.

When I first started with the company, the teams were named “Team 1,” “Team 2,” “Team 3,” etc. Because the names are not memorable, the team leads, and eventually, upper management started referring to each team by specialty instead. Unfortunately, those specialties tended to change throughout the year. Documents from last year might refer to my team as “Longtail” and from this year might refer to them as “Webex”.

It was decided to let the teams give ourselves official names. We chose “Nickel” as a dorky reference, and we were instructed to submit a team photo. As a team full of people in our late thirties and early forties, we decided to make our most gangsta poses possible in an effort to seem young and hip, though gangsta hasn’t been in style since we were in college.

We submitted the name and photo to management.

The next day, I was called into Human Resources.

I thought initially that the poses were too much, but HR reassured me that there was nothing wrong with the poses.

HR: “You should see what the other teams submitted. No, the problem is this. Here. Look at their pants. Did they do that deliberately?”

I looked at their pants — really looked — for the first time, and they all appeared to be sporting improbably large boners.

HR: “They trust you. Please find out for us.”

The way I found out was just by brazenly asking. It turns out it was deliberate; they had all chosen to wear, essentially, codpieces at the urging of their instigator and ringleader. I asked him why, and he said:

Employee: “To demoralize the other teams and crush their spirits.”

Long story short, my team is being disbanded and three of the men are being let go. The ringleader is having some portion of his compensation clawed back.

I’m no longer a team lead, though I got to keep the pay bump. The ringleader and I are being put on separate teams.

Why does it feel like I’m the one being punished?