I saw my boss’s NSFW social media, leaving a field I’m proud of, and more

by Alison Green on July 28, 2023

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…

1. I’m struggling with leaving a field I’m proud to be in

I’m female and in my late 30s (relevance will become apparent). I was working as a secondary maths tutor when I saw an ad urging me to consider firefighting and, on a whim, I applied. Unexpectedly, after rounds of tests, I got in, so I moved from part-time, home-based, self-employed work to full-time, station-based, 12-hour shifts. I stopped being the primary parent, put my youngest into full-time nursery, and turned my family’s lives upside down by disappearing for training for eight weeks.

I loved that I was showing my children that you can dare to be bad at something again, and showing all children (and some adults) that women can be firefighters too. In the UK, women make up 6% of firefighters. The feminist in me has been cheering herself hoarse for the last 18 months.

But I’m not very good at the job. Mostly I struggle with just how much there is to learn.

I’ve been persevering but fairly frequently not enjoying it because it isn’t easy to be bad at something. I’m passing the assessments but the final, biggest ones are coming up and the feedback I get is that I’m not up to scratch. I don’t think I can sustainably work harder. I wonder whether it’s time to say I tried but it’s not happening.

I think I’d feel like a failure if I quit, and I’d be embarrassed to have to tell people. Being a firefighter gets you such kudos, it’s lovely, and I enjoy the surprise I see in people’s faces. How do I give up and have peace of mind? How do I get my inner feminist to forgive me?

One way to look at it is that it’s useful to show your kids that you don’t need to keep doing something for the external kudos if it doesn’t actually fulfill you. And also, that there’s value in trying new things and it doesn’t commit you to doing them forever. And that it’s okay to say, “I tried this, I learned a ton, it ended up not being ideal for me, and I’m choosing to do something else.”

Keep in mind, too, that you don’t need to frame it to people (or yourself!) as a failure — you can tell people, “It was a lot of work and I’m glad I tried it but it’s not something that fits me well long-term.” Or, “I learned a ton, including that I don’t think it’s something I’m going to build my life around long-term.” Or, “I’m so happy I did it, but there are a bunch of reasons I decided not to continue.”

Also! While I understand the pleasure of seeing people’s surprise when you tell them you’re a firefighter, that’s not enough to compromise your day-to-day quality of life. That’s especially true for something you really just tried on a whim! This would be harder if it had been your lifelong dream … my advice would still be the same, because sometimes dreams turn out really different in reality and you shouldn’t tether yourself to a life that Current You doesn’t want just because Old You did, but maybe there’s some comfort in the fact that this wasn’t that.

Plus, you’ll forever be able to tell people “I used to be a firefighter” and that’s pretty great too.

2. I saw my boss’s NSFW social media

I’m a shift supervisor at a coffeeshop and my direct manager is my store manager, “Jane.” I am 25 and Jane is 26. We’re both fairly competent with technology and the internet. Jane has a very unique name that isn’t common in the U.S. Recently, Facebook and Instagram have been recommending her profile to me and my coworkers. We’ve all been recommended to each other recently so no one really thought about it.

I clicked on her Instagram out of sheer curiosity. She has a public personal profile. I checked her Facebook and found it’s public as well. I could quickly identify that it was her and not someone with the same name. I took the username from the Instagram profile and googled it, and the second result was a public Twitter profile. It had a different username but the display name matched the username from the Instagram. I scrolled twice and stumbled on furry NSFW art.

Is it my fault for going out of my way to look for her? Should I discreetly tell her that she’s easy to find on the internet? None of the content on her social media is related to her job, I just accidentally know too much about her.

Leave it alone. You didn’t do anything wrong — people google their coworkers, and while you went further than most with googling her username, it’s not a major crime to do that. But you risk making things weird at work if you bring it up with her. Pretend you didn’t see it, wipe it from your mind, and possibly be less expansive about how you search for coworkers in the future.

3. Negotiating when a job offers less than you’re currently making

I’ve been in my current position for seven years working in nonprofit marketing. I recently applied for a recruitment and communications position at my old college. I wasn’t looking for a new job, but was excited about the opportunity to work there and recruit students for the major that I studied. The salary wasn’t disclosed and said it would be based on experience. I researched the title and salary ranges for my city and most were upwards of $50k-$78k. This would be life-changing for my partner and me. So I decided to go for it. I spent three hours crafting a strong cover letter and sprucing up my resume and it landed me a spot as a finalist. They quickly started talking with my references and brought me in for a panel interview and to meet the program director. I felt like I interviewed well and they liked the questions I had. At the end I asked about compensation – framing it as I wanted to be respectful of their time and asking what the budgeted range of compensation was. They said they were unsure, but gave me a number they thought was going to be where they landed. It was $38k, several thousand lower than what I currently make. My partner and I are already struggling financially and I can’t take a pay cut. I asked the compensation question in the panel interview and in the meeting with the director since they were separate but the answer was the same.

Later that night, I sent this message: “Thanks again for meeting with me today to discuss the X opening. It was great to learn more about the scope of the position and the initiatives Y is exploring to import creative talent to Y. I remain deeply interested in the position and appreciate your candor regarding the compensation budget. In that spirit of openness, I feel it’s essential to be transparent as well. While I find the role highly appealing, the proposed salary of $38k is below my current compensation level of X. I must uphold a minimum salary requirement of $50k for my next role. I understand that this may impact my candidacy as a finalist, but I believe it’s crucial to communicate this as openly as you were with me during our discussions. Thank you for your understanding, I look forward to any further discussions about the position.”

This was their response: “I’m not sure if you’ve already heard from X, but I did speak with him about this. Unfortunately we won’t be able to meet your salary requirements, though it’s very understandable. I’m sorry we weren’t able to save you the time you spent by listing the salary range clearly upfront, but sadly I don’t have say over such things. It really was a pleasure to meet you! I hope to see you at art events around town.”

Etiquette-wise, could I have handled this better? Did I jump the gun by disclosing this? I know it might have been better to speak up about this in the interview, but I was still processing their answer. I knew sharing a salary goal $12k higher than they expected was likely to eliminate me, but I didn’t want to wait until the last minute to be honest about where my financial standards are at. I also didn’t want to disclose my specific wages of where I’m currently at. I had some friends say I should have waited to see if I actually landed anything to counter, and others said it was professional to let them know sooner rather than later.

Nope, you’re fine. It doesn’t make sense for either side to invest further time in the interview process if you’re not going to be able to agree on salary. It’s good to get the employer to name a number first if you can so that you don’t inadvertently lowball yourself — but you got them to, and the number they shared was well below what you’d accept. It’s smart to just get that into the open and see if it makes sense to continue on or not.

If I could change anything you did, I’d say not to peg your salary expectations to what you’re earning currently, but rather to the market rate for the work. “Pay me more because I want to earn more than I’m earning now” will never be as compelling — or as relevant — to the employer as “you should pay more because it’s the market rate for this work done at the level you want.”

4. Do I need to wrap up our department D&D game as we get more hires?

I used to be in one department at my company, and when I was there we started up a department Dungeons & Dragons game. I’m not a manager, but I am the Dungeon Master. At the time, the team was me and four others, including the director of the department, which is arguably the perfect size for a campaign. One of the players has since moved on to another job entirely. We kept her in the game and have added a new hire from the department so they didn’t feel like the odd man out, so we’re up to five players. Our team is about to get two more people, which is awesome, but I don’t want the new people to feel like they’re not getting in on a department social event even if it is outside of work hours and only one Wednesday a month. I might be able to run a game for seven, but that’s getting a little dicey in size for me to manage. Is there a way for the campaign to keep going or do I have to wrap it up so the two new folks aren’t missing out on social face time with their manager and their department?

Can you see if they’re interested and, if they are, break it into two games with someone else from the group DM’ing the second one? (I don’t know enough about D&D to know if this is practical.)

I do think there’s potentially a question for your manager at some point about whether she feels like the D&D players are getting extra access to her, but that’s not something you need to preemptively solve for her (and frankly, one Wednesday a month isn’t a huge deal anyway).

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{ 439 comments }

{ 439 comments… read them below }

  1. Happy meal with extra happy*

    Honestly, for OP2, all things considered, NSFW furry art would be one of the things I’d rather come across in a coworker’s social media, compared to like hate speech or actual real life pornography or complaints about coworkers, etc. (I rather not come across any of it, and I’d definitely never say anything about finding her posts, but, it could be worse? Lol.)

        1. Princess Sparklepony*

          Yes, the person had to really spend some time to find the furry stuff. Just pretending they never saw it is the best way to go.

    2. FashionablyEvil*

      Yeah, just file under “life is a rich tapestry” and move on.

      (I have an old friend who, per social media, is super into the furry scene. And while I personally find it baffling, it’s one of those things that seems to fall on the “harmless” side of weird.)

      1. Lenora Rose*

        I’m in SF fandom and the SCA, which both have some overlap with furry fandom. Mostly, they sound like cool people with a weirdish hobby, which is also a description for 90% of the non-Furry folks I know and love. (and while there is an NSFW subset as with this manager’s art, it’s more like the way there’s NSFW fanfic and fanart for the MCU films; it is not nearly as much a part of the community as folks assume.)

        Also, they made a point of kicking out their Nazi subgroup, which is always a plus for any hobby group in my book.

        1. Richard Hershberger*

          Nazi subgroup: I am long out of the SCA, but I look in occasionally. I gather that this is a current problem there. There is some irony, given the SCA’s origins.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            Now I’m curious. What is the origin story for the Society for Creative Anachronism?

            1. Rainy*

              There’s a whole wikipedia article section, but the SCA originated from a group of friends, some of whom were students at Berkeley, some of whom were sff authors/fen, having a backyard party with a tournament in costume. The name happened because they were later renting a park shelter for another party and needed a name for the group.

              Not sure what Richard is talking about, although the SCA (at least when I was active) was overall reasonably careful about the whole “if you let a Nazi drink there it’s a Nazi bar” thing, especially in the early days.

          2. Jerzy*

            I also GAFIAted out of the SCA a long time ago so take this with a grain of salt, but I can believe it. There were a lot of folks who were very keen on Norse/Germanic personas and I can how the growth in racist ‘Folkish’ beliefs could have an influence. I hope I’m wrong, most of the people I met there were just regular folks wanting to pursue their hobby in peace and quiet.

            1. Anax*

              Current here – From what I’ve seen, the vast majority of folks are *very* not okay with Nazi/fascist stuff, to the point where otherwise innocuous iconography has become taboo just so no one gets the wrong idea. (For instance, there’s a specific type of Greek key motif which has a swastika shape in it if you squint. People avoid that one.)

              This being said, it’s a constant game of whack-a-mole, and sometimes it takes a while for someone to recognize the dog-whistles.

              There are definite issues – DEI hasn’t been taken very seriously by the powers-that-be, cultural appropriation and white folks talking over the lived experience of people of color are definite issues, a certain subset of ‘sword jocks’ think research is dumb and champion a concept of chivalry which should have been left in the 1970s where it belongs…

              But on the whole, it seems to be more the usual drama of large hobby groups, rather than an embedded fascism issue, from what I’ve seen and heard. I’m sure there are pockets that are much more problematic, but they seem to mostly keep on the DL.

              (I’m sure there are some problematic Norse/Germanic folks, but as with Norse reconstructionist pagans, the ones I’ve seen have been VERY pointed about not tolerating fascists, because they know that there’s a fascist fandom around those motifs.)

          3. AceInPlainSight*

            Current Scadian: you’re right about the Norse thing. There’s few regions where it’s a serious problem, strongly overlapping with US regions where the state government has similar problems. From my view in a very different region, one where there’s plenty of pagan overlap, people take the Nazi bar approach very seriously.

          4. Lenora Rose*

            Yeah, it’s a combination of “But it’s not happening HERE so it’s not a big deal” In the local group (and sometimes at kingdom level), some Geek Social fallacy (kicking people out is worse than tolerating bigotry), and some very entrenched denial.

            I mostly hang around the edges lately, though I want to get back into archery, and one of the few groups I am subscribed to is the inclusion and support for a reason.

    3. Another prof*

      That assumes the account belongs to the same person. I know one of my accounts’ names is super common; I got it first on one platform, but other people got it on other platforms. The person in question may have an uncommon-seeming name, but my (shared) account name probably seems super rare to people who don’t know much about a specific foreign country too. There are a lot of reasons to put this out of one’s mind

      1. Dahlia*

        Or if it’s based on a fandom you’re not familiar with!! Like if you’re into… I dunno, Stranger Things, maybe you follow nancywheeler, nanciwheeler, nanccywheelller and nncywhllr and they’re all very different people.

    5. Jamjari*

      I know! I was expecting full on hate speech or some adjacent twaddle. When I read NSFW furry art … phew!

      1. Princess Sparklepony*

        The whole furry thing seems sort of benign. But I am wondering now how spicy NSFW furry art is….

    6. ArtsNerd*

      Yeah I came across my boss’ NSFW twitter back in the day and it was legit porn and I deeply regretted my google hole. Not as much as my boss regretted accidentally replying to a work email from his NSFW email address, I’m sure! (The actual email address was explicit. He tried to play it off like he got hacked and I thought “oh let me google to see if this is a real hack / scam / virus going around.” It is not.)

    7. I Have RBF*

      Seriously. NSFW Furry art is not illegal, and is immoral only to prudes.

      It’s not a work account, so it’s not a problem, and harms no one.

    8. Beth*

      Yep! I cackled at this one. When you go digging, you have to expect you might turn up some things you didn’t expect–and ultimately this is a pretty harmless secret. OP, the only takeaway you need to worry about here is the lesson to not google someone if you don’t want to know what they might have out there. I’m sure Jane is aware that public social media profiles listed under her unusual name can be found.

  2. Janeric*

    OP#4, I think you might want to wrap up your current campaign and start doing some one shots. Then you can avoid the “scheduling adults” issue, preserve game night, and avoid the appearance of additional access.

    I think *two* separate parties is both a big ask for your time and likely to lead to cliques at work.

    2. Ask a Manager* Post author

      To be clear, I’m suggesting someone else DM the second game, not that the OP do it for both of them! But again, I don’t know how practical that is.

      1. yvve*

        it’s a pretty big ask, especially if the goal is just to ensure fairness. Takes a lot more effort than just participating

        1. Ask a Manager* Post author

          Ah, okay. All my experience with D&D is my sister making me spend one summer playing with her when I was 9-ish and she was 4 years older. She was always the dungeon master and I suspect it was a highly watered down version of the game for both of us. My only real memories of that summer are about gelatinous cubes and graph paper.

          1. Keymaster of Gozer*

            I DM a few games and it can be an incredible amount of work (3 different manuals tabbed and open) and effort to create and guide a good story, along with coping with what your players get up to derailing things. I do it because I love creating a story and then seeing what my players do with it.

            1. GythaOgden*

              Same! The effort is worth the reward, but it requires a lot of energy and focus.

              I love DMing and prefer it to playing, partly because my friends are also into wargaming and so, in the immortal words of my husband, who did play but dropped out after he got ill (mostly as an excuse to not have to remember which one of his ‘superfluous dice’ was which when his elf archer let loose a salvo of arrows) games turn into ‘dice p*rn’ if we’re not careful.

              I loved AD&D second edition and had so, so much fun with a freer-form one-shot game run from those books. I was quite honoured when I started a second campaign in the same setting. They turned up with the sons and daughters of the characters from the original story game and although there was some innuendo about just what had gone on in between the first story and the next one, I seemed to have captured their imagination and that was worth all the chuckling up their sleeves about. Nothing unwholesome, but where there are children, there’s been some close encounters of the intimate kind.

              Or maybe it was fond memories of one of the players trying to rugby tackle a draconian, a human-dragon hybrid creature and me not telling them that those things blow up when they die and one of the players who knew the setting lore desperately trying not to meta-game and yell out not to do that.

              I have so many fond memories of DMing D&D but I struggle with focus as a player. They started playing Pathfinder 2e, which is needlessly complicated, and my head started aching because it was another set of superfluous numbers to learn. But it was joining a D&D group all the way back in 2009 that got me in touch with my husband, so I will always have a really special place in my heart for the game.

            2. Em*

              This. I DM as well, and it is a lot of work, even the way I do it (I have a vague plan, and then seat-of-pants a lot of it). The load increases significantly in larger groups as well – I have six, one of whom doesn’t participate a whole lot (she is in her late eighties and has some cognitive issues, so we adapt on the fly in terms of how much her character will participate), and the difference between that and four is astounding.

              1. MigraineMonth*

                I’ve never tried it with D&D, but I ran a Fate game mostly by the seat of my pants, and it still took a couple of hours of prep work (admittedly, I spent way too long coming up with names for all my NPC’s).

            3. Cherries Jubilee*

              Plus you all have to be invested in the story, and if not everyone is the same level of invested it can derail things.

          3. MigraineMonth*

            Oh wow, you made it all the way to the gelatinous cubes in one summer? I’ve never made it that far.

          4. Chirpy*

            Yeah, my DM understandably cancels game night if 2 people can’t make it, because we have 9 people in the campaign and running their characters on top of DMing a huge nine person game is way too much.

            I would suggest switching to one-shots or mini games (maybe 2-3 sessions), because they’re much easier to run/schedule, and it’s a lot easier for someone else to start DMing if they want to try it. My group occasionally takes a break from the main campaign for someone else to run a one-shot just our DM gets to play once in a while, too.

        2. Lenora Rose*

          It’s a pretty big ask, but you do get players who want to try their hand; if you’re lucky enough to get one or some of those, it’s not the worst thing to offer them a short campaign module that’s beginner friendly and see if it works out.

          And if your new coworkers just don’t want to, that’s okay, too; the department could also come up with a second alternative activity that has nothing to do with D&D, as long as it has overlap with some existing staff and the manager.

      2. Roland*

        I think that even if there were someone willing and able to DM a second campaign, the fact that a director is involved makes 2 groups not a great solution unfortunately. It’s not really something where the director would be able to move back and forth between the groups very often so I think it would start leading to the appearance (/reality) of favoritism.

        1. Nonanaon*

          Similar feelings; it’s no big deal if there are two campaigns going on (maybe some people like Joaquin’s DM style and storytelling better and other’s like Wakeen’s), but having the director involved makes it an issue. Objectively, the best thing to do would have any managers step down and not be involved in campaigns; not only does it avoid the appearance of favoritism but it also avoids the appearance of “this is something we do as work culture and if you don’t want to play you are not one of us.”

          1. Daisy*

            Yeah, the issue isn’t how much work, if they play, etc. The issue is some employees are spending time with the manager and others won’t be.

      3. Good advice*

        I came here to say your advice is sound. Being a DM is difficult, but breaking into two groups does work and is what many people would suggest.

      4. Garblesnark*

        Depending on the game, when I DM I invest 4-7 hours of prep for every hour of play, and sessions tend to be at least 3 hours long. I am an overachiever, but you can still extrapolate from those numbers.

        There are premade games available, which gets the prework down to 45-90 minutes of prep per hour of play.

        Additionally, D&D is an improv game, and the improv expectations are higher for the DM than other people at the table – I love it, but it’s exhausting to do.

        1. Rainy*

          Mr Rainy’s game is DMed by one of his brothers, and he does about the same as you–it’s basically a whole part-time job prepping for play. And of course he doesn’t have time to be in any other games so this is all he’s doing DnD wise right now.

      5. Rainy*

        DMing is a pretty serious commitment, and a single campaign can go on for years. Mr Rainy’s regular DnD game is about to start its third year and they play online every other week for 5-6 hours. Which for the record is honestly not bad for a group of professionals in their 30s who are (I think all, at this point) married and whose spouses don’t play DnD.

      6. Festively Dressed Earl*

        DMing is like writing a book, with the upside that a lot of the worldbuilding is done for you and the downside that you have to do on-the-fly rewrites every chapter. A ‘one-shot’ is exactly what it sounds like – a short story meant to be played in a day. There are also ‘canned’ campaigns that are prefabricated by Wizards of the Coast.

        The big issue with any campaign is the chemistry. If the manager DM is too strict, the players feel stifled and the game is no fun. If the manager DM is too laid back, the game devolves into a free-for-all with lots of arguments and accusations of favoritism. Substitute drop bears for real bears and dragons for weight loss MLMs.

    3. Dragon_Dreamer*

      One solution that was successful for my group was “freeforming” the game. One player would be the DM for that week’s one-shot, but someone *else* picked the setting. We all had characters we would just reuse. Every week, the setting chooser and the DM would change. The DM would also have a character to play, to practice NPCing.

      The DM ended up being there just to make judgement calls. The players learned to bounce RP off each other, and the DM learned how to think on their feet, creating a quick senario based on the setting they were given. A couple actual campaigns ended up starting from these one-shots.

      Maybe this approach would work for OP!

      1. yvve*

        while that sounds super cool, and i wouldnt mind trying something like that myself, its pretty different from what they’re currently doing, so it’d be a bit of a sell to fully change a game theyre all enjoying– again, especially if they arent even sure the new people all WANT to play dnd with their coworkers . I suspect “dropping the company dnd game” is probably just one of those things that has to happen as you move from “tiny startup” to “established company”

      2. DM-OP*

        I used to play with a group like that but I’d kinda forgotten about it. This might be an option if I can get the buy in (everyone was completely new to the game when we started)

        1. Dragon_Dreamer*

          That was partly why we chose that format, almost everyone was very new to role-playing in general!

    4. MrCranky*

      I’d say that this sounds like an opportunity for the current DM to try out a West Marches style campaign. Google “MCDM west marches” for Matt Collville’s excellent summary of how they work (I don’t want to put a direct link here lest this post look like spam).

      They are basically designed for almost exactly this: allowing a bigger number of players to all play in the same campaign, but also forcing them to mix up the “who plays with who” and avoid cliques. Not everyone plays every week, and you don’t have to stick to the rigid game night schedule if you don’t want. Plus other people can much more easily step in and DM to lighten the load on OP #4.

      1. Tired*

        seconding this – at my table we call this “job board” games – we play in a fantasy city where there is a tavern where adventurers and travellers tend to spend time in, and there is a board in the tavern where opportunities are posted – these can be inside or outside the city, and each is a one shot. Whoever can turn up for the session turns up with whatever character they want to play (most players have 1-2 characters they bring every time) and the characters meet, peruse the job board, and pick a task from the options. As DM I pull one shot ideas from all over the internet and have some “go to” options as well (wizard requires spell ingredients; the city has an ongoing problem with various pests living in the undercity of sewers and cellars and tunnels which create lots of one-shots around “funny noises in my cellar”, “goblin stole granny’s silverware” or “hidden trap door discovered, someone please explore” which I can set up using randomisation tables. We have a lot of fun that way!

        And lets people attend or not, try out D&D if they haven’t played before etc. which might suit this situation well.

    5. Laura*

      I usually have a co-GM for large groups. So in mass combat one can do the bookkeeping and rules-lookup while the other does the action (rolling dice, moving NPCs, narrating), a divided group (also an opportunity in mass combat) can be managed in parallel, someone can answer question while the other narrates, and the story development and gaming preparation drawing maps, detailing NPCs, what have you) can be split.

      But a co-GM needs to be someone who has compatible ideas about gaming style and handling, and that you communicate really well with. And it does not touch the “work team activity” issues which can easily run at cross-purpose with GMing.

    6. lostclone*

      i would suggest having a look into a West Marches style campaign – then everyone can be involved, you can have a rotating cast. Or perhaps a series of interlinked one shots.

      I’ve got to say, I have DMed for seven people, and it’s not much harder than for five people so long as your players are engaged and considerate of each other.

    7. Worldwalker*

      You might also look into other game systems that scale better to larger groups.

      I’m part of a group that’s been playtesting some dedicated VTT software for The Fantasy Trip, and we routinely have 6-7 players despite the complexity of the in-development online system. (It helps that one of the players is Steve Jackson: handy for quick rules decisions!)

      There are a number of game systems that work for large groups, including earlier versions of D&D, and various OSR implementations.

      1. Post Script*

        : O how cool is that! We got to playtest a new game with him at a con several years ago, big fun

    8. ferrina*

      I love this idea. This would also make it easier for players to drop in and out as their work/life allows, and for the boss to be able to not worry about access issues. If you really want, you could do a one-shot that’s a couple sessions

    9. NothingIsLittle*

      I agree that two campaigns could cause serious conflict, especially with two DMs who can have different styles. 7 sounds fairly unmanageable though. Knowing your group, would they drop in drop out or would they all come every week? I think that might inform your decision.

      Someone mentioned a co-DM and something like that or a DMs assistant depending on interest might make a party of 6 manageable without excluding anyone. If the two new people aren’t interested in playing, you can still invite them to attend. (I have a friend who doesn’t like to play TTRPGs because it feels like too much pressure, but likes to observe.) That might help alleviate the impression of exclusive access that participating might allow. Does anyone need to or want to drop out due to other life events? That might also give you wiggle room

    10. Jackalope*

      A few other options here as well: in addition to rotating the DM position, or just having a large group (7 is a lot, but I’ve done it), another option would be to have another once a month option for socializing that isn’t a D&D game. Obviously this is dependent on the manager agreeing, but if there are two monthly socialization options that are very different activities, that’s more inclusive in some ways than inviting everyone into an increasingly large RPG circle when they may or may not want to play. Having two D&D groups going at the same time in the same space could also work and give everyone time to socialize in a relaxed way, although again that requires another DM.

    11. Anax*

      On the subject of oneshots – it *might* be worth digging into some more ‘rules-light’ systems if your players are up for it, OP.

      I’ve played an eight-player D&D game, and the real bugbear was combat – social interaction and puzzles/strategy were usually fairly workable, as long as everyone got some time in the limelight, but D&D combat really bogs down with more players.

      I suspect that something like Monster of the Week or Dread might let you get everyone involved at once, at least for a oneshot, if that’s something you want to try.

    12. Post Script*

      We’ve had situations where new people wanted to get involved but not as a full party member – they can run NPCs, help out the game master, pair up with an experienced player, etc.
      Running seven players is do-able but can be very slow depending on the group.

  3. Eric*

    #1, it sounds like you have passed all the tests so far and that you are worried that you won’t pass the next one. I’d hate for you to quit because you think you won’t pass if you actually are able to. Why not keep going, at least through training, and see how well you can study do?

    1. Properlike*

      I second this. Keep going, if you feel like firefighting is something you ACTUALLY want to do. However… I don’t get the sense that it is. Or that it might have been, but isn’t anymore.

      Which is still extremely valuable! Own it! “I was able to rearrange things to commit to learning, but there was so much more than even I expected.”

      I don’t think *you’ve* learned the lesson you want to teach. You seem embarrassed and guilty and not wanting people to know you did badly. Since you’re a maths teacher, I think you already know that the secret of success in maths is a willingness to swing big, invest time, get the wrong answer, and go back to figure out your error so you can try again. Tell every young person you meet! Tell them the great things you learned that would never have come about if you didn’t take the risk! You failed and the world did not end!

      Living with big failure is a very, very necessary skill and most people don’t get the lesson because successful people rarely share theirs. You can be someone who models it. It has nothing to do with being a “bad feminist” or “a woman who couldn’t hack it.”

      And you can use your newly earned skills in other areas, like Emergency Management and the like… IF you still want to pursue working in this area.

      1. Cmdrshprd*

        “Keep going, if you feel like firefighting is something you ACTUALLY want to do. However… I don’t get the sense that it is. Or that it might have been, but isn’t anymore.”

        you might be right, but also I think to. a certain extent we enjoy things we feel we are good at and tend not to enjoy things we don’t feel we are good at.

        While OP may not be the best, I wonder how much if any is imposter syndrome setting in.

        “I’m passing the assessments but the final, biggest ones are coming up and the feedback I get is that I’m not up to scratch.”

        if OP has passed all the assessments, I would guess OP can likely pass the final. I assume the final is more of a culmination of all other tests, but I could be wrong, I don’t know anything about FF tests. Also “not being up to scratch” is somewhat subjective but also not the same as saying someone won’t pass the test.

        I agree if OP does not enjoy it or want to be a FF anymore they should not feel bad for leaving, but OP should consider trying to stick it and see if they can pass the final, even just to see if they can or not. OP might regret not knowing.

        1. MK*

          And a woman being told in vague terms she isn’t suitable for a male dominated field, well, it’s not always accurate feedback.

          1. BubbleTea*

            Sexism in the UK fire force (and probably elsewhere too but I don’t know) is a huge problem. I was listening to a radio feature about the number of women driven out of the profession by bullying and undermining of confidence very recently.

            1. Jackalope*

              This was my first thought, actually. There’s research showing that even when people don’t mean to impose sexist ideas they do anyway, including on themselves. Even if no one means too, they may be seeing your femaleness and assuming you are less capable. And some of them could possibly undermine you on purpose.

          2. I am LW1*

            I wrote the original letter during a day of dispair. I’d had some unexpected and long feedback that, as you suggest, vaguely said that I’m not getting there.

            I have colleagues who I’m sure have Views on my presence (not all, maybe a third). I’m the only woman on station and, coincidentally, some colleagues barely acknowledge my presence but act more warmly with other new recruits.

            So I worry that even IF I pass, will I be accepted by those colleagues? Will we work well going into a fire together when we barely pass the time of day? Is it my fault if we haven’t gelled as most firefighters do?

            I appreciate that this wasn’t in the original letter. My struggles are complicated and I’m still processing them after the recent feedback event.

            1. stk*

              Lw1, I also now work for the fire service after working elsewhere, and it is a huge aand very weird change! I really salute how hard you must have worked to get this far. And you are not alone at all in having those doubts. It sounds like you might benefit from speaking to people you trust not to be sexist douchebags about this and about what a future in the service actually looks like for you, before you decide one way or another – if you’ve got a decent Watch Manager, or even possibly Station Manager, or maybe another firefighter who you do gell with? There’s the Women in the Fire Service group as well which may be helpful.

              Good luck. And for what it’s worth, at least based on what you’ve said… It doesn’t sound to me like the issue here is you.

            2. The Prettiest Curse*

              If your colleagues are sexist a-holes and are excluding you because they are sexist a-holes, any failure to “gel” with the team is on THEM and not you. It also may be the case that you’re getting harsher feedback purely because you’re female.

              1. Michelle Smith*

                While that’s true and I agree 100%, I am concerned since this is a first responder situation. If she’s responding to an emergency and the other members of her team don’t speak to her, don’t listen to her, etc. that could put her actual life in danger.

                1. Former Female Firefighter*

                  In my station they would never have let a woman work the hose on a fire. The reason I was given was that a second-due station would punch her and take over the hose so they got credit for the fire.

                  /yes, that’s a direct quote.

                  /Yes male firefighters are often mentally little children. Competing is more important than the actual job. (Eyeroll)

            3. Jackalope*

              I encourage you to take atk’s advice and see if you can talk to other female firefighters to get their perspective. It may well be that this isn’t the job for you and if so then absolutely leave, but it really sounds like the kind of societal pressure put on women to keep them in their place rather than necessarily you not being good at it. At the very least I would recommend finishing the tests before making a decision.

              1. Properlike*

                Having read the LW’s update — 100% with this!

                Focus on passing the tests, and then see how you feel. Get these guys out of your head. Do any of THEM feel guilty for leaving their families for eight weeks? NO THEY DO NOT. At least, they’re not expected to. And if they do, no one in their circle wants to hear about it — how sad!

            4. The Night-Mare Life in Death*

              LW1, please take a step back, go outside for a walk, clear your head, and then come read your comment here again.

              The problem here is not you. There is nothing you can do to tell better with the group of colleagues who think you don’t belong there. That is on them, not you. Similarly, if the feedback that you’re not up to par is vague…are you sure it’s true? I’d go back and ask for specifics. If they can’t give you any, they’re probably lying about you not being up to par whether they realise it or not.

              Whether or not you continue this journey is entirely up to you – it is fine to decide this isn’t for you! People try things all the time, fail, and bounce back. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. And I get it, it’s not fun to not be good at something – trust me, former “gifted child” here, I gave up a lot of things because I wasn’t immediately good at them. Not sure what’s changed recently to make that not be an issue for me anymore though. But all those men you work with, including the ones who ignore you? They also used to suck at this.

              I promise you your job isn’t the most interesting thing about you. And as Alison points out, you can still say you used to be a firefighter! It my not be the best fit for you, but it may be a good fit for the girl you’re coaching in maths, who never even realised that women can also be firefighters. Or even other adult women who hear you used to be a firefighter. You already broke quite the barrier simply by trying.

              1. Cyborg Llama Horde*

                My third grade teacher had been a plumber, and worked for NASA, and I think some other jobs I don’t remember. She left at the end of the school year to pursue something else. I thought she was SO COOL.

                1. GythaOgden*

                  My mum is a retired head and I read this thread to her because it involved teaching and feminism, which she has views on, particularly because she taught girls and had been a head for about twenty years by the time she retired.

                  She said that whatever happens with OP1, if she decides to go back to teaching, we are in need of maths teachers, and that returners are actually welcomed back because they have made a conscious decision to return to the profession.

                  Obviously it’s totally up to OP1 to decide but the important thing is to be comfortable where you are and able to do what you do. It can often be a brave thing to realize that something isn’t working and leave than feel pressured to stay, but it’s completely up to her.

                  And I wish her all the best!

            5. Allonge*

              So – this already is sufficient reason for you to say, thanks but no thanks. I know we are told all kinds of stories on the underdog succeeding and winning over the mysogynist / racist etc. but those are stories.

              This is your life – spending months and years in a place where you don’t feel welcome in and where maybe you don’t even want to be is quite a burden to take on. Prinicples are great! They can be cold comfort, though. And this would be true even if you had always dreamed of becoming a firefighter.

              1. Allonge*

                Uh, so reading this again, it’s a bit too bleak – my intention was not to say ‘it’s never gonna work, give up now’! So sorry for that.

                My point is: you are responsible for yourself (and your kids) and your promises, not your entire gender. It seems to me that you are doing a lot of things for reasons not completely your own – for external validation, to show a good example, for feminism – and not because you want to. It’s really ok to want to work in a community that respects you! Your kids are learning a bunch of things from you every day, so what jobs you take on is really just a small part of their impression of you.

                So: do you want to take that final exam? If this is what being a firefighter is like, how long do you want to be one? There are no wrong answers here. You are already super impressive for what you achieved (math teacher and firefighter and mom? come on!)

                1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

                  THANK YOU.

                  LW if you are miserable, it is okay to not continue. Seriously. You don’t have to fight the feminist wars if you don’t have the bandwith to do so. You syould NOT stick in a job you hate just because of sexism.

                  Your children will not think less of you if you say, I tried it, it didn’t work out, life goes on. You will not lose your feminist card if you realize firefighting is not for you.

                  The WORST example you can set is to stay somewhere you are miserable and that is not the right job for you because you are afraid of letting the side down. What you are teaching then is that your wellbeing doesn’t matter, it must be sacrificed for some bigger thing — be it the company or a cause.

                2. Dahlia*

                  Also, it is absolutely okay to not want to risk your life for sexism. Like if LW’s colleagues don’t listen to her orders or her at all, in a fire that could be incredibly dangerous and it is okay to decide that that’s the line of unacceptable danger for you.

                3. Squirrel*

                  Very true.

                  Also, if your job involves saying lives, and lives will be lost if you screw up in any way, then the people whose lives you are trying to save have to be your number one priority at all times. Not your self-esteem, not how you look to others, and not your children. If your motivations are fuzzy or conflicted, you risk losing the people you are trying to save.

                  There are two firefighters in my family (one is actually female) so I know a lot of firefighters, and the ones who succeed are the ones who get into it because of a deep dedication to saving and helping others. The ones who get into it for self-serving reasons actively put others in danger and don’t last.

                  LW, what is your commitment to the people whose lives you’ll be saving, because at the end of the day that are the ONLY ones who matter. You’ve talked a heck of a lot about yourself, your feelings, your insecurity, your self-belief, your perception of yourself, your family, but not a word about anything or anyone else, and that’s concerning.

                  “Be brave enough to be bad at something” I’d objectively a horrific stance if your job is one where being bad at something will (and yes it absolutely will) kill people.

                  Other commenters: if your toddler was trapped in a house fire, who do you want trying to rescue them. A dedicated and physically strong firefighter, or someone who’s doing it for their self-esteem and because they think it’s “brave” to do something they’re bad at?

            6. Liisa*

              I want to send you a hug through the internet.

              As someone who has frequently been the only non-man in a male-dominated field, let me start off my saying if you don’t gel? That is 1000% NOT your fault. Obviously I can’t make any promises about if your colleagues would accept you, because unfortunately some of them won’t. But others probably will. The male colleagues I’ve had over the years have run the gamut from shitty to absolutely amazing.

              If you really feel like firefighting isn’t right for you, then of course don’t force yourself to keep doing it. But if you think you might still want to do it? Please don’t take yourself out of the running yet. <3

            7. Lady_Lessa*

              I am not a firefighter, but a woman in a heavily male field.

              First and foremost, it is NOT your fault, if the gelling/cohesion that is needed when fighting a fire doesn’t happen.

              If you are the type that can tease/bust their chops with the men, you may have a better chance of fitting in. But, I would try to find another woman firefighter to talk to that would be very helpful.

            8. I'm Just Here For The Cats!!*

              I don’t know if you would be able to get the show in the UK but there is a tv show called 9-1-1. If focus’s on a group of firefighters/paramedics, 911 operators (US’s emergency service number) and police. Season 2 episode 9 is called Hen Begins which tells the backstory of Henerita (Hen) who is a black, gay woman firefighter. She struggles a lot like it sounds like you are. Even though it’s fiction it might help boost your confidence. There’s also a show called Chicago Fire that focuses on a fire station in Chicago. There are a few early episodes that feature Gabby who was a paramedic turned firefighter and her struggle through the fire academy.

              Are there any other female firefighters you could talk to. maybe not in your station but in your area? Or maybe just first responders in general?

              Good luck either way!

              1. *kalypso*

                Fairly sure all the 911s and Chicagos are available in the UK on streaming and broadcast, given that they’re major network dramas with cushy syndication rights. Disney+ have some international rights to 911 and Lone Star (Marj?) and Paramount+ have Chicago (in some areas it’s on Peacock).

                There’s a few great Korean fire dramas floating around the streamingverse also. First Responders is a Kdrama on Disney+ which goes into how fire, paramedics and police work together on various kinds of calls, and focuses on a core firey who is under a bit of a professional cloud.

                But I’m not sure watching someone like Stella is what LW needs when they’re unhappy and the thing keeping them in their work isn’t love of the job but a social pressure to demonstrate feminism in a particular way. They need permission to make this decision based on their individual situation, not with consideration to some global ideal. So what if the misogynistic people think that avoiding them proves them right, so what if their kids don’t see Mum staying in a miserable job for their whole lives just to model girl power. This is a job that requires someone to be all in all the time – beyond being on shift with a schedule that no other shiftwork compares too, and constant 0-150 adrenaline spikes and injuries. If this person walks past an accident on the street they’re expected to help and help to a higher standard than an ordinary person – they can’t take this role entirely off.

                They might be better served looking at auxiliary or private services or transitioning to somewhere adjacent, either within the service or outside of it. The most dangerous thing to themselves and their family is going on a call with their mind not 100% there and committed – once you have 40 years experience maybe you can roll a hose without thinking but no call is rote, and if LW is miserable, it doesn’t matter how good they are in actuality (coworkers aside), they’re much more likely to be going home in pieces, even if their team was 100000% supportive and it was a great group that boosted everyone and hung out like family like on TV.

            9. Lenora Rose*

              A part of me, reading this, wants you to take the finals, ace them, THEN walk away, just so you can never be left with these fears that the problem is you, when it’s clear from here that the problem is at least partly them.

              Another part reminds me that showing up sexist men is often chess with a pigeon; no matter how well you play or how decisively you win, they will crap all over the board then strut around as if they won. (and with the added disadvantage that a good part of the audience are also pigeons, and will believe him in the face of evidence). There’s no dishonour at all in walking away from that rigged a game before the end.

            10. Tex*

              LW 1 –

              If you do pass and don’t feel like making a career out of fire fighting, that’s ok too. There are other careers that are related – such as being a fire investigator for an insurance company, building inspections, testing products for fire retardation, working for the government as the UK equivalent to a Fire Marshall’s office. After Grenfell, these are hot topics in the UK.

              I would take the assessment. If you don’t pass, it was a try at a new career and a period of personal challenge and growth. If you get certified, it can open up other paths.

            11. Calrayo*

              A good friend of mine (also a petite 30 something) went through firefighter training here in California and did not pass the first time. Honestly, though, it was chiefly because the trainers did not adapt any of the exercises and tasks to her smaller stature. Once she paired up with another small-ish woman and got tips on how to complete the things (ladder carrying when you’re not 6 feet tall and have a lower center of gravity, wrestling with the hose when you’re just over 5 feet and have arms to match, etc) in a way that worked with her size, she excelled. Keep at it if you want to, and know that very possibly most of the failure is on the part of the trainers, not you.

              1. Weaponized Pumpkin*

                What I appreciate about this story is that I often hear pushback about having to “dumb down” requirements to let women into military / firefighting / police. And I agree that requirements — assuming they are reasonable and appropriate and not intentionally gatekeeping — should not be reduced. Your friend shows that it might not be lowering the bar, it’s clearing the same bar in a different way. The people in the system who resist change will look at those adaptive methods as proof that a woman can’t do the job and object based on that, and this is a helpful reframe.

                1. Boof*

                  Imagine if all the trucks were made for 5foot women, and those 6 feet tall were told they weren’t cut out for the hob because it took them too long to fold themselves in and out of the truck; hard to drive with knees crammed to the steering wheel! I suppose it might be impossible to adapt in the very short term (trucks are expensive and take time!) but no reason not to make a truck with a bigger cabin and adjustable seats as far as i can tell, even if “but that’s more complicated! What if the seat adjustment breaks! Adjustable seats will surely burden everyone as they spend time adjusting seas instead of driving yo fires!!) lol – all thing’s relatively easily overcome if people actually try and the system decides adjustable seats are now standard, etc

                2. Lenora Rose*

                  This doesn’t sound like “Dumbing down” it sounds like making sure the 5 foot woman was being trained in techniques that the laws of physics wouldn’t let her use without growing a foot the first time, and techniques that accounted for that the second time. As long as the latter techniques are just as effective in the course of fighting a real fire and rescuing people, there’s no dumbing down.

            12. Ladytron 2095*

              As another woman in a male dominated field working in male dominated industries, I don’t think the problem is you. My experience, some types of sexism are easier to deal with than others. The emergency responders I work with are very condescending of my expertise, while the mechanics and maintenance crews respect what I know while making gross offhand comments. All to say, I’m glad I don’t work construction, because my female counterparts over there are not thriving. It’s not them, either. We choose our own way and pick which barriers to break. This is not a failure.

            13. Goldenrod*

              OP1, I think this is one of those “there are no right answers” situations. There’s only what is right for YOU.

              I want to highlight this part of Alison’s reply, though, because I think it is so important:

              “One way to look at it is that it’s useful to show your kids that you don’t need to keep doing something for the external kudos if it doesn’t actually fulfill you. And also, that there’s value in trying new things and it doesn’t commit you to doing them forever.”

              I think this is so important! It’s okay to change your mind. It’s okay to stop doing something if it isn’t making you happy. Even if what is making you unhappy is unfairness in the system – you don’t have to fight the system if you don’t feel strongly about it, and that doesn’t make you a bad feminist or a bad person!

              We all have the right to decide for ourselves what makes us happy. Good luck with sorting that out, whatever you decide!

            14. dryakumo*

              I recently separated from the military (another heavily male dominated field) and just wanted to offer my empathy, LW. It’s tough to be in a situation where you feel like you could excel if they only gave you a chance. That your personality/leadership style isn’t valued because it doesn’t fit in the small box they’ve defined as acceptable. That you should keep going because if you don’t, will it ever change?

              As some others have suggested, I’d encourage you to take time to think about what fulfills you about the job and what’s discouraging you. It’s going to be tough, and you have to decide whether you’ll be happier doing something different, or if what fulfills you about being a firefighter is enough to put up with it. Unfortunately, no one else can decide that for you, and both answers can be correct. Best of luck to you!

            15. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

              > and, coincidentally, some colleagues barely acknowledge my presence but act more warmly with other new recruits

              Assuming those other new recruits are male, this is not a coincidence. Did you mean a different word? People don’t have to actively be assholes to women to be sexist to & about them.

              1. I am LW1*

                The other recruits are indeed male. I was being sarcastic. I know that isn’t always clear in print.

          3. Helewise*

            This is exactly what I was thinking. I’ve realized recently how many times that happened to me when I was younger. At the time I thought it was me and accepted it as valid feedback, but in hindsight there was a lot more biased thinking being lobbed at me than I understood then. I personally think there’s value to you in not pre-eliminating yourself – maybe you’ll fail, but maybe you won’t! You can change direction anytime if that’s what you decide is best for you, but I’d encourage you to think through your reasons for making that change carefully.

          4. Rose*

            Yuppp. I’ve absolutely had male bosses tell me they’re more critical of me than my peers because “you’ll have to be tough if you want to stay in this (male dominated) field.” Ok, cool. Did it occur to you I’ll have to be tough because people like you ARE MAKING IT HARDER.

        2. Seeking Second Childhood*

          I have to wonder if OP encountering subtle “women don’t belong here” digs. Sometimes the obvious ones are easier to counter.

      2. Colette*

        One of the things I’ve been discussing with the teenagers I volunteer with is the value of doing things and not succeeding, and this past year we invited an unsuccessful candidate for city council to come and visit (which went really well, I highly recommend it). It’s OK to try things and fail. It’s OK to try things and decide they’re not for you.

        It’s OK to keep trying until you fail, if it’s something you want to do – and generally, intense training is not a great time to get an accurate read on whether you’ll like the job of not.

        1. kiki*

          I’m so happy you’re doing this with teenagers! This is something I still struggle with even today. The need to never fail was was drilled into me, but life’s best lessons come from failures. And those failures often lead to later successes.

        2. Goldenrod*

          “It’s OK to try things and fail. It’s OK to try things and decide they’re not for you.”

          Colette, omg, I love that you are doing this! I squandered so many potentially exciting learning opportunities as a teen and 20-something, out of a paralyzing fear of failure. It took me years and years to unravel that, and to realize that I should be following my interests/joy, not just trying not to fail, which is the most sad and limited way to live.

          So happy you are doing this work!

        4. TeaCoziesRUs*

          I tell my kids’ teachers all the time to challenge them until they fail. They breeze through regular curriculum and I don’t want them struggling with “Wait?! I failed??? I must be an AWFUL human being” nonsense that I do. (Me -> Former gifted kid who wasn’t challenged and never learned how to stay in the books)

      3. Former Female Firefighter*

        So much this! I have a long post below about fields she can do, using the firefighting as a springboard.

    2. SAS*

      This would be my approach too! Do your best, and if you fail on merit then the decision is made for you, no harm done. Definitely don’t take it as a personal failure, most people will still consider it an incredibly impressive feat to have completed firefighter training and assessments. It’s one of those fields where it’s generally very well understood to have an extremely high attrition rate for qualification for a number of reasons.

      For what it’s worth, I also think being a maths teacher is pretty impressive!

    3. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

      It depends on how accurately the test is measuring “will be a good firefighter”. If it’s testing something semi-irrelevant, like how med students have to memorize obscure cellular processes that will never actually be relevant to practicing medicine, then a barely squeaked-through pass is fine. On the other hand, if the test is doing a good job measuring firefighting ability, it’s better to fail out of training than to fail when lives are on the line.

      1. Rose*

        The test does not put lives on the line. Think it through. Do you really think they designed the test so everyone who fails is endangering a life?

        1. Aitch Arr*

          Read Elspeth McGillicuddy’s comment again. It seems that you misinterpreted what she posted.

    4. MK*

      I agree. Daring yo be bad at something means risking failure, otherwise it’s meaningless. I cannot tell if OP genuinely realized this job isn’t what she wants, or if she was only ok with being bad as long as she eventually succeeded. But if it’s the second, and and assuming the final exam is in a few weeks, not like a year away, I think there is value in seeing it through and letting the process take its course.

    5. Office Gumby*

      My beautiful, fellow feminist and groundshaker,
      Sounds like you’re letting your fear of failure, especially the fear of someone else telling you you’re not good enough, get to you. Do not let this daunt you into quitting.

      Not everyone passes all the firefighter tests. Not everyone passes every violin audition. Not everyone passes Go and collects $200. These things are HARD. Only the shallow or foolish or ignorant would dream of holding the not passing of one assessment against you. This is assuming they ever learn about it.

      You will always have the whuffie boast of “I used to be a firefighter.” That will always be cool. And if someone asks, “what happened?” you can explain how it’s a physically demanding job, and you got to the point where you had to preserve your health. (You don’t have to admit it’s your emotional health you were protecting.)

      As for you personally, go as far as you can. If you fail to pass the assessment, give yourself permission to leave the profession. It’s okay.

      1. NoMoreFirstTimeCommenter*

        Yes. Women can be firefighters, but it doesn’t mean that all women can. A lot of men wouldn’t succeed as firefighters either. The work requires qualities and skills that a lot of people don’t have: making quick decisions, dealing with stress, being able to see really nasty stuff and not faint or throw up, ability to work at night, and of course physical strength as well. If someone isn’t good at those things it doesn’t make them a bad feminist. I think feminism means being able and allowed to choose whatever field is suitable and interesting to you personally and your unique strengths and weaknesses, not restricted by your gender. It doesn’t mean you have to do opposite-gender-coded things you don’t enjoy and you aren’t good at, juts to oppose strict gender roles.

        1. Tau*

          And, like, at the end of the day you are the only one who has to live with your life 24/7, and you need to live it for YOU instead of for some nebulous idea of being a Good Feminist Example.

          I did a PhD in mathematics and agonised for a long time over whether I wanted to continue on in maths academia. There was such a leaky pipeline problem, with women dropping out more than men at every progressive step! I hated the idea of contributing to that! And I kept getting stuck in the question of whether I could hack it, whether I was good enough to be an academic-

          And one day I paused and looked at the question from a different angle: leaving whether I was good enough or not aside, would I be happy as an academic? And the answer to that was such a screamingly obvious no, I would be absolutely miserable, that it felt downright astonishing that I’d needed so much time to come to the conclusion that I should not do a postdoc.

          You don’t owe it to feminism to be unhappy in your job in order to be a good example. You’re allowed to pick a career that you’re good at and can be happy in.

          1. Emmy Noether*

            Very true! I think a lot of feminists come to this crossroad at some point (my personal one was the decision to have children – which is a point where sexism tends to hit a lot of women really hard, with not a lot of fair options open).

            It can feel like letting the side down to not be pushing, fighting all the time. But in the end, what are we fighting for? Being able to live fulfilling lives of our choice. So going and doing that is a feminist act in itself.

            1. misspiggy*

              FWIW, leaving and being clear with everyone that one was pushed out by sexism would be even more feminist. OP’s original thought was to drop out because they felt they weren’t good enough. That turns out to be untrue.

              1. Lily Rowan*

                Yeah, I used to work with a woman who had been a carpenter , which she got into through a diversity program, and she ended up really loving the work but not thinking it was worth the harassment she constantly had to deal with. Which 100% sucks, but good for her for naming it. So she worked in our mostly-female office and made her own bookshelves on the weekend.

            2. The Night-Mare Life in Death*

              Yup. We fight so we and our children can have the *choice* to settle down and have a family, rather than that being the only thing to do.

          2. Student*

            I look at it and say, “I could do more good elsewhere, in a job where I am not fighting my co-workers constantly for baseline acceptance”.

          3. Eater of Hotdish*

            Oh my, this resonates, even though I was in humanities rather than math. The area I specialized in was an absolute swamp of a boys’ club, with an openly misogynistic advisor to boot. The hardest part of leaving academia was, by far, the emotional fallout. Was I just not that good at it? Was I letting the Non-Dudes of my discipline down? Or was I making the choice to prioritize my own health and well-being?

            It was incredibly liberating, in the end, to look at the boys’ club and go, “You know, I don’t *have* to play your games, and I don’t *want* to win your prizes.”

          4. Irish Teacher*

            YES! We are often programmed to see “not continuing with something” as failure. I gave the example below of how people talk about “dropping out” of college as if it’s failure when really, in Ireland, a high proportion of those “dropping out” are really changing courses. (I know this is different in the US, but here, you generally apply for a specific course rather than just to a college.)

            1. Zelda*

              One of my favorite scenes in all of drama is actually from the TV show _Rosewood_, of all things. The main character’s sister gives an impassioned speech in favor of giving up on your childhood dreams. Because she found something else that was even better! Not as ‘cool’ to a child, but genuinely valuable in the adult world and deeply satifying to her personally.

              I may be (ahem) a little biased on the point, but I personally think that being a woman teaching STEM subjects is pretty damn feminist. Or the LW may find some other thing that is her true course!

    6. Squirrel*

      I agree with this, however one thing that hasn’t been mentioned is this: there are very few jobs where screwing up or not being good enough is a matter of life or death. Firefighting is one of them.

      LW seems entirely focused on what being able to say “I’m a firefighter” would do for her self-esteem and her family; there isn’t any mention of how her struggle could harm her fellow firefighters or the people she would be trying to rescue if she qualified. If she struggles, she’ll put lives in danger. That’s just what the job is.

      I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be unkind, but not killing people has to take priority over self-esteem.

      “I want to be able to tell people I’m a firefighter because feminism” is a terrible reason to become a firefighter.

      People’s lives have to be the number one priority here.

      1. Alice*

        Protecting people’s lives also takes priority over icing out the new woman trainee because of machismo, but some of OP’s colleagues seem to have missed that memo.
        Look, maybe OP is actually struggling, or maybe OP is dealing with some unsupportive colleagues who don’t want to work with a woman. What we know from the letter is that OP has passed the assessments so far.

        How about we let the actual assessors tell OP if she makes the cut after she does the final assessment?

        Also, there’s nothing wrong or incompetent about struggling to develop a skill during training before eventually mastering it. There’s a whole industry of helping students develop “grit” and perseverance.

      2. Seeking Second Childhood*

        The tests are designed to show that. If she gets weeded out, she goes back to teaching with her head held high.
        But maybe she’ll pass with flying colors — in which case she may find that she was responding to general hazing or to misogynistic comments with no basis in fact.

      3. Rose*

        Frankly, this is dumb. If people were passing this FF exams regardless of their actual abilities and then expected to we’d themselves out, we would all be in a lot of danger and badgering OP would not help things.

        That’s why there’s an extremely rigorous training and testing process in place. It’s not OPs job to decide if even though she’s passing every test she’s secretly not good enough for some unquantifiable reason.

        That kind of thinking is an exactly what leads to a field being 96% men.

    7. Sloanicota*

      I wish OP had given us more clarity about which parts of the job she doesn’t think she’s good at, and why she doesn’t like it. It’s impossible for us from the outside to be of much assistance without more information. It’s very common for people who aren’t being welcomed / who don’t fit the typical mold to feel like they don’t belong and can’t hack it, but all we know is that she has passed all the assessments so far, assessments which were presumably intended to draw the baseline necessary for performance, meaning OP is performing adequately. Maybe OP can write out a list – you would like the job if A, B, C were different? You like X element but not Y? And then have a more cleareyed assessment of whether the problem is “not feeling like you fit it / the other candidates are jerks / mean chief” or “gear too heavy / hate fires / don’t want to climb ladders.”

      1. I am LW1*

        I appreciate I didn’t give specifics in the opening letter. The feedback I had received was, on reflection, a bit vague. I focus “too much” on preparing for the assessments, I need to “ask for help” when I struggle (I do, plenty of colleagues could vouch for me on that but there are colleagues who I do not approach for help because my experience is that they won’t be helpful).

        This was meant to be a monthly report on my progress but for some reason included my sickness record and mistakes I’ve made going back 18 months. This pattern does not match previous monthly reports.

        It is hard work wading through feedback trying to work out what is valid and what might be being said for other reasons.

        1. Babanon5*

          As a women in tech I definitely get the feeling of “Is this valid, constructive criticism or biased (intentionally or not) feedback?” I think the biggest lessons I’ve learned are:
          – Always treat feedback as valid in front of the feedback giver. No need to try to figure it out in the moment.
          – Try to evaluate if the feedback actually relates to your job duties. If it doesn’t “ex. you focus too much on preparing for exams” then you can treat it like advice and take it or leave it. Like be nice about it and pretend you are taking it, but fundamentally it’s advice and you don’t need to stress about “improving” on advice.
          – If feedback relates to your job duties but doesn’t ring quite right then ask your colleagues “hey, I’m a little worried about how I do x. How do you think I compare to others” – it’s way less confrontational than asking for a colleague to chime in on managers feedback but still gives you perspective.

          Good luck! Also, I’m from Madison. WI where we have a big girls firefighter camp. Given your background I wondering if you would be a great candidate to teach at something like that (assuming there is one near you) if you wanted to stay adjacent to the field.

        2. Parakeet*

          Hmm. The vagueness of this feedback does change what I’m going to say a little, because it makes it more likely that the feedback isn’t valid IMO. That piece, and pretty much only that piece, makes me think it could be worth sticking out through the final assessment and/or finding other women firefighters online to talk to about it.

          With that said, I’m seeing too many comments treating this as a binary of “Is LW actually not good at this or is it misogyny?” I’m genderqueer-perceived-as-female, and I spent the first several years of my career in a heavily male-dominated field where the answer truly was “both,” and while it was very very different from firefighting, I struggled with some of the same feelings you have. Including the enjoyment of the surprise on people’s faces. But in the end…it was right to leave it for grad school. On some level, I knew all along that the problem was “both” but I spent five years not being very good at my jobs, with a creeping feeling of terror and misery, because of the feelings you’re talking about and all the “the problem is just imposter syndrome” messaging.

          Years later, I spent time in a different field, a direct service one that is as female-dominated as the one from the previous paragraph is male-dominated. I was decent at it, very good at some parts of it. But I am autistic, and while this was a HUGE help with autistic and other neurodivergent clients (who loved me), those clients were a minority and there were parts of the job where I realized I would always be struggling uphill against myself to do as well as my colleagues. And it came through in feedback, and in being passed over for promotions. So I started looking for something else.

          Now I’m in something that kind of combines the two aforementioned fields (or at least adjacent ones) but in ways I never knew existed. And I’m very very good at it, and very very happy. Without my previous, unhappier experiences, I probably wouldn’t have gotten to this one (this relates to things other commenters have said about there being fields where you could springboard into them off the firefighting experience you DO have). And I still get the surprised and impressed looks sometimes when I talk about my job. :D

          So I’m not quite recommending anything, other than perhaps talking with other women firefighters and former firefighters. But I hope my experiences can be of use (and that I have conveyed the “multiple things can be true” point).

          1. Cmdrshrd*

            “On some level, I knew all along that the problem was “both” but I spent five years not being very good at my jobs, with a creeping feeling of terror and misery, because of the feelings you’re talking about and all the “the problem is just imposter syndrome” messaging.”

            It certainly can be both, for me the key point that led my thinking towards it being more likely to be sexism/imposter syndrome was the part where OP said they have passed all their tests/assessments to date. Maybe OP is not at the top of the class/best, but at least for me passing all the tests is not a sign of someone being bad at the job. OP being bad would be them not being able to pass the tests.

            Being told they won’t pass the final seems silly when they have passed all the other tests. Assuming the final isn’t some new stuff OP is tested on if they have passed all the other tests they will likely the final that I would guess is more of a culmination of all the other tests/skills they have learned to date.

      2. I am LW1*

        Sorry, you also asked what I’m not enjoying.

        I feel like a fish out of water. This was to be expected given the sharp change of career and circumstances, but I hadn’t expected to also have to deal with feeling, at times, unwelcome. I’m still working out whether it’s ‘me’ and I need to adapt more/try harder or whether it’s ‘not me’ and perhaps can’t be changed. Will things change if I pass the final assessments (in December) or is this just how it’s going to be?

        1. Ellis Bell*

          Is this something you have to decide today though? I think there’s an obvious reason to decide you’re out now, in that you can stop pouring effort in to something that may not pay off. But I think there are numerous reasons to defer the decision to quit. One is that learning a second career is just ridiculously hard and you have to accept you’ll want to quit a lot. Another is that the qualification is an achievement in its own right; who knows what you can do with it outside of just being proud of it, or proud of trying to get it. But I think the most compelling reason is it prevents regret to stay the course as long as possible. I did come close to quitting a second career choice, and I definitely hear you on what’s “sustainable”, but it turned out that the field was much bigger than one role, or one team or one location or job title. But if you do reach a point of really not wanting to go on, you don’t owe anyone else this besides yourself; not your kids, or feminism or anyone besides you.

        2. Anna*

          Is that something you can ask your boss/coach/trainer? If you trust that person and he (I assume he) is socially sensitive enough to give you a useful answer, that is. If there is anything specific you can improve, that’s actionable for you; if your boss/coach/trainer can tell you that it will be like this for years at least, that is also useful information you can use to make your choice.

          Good luck! I wish you happiness in your job, whatever the job will end up being.

        3. lurkyloo*

          I’m going say (since most of my thoughts have been posted in one way or another)…Don’t focus on ‘is it me?’ Please. I hate to go all MISOGYNY but…it hints at ‘if I wore something different, maybe I wouldn’t be whistled at/followed/etc’. You do you the best you can.
          And if you feel that, once you’ve got things pat, you’d love the role, then stick to it. Yes, we as women have to prove ourselves harder and I hate that. But once you’ve proven yourself, you will likely have a tight band of teammates.
          If you’re not sure if you’ll love the job, but want to try; then try.
          And if you don’t think you will, it’s ok not to be good at something but say that you tried.
          Big hugs from Canada as you make this decision.

        4. Helewise*

          Feeling unwelcome can be part and parcel of some male-dominated workspaces – finding a place where you fit well could be part of the equation for you down the line as well.

    8. Jack Straw from Wichita*

      But also, if you truly don’t enjoy it, quit. There is courage in quitting something you don’t enjoy simply because it is what is right for you even when other people don’t understand it.

      1. another person in a male dominated field*

        I wanted to send solidarity to LW#1. While not as physically intense or well respected as firefighting, I recently had a similar struggle trying to switch into a male dominated field that requires lots of challenging training and certifications.

        I struggled through training and managed to get a job that paid well but was a terrible culture fit and drained the rest of my life with long hours and exhaustion from stress. I was ready to keep going anyway but was then unexpectedly laid off after a few months.

        With the current economy and lack of entry level jobs + sexism/all the isms, I was unable to get another job in that field. I could theoretically try again later but it’s an area where you need to be continuously training all the time, which I’d need to do outside of work.

        I’m back in my old field and doing ok but still feel like a failure frequently. I appreciated your letter and Alison’s response because it made me feel less alone and gave me better ideas for how to respond in the future.

        Whatever decision you end up making, you are not alone either, and the struggle is real! I hope you land in a place that brings you some peace.

        1. Caliente Papillon*

          We have got to stop considering ourselves failures because we FAIL AT SOMETHING. Failing at things does not make one a failure. I give people allll the kudos for trying, particularly women trying things that are difficult for us. Men get all the support – oh he’s “babysitting” his baby? Go hiiim, he is so amazing!!! Oh she’s trying to be a fire fighter? Who the hell does she think she is? Thats how it goes.

    9. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      Please don’t let someone else’s comments stop you from trying to pass those assessments. They don’t know what you can do. And yes, you might fail, but then you would have the opportunity to figure out how to succeed next time OR do something else.

  4. Viki*

    LW 4, wrap it up. I DM for my friends and spouse for a group of 6 and it’s a lot of work when you’re putting new players in. Sessions are around 4-6 hours which is honestly a lot of FaceTime after work hours for a manager to give to not her entire team.

    Wrap the campaign and do a board game, maybe rotating which game you play.

    1. Janeric*

      You’re right. EVERY game I’ve been in eventually has intolerable in-jokes, and after a couple of sessions you get a strong understanding of everyone’s ability to solve problems or convince people or weather disappointment or support others when needed — it’s definitely an opportunity for the director to learn a LOT about what makes their staff work and how to let them have fun.

      1. Little Pig*

        So true about the intolerable in-jokes. I recently joined a book club, and 25% of the group is in a DnD game together. Nothing gets old faster than sitting around listening to other people joke about their DnD adventures. I’m trying hard not to quit the book club because of it, but not sure I’ll enjoy sticking around

        1. The Night-Mare Life in Death*

          If you’re not enjoying it I’d suggest quitting honestly. You’re doing this as a hobby presumably – it makes no sense to perform your hobby in a way you don’t enjoy. If this isn’t the right book club for you this isn’t the right book club for you, maybe try out some others.

    2. Spencer Hastings*

      Yeah, to me the time involved is indeed not a big deal, but the emotional intimacy is potentially a much bigger deal. Maybe the LW is running a “beer and pretzels” style of game, in which case this wouldn’t be so much of an issue, but if people are invested in their characters and the world, that’s where I would see potential issues with the manager being part of it because of the creativity and vulnerability involved.

    3. AcademiaNut*

      As a D&D player and occasional DM who has played at work, I agree. Basically, your workplace is getting too big to include everyone in the game, but small enough that having 5 people in a group isn’t going to cause cliquishness.

      In my experience, a D&D group is more like having a group of people who do improv theatre together than it is like playing card and board games, as context for people who don’t play. You need a group that fits together well and is respectful of each other, and agrees on how they’re going to play, and you put a lot of your personality into the playing. And bringing a novice into an established group can be tricky.

    4. Hammock*

      Yep, I disagree with Alison that one Wednesday a month isn’t a big deal. It’s hours at a stretch, and the game gives players the opportunity to display critical thinking skills, creative problem solving, etc. It’s quite a bit of extra access. It’s also an opportunity for negative impact that might affect the workplace but shouldn’t. Someone is going to be worse at role-playing than the rest of the group, someone’s going to screw up in the game or cause a teammate’s beloved character to be killed….there’s plenty of opportunities for drama.

      A board game night sounds like a good alternative. My team does a monthly board game team building event during working hours and it’s fun.

      1. Jackalope*

        I’d push back on the idea that it’s necessarily hours and hours. D&D can certainly be long, but it could also be much shorter (my group has always played around 1.5-2 hours at a time). And it may be that they need to drop their game (I’m less convinced than everyone else but leave it open to the OP), but I will say that it’s a completely different experience than board games.

        1. DM-OP*

          We do around 2 hours and change, so it isn’t quite the 4-7 hours that I do for some other games that I run for sure

        2. Dahlia*

          Our library has a weekly DND session and it’s about an hour and a half, unless they get really into it. It’s also not always the same people, and people sometimes miss weeks.

      2. DwarfinGamer*

        As a D&D player I respecfully disagree that a board game is a good alternative. Board games take just as long as as average session (at least for my group it would we play for 3 hrs at a time) and most popular games have a limit of 4-6 players. I do think D&D has the flexibility to add more players, we just added a 6th player mid campaign, but the biggiest piece that is missing, do the new coworkers even want to play? Its not everyone’s cup of tea and that is o as long as this is a fully optional game. How would this be different than a once a month going for a drink after work if a person didn’t drink. If they want to be involved but not play, they could still watch, listen, and hang out during game night.

        1. Michelle Smith*

          It sounds like actual torture to me to sit around and watch other people roleplay in a DnD game. I tried to observe a campaign once (I was supposed to participate but felt uncomfortable and anxious) that was only supposed to be a few hours and I tapped out after lunch and just didn’t come back. It’s not easy to “watch, listen, and hang out.” Watching and listening is exceptionally boring when you’re not a participant and who is the non-player supposed to hang out or have a normal conversation with while everyone else is pretending to be orcs or whatever. Board games are more accessible to the average person and tend to have the advantage of allowing normal conversations to take place while they’re being played, unless you’re playing something super complicated in which case it’s just as bad as forcing DND.

          1. MsSolo (UK)*

            Also, most board games aren’t as long – the more people you have the longer they take, but there’s a huge range of options out there that clock in under an hour, which definitely opens up more options for people to join the evening (or drop in and out). I have a lot of friends who are in to D&D, but there is no point in my month where I could put even a fraction of the time it takes for a session aside. Most I can manage is 45 minutes to an hour.

        2. Spencer Hastings*

          As a D&D player, I think that’s *exactly why* they should switch to board games. It’s less of a commitment month to month (they can play Ticket to Ride one month and then play Wingspan the following month, or even another game of Ticket to Ride, but one does not depend on the other, so who shows up can vary from month to month and it will still be fine); plus, most board games don’t have these issues of bleed between player and character and that sort of thing.

          …*Most* board games, anyway. There are board games I would suggest avoiding — Diplomacy and certain social deduction games come to mind — for similar reasons that I would avoid D&D.

          1. Lime green Pacer*

            I have played Diplomacy with a group of hardcore simulation gamers (aka wargamers). They understood that it was a game of making and breaking alliances and nobody took it personally. It was like a roleplaying game to them.

        3. Lenora Rose*

          That depends heavily on the board game. There’s a learning curve to each individual one that adds an hour — or more — to the official running time for almost any new game (except maybe the ones that last half an hour or less once learned) but familiar games don’t have that issue, and there are games that run 15 minutes or half an hour once taught. My husband and his coworkers used to play Kingdomino over lunch, and would usually get in 2-3 rounds even while eating and etc, because once you know the game, it’s 10 minutes or so. Splendor isn’t much longer. Not every game has to be Terraforming Mars (though TM is a fabulous game, it is a dedicated 3 hours not counting setup and teardown, even for a group who knows it.)

          1. RussianInTexas*

            We can knock out TM in about 2.5 hours, 4-5 players, including set up – friend who owns the game bought the fabulous Broken Token insert that makes set up and tear down a breeze.
            It’s pretty pricey though.

            1. Lenora Rose*

              I’ve had individual games of TM that run that short (And more of them online where the machine does a bit more of the background math) , but I wouldn’t say it’s a given that it will be that short, and I don’t agree to start a game at 8:00 pm if I’m not able to be up to 11:30 if we’re wrong.

        4. Nannerdoodle*

          I agree that board games may not be a good alternative.

          I disagree about adding more players. I DM campaigns, and while to players it may be easy to add another person, for the DM it’s the worst. They have to rebalance all encounters (particularly combat based ones), add in that PC’s backstory to the game, manage a larger table (which is an entirely separate skill), plan for all combat to at least double in length (it almost always does once you’re beyond 5 players due to too much time between peoples turns for them to remember what’s going on/pay attention and needing a higher number of enemies), etc. Beyond 5 players it can get to be too much for some people. Kudos to the letter writer for knowing what their limit is.

      3. Dr. Vibrissae*

        “ep, I disagree with Alison that one Wednesday a month isn’t a big deal. ” I have to disagree, too. Would she have the same stance if it was a monthly golf foursome with the director? I don’t think LW necessarily has to stop game nights with friends from work, but there maybe needs to be a pause on this particular activity for awhile.

      4. Zombeyonce*

        I agree with the extra access part. I work with a new manager that plays D&D with another higher up as they started a game when they worked together previously. Some new people they worked with at another job also got hired there and they were in the game as well. The new people are in my level and I admit that I harbor a bit if resentment because I don’t have the same access. (And I’ve made it known that I also play but have never been invited.)

    5. just some guy*

      Or try a different RPG. D&D isn’t the only game in town, and some of them may be easier options for a large group.

      With seven players, making sure everybody gets their turn in the spotlight is going to be a challenge in any system (though deputising the more experienced players can help with this).

      But a rules-light system which encourages players to take a more active role in the world-building/storytelling can at least reduce the prep load on the DM. The best choice would depend on things like play-style preferences (social vs. combat, etc. etc.) and it’d probably be worth asking on a RPG-oriented forum, but something like Dungeon World could be worth exploring.

      1. Keymaster of Gozer*

        I’d recommend people check out the YT channel ‘Dicebreaker’ for good ideas for tabletop gaming that isn’t D&D. They cover board games, pen and paper, minitures, solo RPGs, short and long games and the channel is SFW (no swearing) and LGBTQ+ friendly.

        I got a lot of good ideas for RPGs to play with friends and people at work from there. Also their painting streams are great chill out material.

      2. Spencer Hastings*

        I would actually suggest the opposite — because DW is so rules-light, it needs everyone to be more into the acting/improv elements in order to work, whereas D&D can be played more casually by the *players* even though it takes more upfront work from the DM.

    6. Laura*

      Agree on “wrap it up”.

      If the game is a work team activity, that invites trouble. Trouble can become drama, and drama might ignore the gaming/work boundaries.
      To avoid exclusion, you have to offer to everyone on the team, and you have to accept everyone who does not say “no”. This does not make for good gaming. And what about co-workers who do not want to play or actively hate it, but feel uncomfortable excluding themselves?

      If your team has a lot of different activities (“Every second Wednesday we have a team activity, anyone can offer, Team lead will make sure that there’s something for everyone and it does not devolve into cliques”), then starting a new campaign made up of one-shots might be possible, because only the people who want to play will be there and not those who only feel they have to.

      1. FD*

        “To avoid exclusion, you have to offer to everyone on the team, and you have to accept everyone who does not say “no”. This does not make for good gaming.”

        This is a hugely important point. One of the big things about any role-playing game is there’s lots of different things people can want. Some people might want a really intense roleplay experience, similar to the kind of thing they’ve seen on Critical Role or Dimension 20. Other people might want more of a combat heavy, power gamer experience where they can really optimize their characters using a deep knowledge of the rules. Other people might want to really casual game that allows for a quirky joke character. These are all valid ways to play role playing games, but they are not necessarily compatible with each other. With your team still being so small, it’ll just cause hurt feelings if you don’t want to include somebody because they want a different style of game, and will make the game miserable if you’ve got one or two people trying to play a totally different kind of game from everybody else.

        1. Cyborg Llama Horde*

          If the LW did decide to ask the new people if they want to join, I think it’s fair to offer the game as-is. “This is a rules-light, roleplay-heavy game” or “This is a crunchy mechanics game and everyone gets really into optimizing their characters for combat” or w/e. If the new people haven’t played D&D before, that isn’t necessarily helpful, but I think most experienced players know what they like, and can self-select out of a game that won’t be for them.

          I LOVE tabletop RPGs. But if my coworkers were playing an intense rules-lawyer game that consists of going places and slaughtering people? Hard pass, even if it would get me more quality time with the manager. I wouldn’t have fun doing it, and me playing a game I don’t enjoy is not how I want to present to coworkers and management. Heck, even if the game is 5-6 hours long and I want a 2-4 hour game.

          If you offer and the players say yes, you do have some obligation to take them. And if it doesn’t work out, it’s probably better to dissolve the group, in this instance, than kick someone out. But you can be very clear in the offer what the game is and isn’t.

        2. ferrina*

          Truth. I played one campaign with a guy that really wanted D&D to be a video game. He had no character consistency, kept trying to min-max (badly) in weird ways, got annoyed when he didn’t get loot after every encounter, and didn’t get the concept of open-world (“well you should have told me I could talk to the person/ask if there was an armory/explore the rest of the castle/check for traps/etc.”)

          The rest of the group respected and made space each other’s playing styles (we had a couple RP-heavy folks, a couple power gamers), but this guy just did not get it. The DM and one of the players tried to talk to him- no dice (pun intended). In a social group we ended up wrapping the campaign early for other reasons (and made a silent pact never to invite that guy to D&D again), but in a work setting? That has a lot of potential to end badly.

          1. Eater of Hotdish*

            Yeah, I feel like one of the things that’s put me off TTRPGs of late is that any group you get together risks getting taken captive by That One Person whose obnoxious behavior makes things unbearable for everything else. I still shudder when I think of the rules-lawyering paladin who literally took 20 minutes to make a decision whenever it was their turn in combat–but I’ve heard much worse horror stories of bad behavior in gaming groups. Seems like a recipe for disaster, having that dynamic bleed into the workplace.

    7. Don'tbeadork*

      But you don’t have to have sessions that long if you don’t care to. I’m currently DMing for our group (Savage Worlds Pathfinder, not D&D, but we’ve done that as well) and we have a set end time. If we’re in the middle of a fight, well, we take lots of pictures of the layout and positions of the minis and pick up from there next time.

      But yeah, I’d either switch to skirmish games instead or find a way to split the party, with half playing one time and the other half next time. As that department grows, you’re going to be doing mass games which work at conventions but not for a sustained campaign.

  5. GingerAppel*

    Oh honey angel… trying and then leaving is a lesson… kids learn from that…. we give ourselves the gift of trying… and not doing … and choosing otherwise <3

    I felt like that when I stopped being an entrepreneur… Ingredients too expensive, was not turning a profit… I said no… I did it. I lived. And I am trying something else. And so I am contented. Be contented on your next journey.

  6. Logan*

    LW1 – I’m impressed with what you accomplished already! Just getting accepted to train as a firefighter is tough, let alone all the other training you’ve done. I wouldn’t look at it as a failure if you quit now, but as an unforgettable experience. It’s never wrong to decide you’re just not cut out for something, instead of sticking with it and being unhappy.

  7. Dark Macadamia*

    LW1, what would a “successful” exit would look like for you? (ex: finish the final assessments just to have a solid “stopping point” and quit regardless of results, proactively decide you’re not prepared for them and stop now…) Would passing make you believe you’re good enough or would you still have this sense of failure when the daily work is hard?

    I’ve known 3 female firefighters in various contexts and they were all COOL AF. People are not going to stop being impressed when you stop being a firefighter, and no one is going to be like “wow you gave up? what a wimp, firefighting is easy” lol

    1. Teekanne aus Schokolade*

      to add to this, does it have to be one way or the other? OP, could you explore adjacent roles? For example, a dispatcher is still incredibly important, or EMT, or training of some kind (a blend of your previous and present fields)?

      1. Bug*

        I came here to suggest this. Your unique blend of experience would be invaluable in developing training and continuing education.

  8. hellohello*

    For LW 2, this feels mostly like a good lesson in not googling people if you aren’t prepared to deal with what you might find. Just do your best to forget what you saw, and next time don’t search so deep unless you’re doing a real background check for some reason.

    1. MK*

      Yes. And, also OP2, maybe stop inaccurately framing this to yourself as you “accidentally” knowing too much about your manager. This was not an accident, you went snooping.

      1. MsSolo (UK)*

        Yes, “accidentally” would be one of the accounts facebook was pushing on her (especially the way facebook pushes posts other people have liked into your feed). Playing hunt the username is not an accident – you wanted to know more about your coworker, you learned more about your coworker. You’re not her boss, you’re not a future employer, you only bring it up if she specifically asks your advice about online privacy (and honestly, then I’d just work through the steps like it was the first time, not reveal that you already played internet sleuth)

      2. not a hippo*

        Yeah. I accidentally discovered my manager reads very NSFW romance novels because she kept leaving the browser open on a shared computer after her shift. I didn’t seek this out, it was staring me in the face.

        LW you went out of your way to google her and intentionally found this out.

      3. Ahnon4Thisss*

        Yeah, LW2, I think this is the biggest takeaway from this. Don’t frame this one incident as an accident because you went sleuthing and found stuff you didn’t want to see. An accident would be you seeing it over her shoulder on break or something like that.

        You didn’t do anything inherently wrong in this instance, it’s normal to be curious, but take responsibility that you brought that information to yourself by diving a little deeper than just what the algorithm suggested to you.

    2. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      Yes, this comes under the category of “don’t ask a question if you aren’t prepared for any answer you might get”.

    3. L-squared*

      Exactly. I understand the urge to do it. I can’t say I’ve NEVER googled a coworker myself. But this is the risk you take, and a good reason why you shouldn’t, because you don’t know what you’ll find.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        I can honestly say I’ve never done it nor wanted to. After the toxic mess that was OldExJob and some of my colleagues at Exjob showing their asses during the 2016 election, at the end of the day I kinda don’t want to know. I don’t friend coworkers on social media unless we’ve both left the company.

        NewJob seems more progressive (and I’m in a more liberal area now, thank Dawg) but that caution still applies. I don’t want to get chummy with people and then find out they march with Patriot Front on the weekends. >_<

        1. Stephy*

          Yeah agreed. If my friends are terrorists and I know about it, then we can’t be cozy anymore. I’d much rather not know so we can stay friendly.

          1. Elizabeth West*

            I meant chummy at work, not outside work. On my own time, I definitely want to know if I’m knocking around with terrorists so I can run away!

    4. Daisy-dog*

      I feel like the Instagram username might have felt vaguely familiar to LW2. Maybe song lyrics or a movie/TV character name that she couldn’t place. (That’s why I would Google someone’s username, but unlikely to get that invested for a co-worker.)

      1. L-squared*

        Did you strain yourself with that reach? My god, the person was being nosy. Nothing more lol

  9. Lonely Aussie*

    Oof seven players at a table is a lot to manage. Splitting the group could be possible, if you feel you have time to prep for two groups. I guess some prep could be cut down if you have two parties in the same world.

    For those who don’t play D&D, the dungeon master or DM has the task of running the game. There’s a fair bit of prep work that comes with it, that can a couple of hours per session and can be anything from NPC/mob creation, making or finding maps, putting together a sound track or making hand outs. Running two games, rather than one might be more of a time sink than the OP is willing or able to do.

    7 players plus the DM is a lot. Means the DM has to do a lot more work to ensure everyone gets their moment and adds extra time to combat which can already drag.

    I’m not sure what you should do from a work perspective but it might be worth chatting with your manager about it and coming up with a strategy with her. She’s got the closest understanding of the game and the office politics involved.

    1. Elizabeth the Ginger*

      100% agree about combat. I’m in a game with seven players and when all of us are present combat can be soooooo slow. Which amplifies bad luck like a low roll or starting far away when a surprise attack drops. Nothing like “um, I guess I shoot an arrow from way over here, oops I missed” followed by waiting 45 minutes real-life time to try doing something better.

    2. Quoth the Raven*

      I’ve never been a Dungeons and Dragons DM, but I’ve been a Keeper (which is basically the same) for Call of Cthulhu. I’m about to narrate for six people, and it is very daunting.

      I would split the group in two and try to run the same campaign with both groups, which would help make planning easier to handle. There’s also the possibility that the two new hires might not want to play, too, and as Alison said, one Wednesday a month is not too much at all.

    3. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      Wouldn’t splitting the group still mean the manager is in one group and not the other, though. And then OP still has the same problem (just with different people) that half the group has extra access to the manager.

      I think it’s time for the manager to leave the D&D group, actually.

      1. nnn*

        OK then are we back to AAM’s point that the O.P. doesn’t have standing to make that call, it’s for the manager to decide?

        1. Viki*

          So really the manager should never be in this group in the first place. D&D can be a very personal experience.

          But the OP as the person running the game, very much has the ability to end the game or add or remove players. In this case, ending the game is the easiest solution.

          1. Michelle Smith*

            I don’t necessarily agree with that. Sure there need to be professional boundaries, but I don’t see an inherent problem with a manager of a small team spending monthly social time with their reports.

      2. Someone else*

        I do think that the manager leaving the group might be a good option, but of course, whether or not LW4 should ask them to do that depends a lot on what they know of the manager, and how well they might react to the suggestion.

        Another possibility might be to start up another, different, monthly activity (make sure it is something the two new people might be interested in) that the manager attends, so they have an opportunity to get to know the manager socially as well. I think the D&D sessions would be way less of a problem if they aren’t the only regular opportunity to socialise. Of course, OP should probably get someone else to organise this, so all the work isn’t falling them.

        Basically, assuming they decide that they aren’t comfortable with running the campaign for 7 people, first steps should be to discuss with boss, and probably current players, and see what people would be willing to take on, if they want to keep things running.

  10. Bex (in computers)*

    OP5 – I love gaming (we’ve got a podcast of mostly live play from our core group), and I love introducing new people to the hobby. But I think this sounds really dicey (maybe slight pun intended).

    1. I’ve sat at tables with more than 5 players; even the most determined DM can have trouble controlling the chaos that comes from it. Even if you’ve got the best group, you’re going to have delays and cross talk and side chatter.

    2. If you’ve got new players coming to your table, you always need to do the yellow card/red card discussions, which can be a bit awkward when you realize these are also people you’ll be working with. Even if it’s a banal topic for the game, it’s an associated conversation that now sits in your head somewhere, waiting to jump out at inopportune times.

    3. (My biggest personal issue that I’ve learned the hard way) You don’t know the play style of the newcomers if interested and it could go terribly awry. What if someone’s style is to be the party splitter? Or someone who views a chaotic alignment the same as “interrupting basshole”?

    All of these are true of picking up players at your local game shop, but the difference is – you don’t work with them. You won’t potentially have to kick someone from your table and then sit in a meeting with them the next morning.

    Additionally, in jokes become the lingua Franca of gaming groups. If someone doesn’t want to play, it’ll be hard to not feel excluded when Project Gelatino is announced at your company and everyone else dissolved in giggles at the shared memory of a gelatinous cube while one person sits awkwardly to the side.

    Truth to tell, your manager might need to drop regardless, because of the familiarity that forms mentioned above.

    If you do have the new hires expressing interest, consider helping to find other groups. Or if your company is large enough, see about forming an affinity group or a slack channel or what have you. Make the circle wider.

    … that way, when there’s the inevitable TPK, you don’t have to look all of them in the eye at the next budget meeting! lol

    1. RinaL*

      Yeah, the manager propably needs to drop out regardless if the new team members are into DnD playing or not. At least in my goup, jokes are flying really low from time to time – is your manager capable of ignoring/compartmentalizing such things (for example discussing the relatonship between the size of a dwarfs axe and his… nose? And thats a really tame example…). If not and this sort of jokes bleed into the professional life, there will be problems for sure.

      Moreover, as a fellow GM and player in various groups, I would steer clear of having seven players at once. From experience, chances are high that subgroups will form and you would have a hard time getting everybody to listen and striving towards the same(ish) goal. And, as the previous poster mentioned, you don’t know their playing style. I have at least two players, who are best case chaotic neutral (and on some days chaotic evil). If this endangers the group (e.g. stealing the crownprinces prized jewel under his nose and setting him on fire in the process – because shiny and fun !!), there could be some hurt feelings on the next day at work. And, the chaotic players may be pissed because some GM just dropped a piano on them… ;)

      I tend to stay away from playing with colleagues and I am even very picky in deciding which friends I bring into the groups to avoid unnecessary drama.

  11. Bi One, Get One*

    Lw #2: All kinds of people are furries, a lot of them are in IT, STEM*, and other technical fields. She’s not directly using her real legal name for the account, she’s not tying it to her workplace, she’s just out there liking what she likes. Some of that might be furry porn. She might even draw her own furry porn, a lot of furries have a day job and make money doing art on the side. She isn’t bringing it to work, you wouldn’t even know about it if you hadn’t Googled her that hard. Leave it alone, pretend you didn’t see it. There’s nothing unprofessional about having a weird hobby or liking lewd pictures of cartoon animal people as long as you leave the lewdness out of the workplace.

    *One prominent furry worked directly to create the Moderna vaccine! She won the 2022 National Institutes of Health Director’s Award as a member of the Vaccine Research Center Omicron Response Team. If it’s not unprofessional for her to be a furry, I think Jane is fine.

    1. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      > She’s not directly using her real legal name for the account, she’s not tying it to her workplace

      This is an interesting one. The furry related account doesn’t directly mention the employer, but then on the other hand there is a “chain” between Facebook — Instagram account — Furry account (via username) which if OP could follow this chain, so could a client etc.

      Really anything that shouldn’t be linked to an employer needs to be totally “disjoint” (unable to be found by following a chain like in the OP) from things like LinkedIn name.

      1. BubbleTea*

        But why shouldn’t this be “linked” (extremely tenuously) to the employer? Do you feel the same about people who have social media accounts with a makeup or fashion focus? What about fitness and working out? These are also things that are often adjacent to sexual interest but not sexual in themselves.

        2. ecnaseener*

          But NSFW art is sexual. Not “adjacent.” (I guess you’re saying everything to do with bodies could be seen as “adjacent” – how is that relevant?)

          Maybe a better comparison for you to think about would be if this person posted NSFW/pornographic non-furry art. Would you agree that that’s still, uh, not safe for work and ideally something you wouldn’t want coworkers (or customers) to be able to find publicly?

      2. bamcheeks*

        I don’t think is possible! Things don’t have to be completely secret or anonymous secret to be private. We all deserve some grace and discretion from others, and frankly any employer which demands that everyone run their private life under a pseudonym is being completely unreasonable.

        1. Allonge*

          Eh – I agree that in this case the employer should not do anything, and in many cases (e.g. teachers in the US) the expectations are very unreasonable.

          But there are plenty of things that some employers can reasonably ask that you do under a name that is not connected to your work name (and to have more than one degree of separation). Employers dictate what people can/cannot do outside of work all the time.

          1. bamcheeks*

            I don’t think it is that reasonable, actually. My employer buys my labour, not my identity. I think the list of things they get to dictate outside of work should be pretty short.

            1. Allonge*

              Just to be clear, I am not talking about the empoyer saying you cannot be / like furries / have certain political views / spread news on controversial matters.

              Some employers, however, reserve the right to say that to a certain extent you are representing the organisation even outside of working hours, and therefore you need to, in this case, choose a username for your furry NSFW / extreme political / tips on explosives / whatever social media accounts that cannot be easily connected to your work name.

              Obviously the part they control is your employment, not your social media activities, nevermind your identity. But yes, in some cases [my guess would be that this is less than 10% of all jobs, but that is really a guess] this will happen. You are free to not take such jobs, of course.

            2. Michelle Smith*

              Anything that could reflect badly on them or cause them to lose business from clients, which would include what we’re talking about here, is fair game. They don’t get to dictate whether you look at/draw furry porn in your spare time, but they do get to decide they don’t want you working for them if you’re not willing to keep that stuff disconnected enough from their business that clients easily stumble on it.

              1. Lenora Rose*

                There’s no evidence this is the case here. Unless she’s giving all the customers, not a few coworkers, her personal Facebook and Instagram account, they’re more then divided enough from her job.

      3. Irish Teacher*

        If the job given is the real one and not a placeholder, I wouldn’t be too worried about people following the chain. It doesn’t strike me as too likely that somebody would go to that trouble to google somebody working in their favourite coffeeshop, even if they knew their names.

        If they were teachers or working with vulnerable people or something, I’d be more concerned, since people get very concerned about who is working with their children (sometimes with good reason, sometimes focussing on things that really don’t matter) or if they were in politics or something high profile, but I would suspect the risks with a coffeeshop to be fairly low.

      4. Nancy*

        It’s a coffee shop according to OP. Their ‘clients’ are not going to spend time going through a search chain to find the social media accounts of the shop manager.

        OP went snooping around and now doesn’t like what she saw? Too bad. People have lives outside of work.

      5. ccsquared*

        I think this depends heavily on the job. We’re taking about someone who manages a coffee shop. If this is a local coffee shop, brand/image probably has little to do with business (unless it’s a highly conservative area or something like that). If it’s a national chain, what one manager at one store is doing is unlikely to have implications that corporate would care about. Plus, how many of us know the names of the people who manage the place we buy coffee and Google them? Perhaps she’s chosen this job because it does give her a certain amount of professional anonymity and allow her to pursue her passion on the side.

        There are some roles where this matters more. I’m in one where it would be pretty common to look at my LinkedIn prior to a meeting, and if someone searches via Google, there needs to not be questionable or controversial stuff coming up that would interfere with my representation of the company to prospective buyers or compromise a carefully curated brand. Our company spells this all out in a social media policy, which is fine by me because it provides a great excuse to limit my public online behavior.

        Looking at professionalism as contextual is a way to give people space to live their lives.

        1. UKDancer*

          Yes, I mean I know the barista in my local coffee shop is from Madrid and has a little girl called Sofia. I don’t know anything about his background, details or what he does in his free time. He makes a good hazelnut latte and smiles at me so that’s all I need to know. I’d find it hard to imagine why a coffee should would care much about the online activity being undertaken by their staff as long as it’s legal and they’re doing the day job. People in sensitive jobs may need to be more careful but I don’t think someone working in a coffee shop falls into that category.

      6. I'm Just Here For The Cats!!*

        Let’s keep in mind that this is a coffee shop not a fortune 500 company. They don’t have clients and I hardly belive a customer is going to care that the coffee shop’s manager does furry art. Do they even know her full name to look her up? I think this is a stretch and that customers are not going to care.

      7. NeutralJanet*

        I feel like if you, as a customer at a coffee shop, find out the manager’s full name, search for it on Facebook, find their Instagram, search their Instagram username, find their Twitter account, and then find some NSFW drawings, you’re probably going out of your way to find objectionable things about everyone you encounter.

        If they were working in a highly conservative field, or a field that worked with children or other vulnerable people, it still probably wouldn’t be fair for clients to take issue with NSFW furry art, but they might and that’s something that the manager should probably be aware of, despite her not doing anything wrong…but it’s a coffee shop!

        1. I Wish My Job Was Tables*

          Yeah, was coming here to say this. If it took that many leaps to find someone’s private life, I’d argue that it’s hidden enough, especially for a coffee shop manager. I would assume that someone willing to go through that many leaps to check someone out and confirm an identity would have to be pretty nosy and/or looking to stir up drama.

          Life is a rich tapestry. Leave it be.

    2. I Have RBF*

      There are lots and lots of furries in tech* and STEM. In one professional networking group that I’m in we have a joke that the internet is secretly run by furries.

      IME, furries are mellow and fun. Furry artists are very creative and often good problem solvers. Drawing furry porn is no different than any other NSFW hobby. As long as everybody consents and is adult, and keeps it out of the workplace, it’s fine.

      * At one branch of a well known name in tech, two of the three of us in the internal tech support group were furries. We often went to the same conventions, but since I wasn’t big into furry stuff, I would be the one to stay working while they took vacation to go to a furry con. Then, when I went to a filk con, they would pick up the slack.

  12. Properlike*

    LW#1 – you’re trying to teach a lesson you haven’t yet learned yourself! As a maths teacher, you know that advanced math requires thought and many mistakes and starting over until you get to the right answer.

    All those students who are embarrassed when math is hard, so they stop trying? Never take the risk (that, in their situation, is achievable?)

    You did this on a whim, worked your butt off, and found out it was a bad match for your skill set and possible also physically. Doesn’t make you a bad feminist, doesn’t “prove” women can’t be firefighters, doesn’t say anything except you got really close but it didn’t work out. You still learned a heck of a lot!

    Be the model for how to move on from failure. Own it! There is no shame here! Help others avoid unnecessary shame of their own when they take a risk that doesn’t work out. Taking that risk in the first place, and getting so far, is a HUGE accomplishment. And that will be your success.

    1. Virtual Light*

      I will share one of the math department sayings for when we work with students: “Mistakes are how we learn, they are how our brains get bigger.” “Mistakes” might be an imperfect word – when we do something that doesn’t lead to the goal we had in mind is what we mean. You’re fine. You learned something. You do you!

  13. Uldi*

    LW1

    The testing and training you are doing now is in part designed to weed out those not dedicated to being a firefighter.

    This is a very dangerous career. Firefighters put their lives on the line every time they head out on a call. Other people’s lives depend on them. The Grenfell Tower fire was just 6 years ago, for example.

    Ask your inner feminist if she’d be okay with that responsibility. There is no shame in not being able to do a job that pretty much everyone agrees is one of the most difficult.

    1. Agnes*

      There’s also no shame in deciding you can’t trust your sexist coworkers to put the same effort into keeping you safe on the job that they do for the male coworkers they accept.

      1. L-squared*

        Those are 2 very different things though. This letter isn’t about the sexist coworkers, its about OP not feeling like she can or should continue doing this. What about “take letter writers at their word”. She has stated her feelings, and it seems people are trying to take the focus away from that onto other people.

        Look, if she was super into this and super confident, I doubt she’d let a few of the jerks she works with dissuade her this much.

        1. Alice*

          Take letter writers at their word? People are reading the comment where the letter writer said (six hours ago, so in time for many commenters to have read it), saying:
          “I’d had some unexpected and long feedback that, as you suggest [the suggestion explicitly mentioned male-dominated fields], vaguely said that I’m not getting there.
          “I have colleagues who I’m sure have Views on my presence (not all, maybe a third). I’m the only woman on station and, coincidentally, some colleagues barely acknowledge my presence but act more warmly with other new recruits.
          “So I worry that even IF I pass, will I be accepted by those colleagues? Will we work well going into a fire together when we barely pass the time of day? Is it my fault if we haven’t gelled as most firefighters do?”
          To the extent that commenters are “making it about sexism,” that seems pretty reasonable.

          Also glad to know that if people just had enough PASSION and CONFIDENCE then they’d never deal with imposter syndrome ;)

          1. Former Female Firefighter*

            That was 100% my experience as a firefighter too. A male would walk through the door asking about the process to be a recruit, and would be treated in 10 minutes with more warmth than I had received in three years combined from the male firefighters.

        2. fhqwhgads*

          I don’t think they’re necessarily separate. It’s entirely possible she feels like she can’t because sexist coworkers are telling her can’t cut it for sexist reasons. They also might be telling it to her straight. It’s impossible to know from here.

    2. connie*

      I’ve gotta say, while I appreciate all the comments urging LW not to give up because of sexism, the issue I see isn’t entirely the sexism. Leaving aside whether you can or cannot pass the next test, since none of us are there and none of us are your instructors: LW, I don’t see the passion to be a firefighter specifically in your letter. It doesn’t seem like you’ve developed that as you’ve gone along. Are you so passionate about going into a burning building to save people and property that you’re willing to play a long game to earn respect from your colleagues when they don’t want to give it and when them not giving it could be very bad for you?

      And as someone whose dad was a cop, I am wondering if you care about this career enough that possible developing PTSD from the job in an unsupportive environment is worth it for you?

      Certainly the kinds of persistence you need to be a woman in math can be analogous to what you need to be a woman in firefighting, but analogous is not the same. I am just not sure some commenters grasp what’s at stake here–are they themselves willing to put their lives on the line to work with people who might only have their backs during a fire out of obligation? I’m just thinking here of the ways you’d need to be able to anticipate what your teammates would be doing and how they would be paying attention to you during a full-on fire when you can’t speak to each other or even see each other easily. Do you trust them explicitly right now?

      You’re not failing feminism if you stop and don’t go any further. You tried this and that’s what matters. There will be another woman who takes on that battle. Whatever decision you make here, make it for yourself.

      1. The Night-Mare Life in Death*

        …a lot of commenters are making the point that it’s not a failure to stop, regardless of the reason.

        And frankly it doesn’t particularly matter if they only have her back out of obligation, as long as they have her back. And that is indeed a good question to ask: are you sure these people will have your back? Or do you expect them to get you into trouble and then blame it on you?

        Regardless of whether they’d actually do it, you have to trust them not to.

      2. WellRed*

        Thanks for this. I don’t see passion either in the letter and making it about sexism seems distracting from that.

        1. Dahlia*

          The LW has added additional context in the comments. People aren’t “making it about sexism”.

    3. Luanne Platter*

      The tone of this comment is rather harsh for someone trying to decide if this career is right for her.

    4. Cherries Jubilee*

      I agree, wanting to challenge yourself, get kudos, prove a point, make people proud… these are understandable motivations but not sustainable. Those are reasons you’d complete a marathon or walk the Camino or something, not take on a tremendously difficult and perilous vocation that holds others’ lives in your hand. For emergency response stuff, you want someone for whom this is their dream, or proven choice, who are dedicated to it with certainty. I don’t want a firefighter showing up to help me because of the accolades they get at parties. That level of dedication isn’t enough to sustain you as a career.

      1. I am LW1*

        Would you interrogate any men who rescued you or would you just be glad to be rescued?

        1. Jackalope*

          Yes, this. What I want from my firefighters (and professionals in other jobs that I interact with) is for them to be competent, have decent enough people skills to be able to help me), and be focused enough to do what is needed in the moment. I don’t care if the person I’m interacting with is there for their passion, the accolades, or just the paycheck; as long as they can Do the Thing, their motivation is not generally important to me. (Obvious exception for things like motivation to commit fraud.)

        2. Budgie Buddy*

          I think it’s fine if to them it’s just a job and they succeed in the actual work. They finished the training and they have a track record. Who cares what’s going on in their heads?

          You’re at a different point where you’re seriously asking yourself whether you can pass the final assessment, and a lot of the letter was about what this career means to you. So I don’t think it’s weird that people are paying attention to mindset in addition to the issues with the work itself.

          If you’re burning out already (no pun intended), it could be that you “want the title, not the job.” Ultimately the kudos don’t matter if you can’t and aren’t that interested in doing the work of saving people from fires.

          A lot of careers look one way on the outside and are a lot more work and a lot less glamor when you actually do them.

  14. A (Former) Library Person*

    LW#1 If it helps at all, I was in a somewhat similar position myself, at least in terms of my feelings about it. I have a master’s degree in the field and my career was, on paper, a perfect fit for me. I eventually came to the realization that no matter how badly I wanted it to work out, how much I believed in the importance of the work, or how obviously “perfect” it seemed to everyone else, it was making me miserable. I quit about a year ago, and while I am still not sure where I want my work life to lead me in the future, my day to day life is so much better. And all of those people in my life who thought it was such a great fit have supported me in stepping away, too, even if they don’t always understand why I made that decision.

    If you have a sense that it isn’t working out, you’re probably right to trust your instincts. And like Alison said, everything you have done is still an incredibly impressive accomplishment, regardless of how long you remain a firefighter.

  15. MassMatt*

    #3 I think you handled it well, this could all have been avoided if they had simply listed a salary range.

    I don’t know the details of the job and I get that it’s academia but $38k sounds really low for a job with any responsibility at all, and you mention it’s significantly lower than the average for the job in your area.

    Either this employer is bottom feeding because they figure the prestige of working there will be sufficient to attract candidates or they are very unrealistic about the salary.

    1. Marmalade*

      The one saving grace might be the insurance coverage, IF it’s a large state school.

      1. Relentlessly Socratic*

        If it’s a state university, salaries are discoverable.
        Source: Former state university employee

    2. FashionablyEvil*

      Their hands may be tied because of job titles/salary structures. It sounds to me like the hiring manager may already know that since they said they wished they could post the range.

      1. ferrina*

        +1.
        LW did the right thing by saying the salary wouldn’t work. LW tried to get them up to a livable wage, and they wouldn’t agree to it (whether their hands were tied or not, I don’t know). This is the right time to walk away. Don’t invest in companies or people that won’t meet your basic needs.

      2. I'm Just Here For The Cats!!*

        Can we keep in mind that $38K is not an entry level job. Maybe in large cities Like New York, D.C. San Diego etc. But in many large cities in the northern midwest (at least in the very large cities I’ve lived and worked in) you would not find that as an entry-level job. Probably closer to $30,000.$38K in academia is certainly not entry level fir staff.

    4. Delta Delta*

      This. It’s a waste of everyone’s time not to be up front with the information.

    5. Relentlessly Socratic*

      Academic pay is often wildly out of sync with comparable positions elsewhere in the same city/town. It used to be that The Chronicle was helpful for gauging salaries, but I don’t remember if it was useful for staff or only for faculty.

    6. Retired Professor*

      We were never allowed to post salary ranges when I headed job searches in academia. I don’t know the reason since we are a state university and all salaries are public information. To avoid your situation, I made it a point to tell applicants early in our process what salaries had been the prior year. I knew as a state university we were lower than most and I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time.

    7. House On The Rock*

      I work for a major academic medical center in a staff (e.g. not clinical, not faculty) role, and, sadly, this doesn’t strike me as particularly off. I’ve seen “director” level positions posted that top out at $50k and require multiple advanced degrees. We are also located in one of the highest cost of living cities in our state.

      The group I manage is a little better because it’s IT-adjacent and the market demands we pay ok (not great) salaries, but it’s still very hard to fill positions and retain people, especially because our job requirements are very steep. I have employees with 30 years of experience doing highly specialized work who have just cracked six figures. I recently had a mid-level analyst leave for a private sector job that paid 50% more than we were paying.

      I’m glad OP was up front with her requirements, which were not at all unreasonable. I’m sure the hiring committee was also glad, although I know the sting of losing a great candidate because academic salaries are depressed.

  16. Chris*

    OP1 I’ve recently gone through a similarly large career change ( I quit my job as a metropolitan transportation planner to become a whitewater rafting guide). Part of starting anything new is that you suck at it at first. The length of this suck phase varies from person to person and depending on the endeavor, but until it passes you can’t really know if this new thing is for you. This is especially hard for those of us who are embarking on a second career, since we’re used to not sucking at what we do. I’d hope that you persevere, at least until you get past the suck.

    However, if you decide that firefighting isn’t for you, perhaps you can take heart in something that helped me make the jump initially: I figured I that if the rafting guide thing didn’t work out after a couple of years, at the very least I’d have a great story to tell in job interviews when someone asked about my resume gap.

    1. Pinky*

      this sounds like the premise of a pretty decent memoir, if not a Hallmark Christmas movie!

  17. Reality*

    #1 – I’m just going to say it: if you’re bad at a job where people’s lives are *literally* on the line, don’t do it. Transfer to another type of work in that area, or drop to something more manageable.

    The reason women are underrepresented in these jobs, the military, etc. is because it is an incredibly physically demanding and insanely stressful job where people’s lives are on the line. Likewise, the reason women are overrepresented in things like nursing is because that’s a type of stress and knowledge that women typically ARE equipped to handle.

    It’s nothing to do with feminism; men and women are innately wired and built different. If you’re 100% capable of doing the job and actually doing your part, then keep at it. But if you’re really questioning your abilities to the point where someone’s life may be at risk because of it: don’t do it.

    Your ego is not worth more than lives you’re risking.

    1. ayavaa*

      i’m not sure i agree with “wired”, as i think a lot of its social– but i actually do agree with your overall point about not risking other peoples lives if you’re genuinely not able to do the job.

      And the physical capabilities aspect is NOT just socialization– Its a very very demanding job in terms of pure body strength esp. upper body strength. (Obviously, you know this, OP) many women can do it and thats very impresive. But it’s not anti-feminist to recognize that most women would need to work much *harder* to get the same upper body strength as most men

    2. BubbleTea*

      There is NOTHING about being female that makes you better at nursing than firefighting, other than the slightly higher likelihood that you’ll be smaller and less physically able to lift people (but nurses also have to lift people).

      This sort of garbage attitude is exactly why being a female firefighter is so difficult. Not because women are wired to be bad at it. Because men are sexist shits to them.

      2. Keymaster of Gozer*

        And why there’s still a huge sexism problem in IT. People still think that women are better at empathy and caring than solving logical problems.

        (Half our on site engineers are women. That’s a job that sometimes involves filthy environments and very heavy equipment)

      3. Emmy Noether*

        Thank you for formulating a polite response to that comment, because what I was going to write on first draft was… not.

        Women are taking over all kind of professions that people used to think we weren’t “wired” to do (medecine, for example), and kicking ass at them. People also used to think that it was just a scientific fact that if a woman read too much, her uterus would shrivel up, and that they weren’t capable of scientific thought. Bullcrap, all of it.

        My alias here, Emmy Noether, had to fight these assumptions uphill all the way (first woman admitted to get a doctorate in physics at her university, later almost didn’t get a professorship because she was female, etc.), and she was one of the most brilliant mathematical minds of the 20th century.

        I have zero patience for people justifying inequality and sexism with “it’s nature! *shrug*”.

    3. I am LW1*

      I wouldn’t say that I’m bad at this to the point that peoples lives are at risk (any more than they would be with any new recruit). And it’s not about my physical strength (which is a much smaller and less vital part of the job than some of the public think).

      (And I certainly don’t agree that women are hard wired to deal with ‘this’ type of stress and men with ‘that’ type of stress.)

    4. They Don’t Make Sunday*

      Thanks to those who responded to this comment, especially the LW. The LW sounds very conscientious, and she would not be writing in at all if her presence were putting anyone’s life at risk, jeez.

      I also must note that women are no more hardwired to be nurses than the men who originally filled nurses’ ranks (because nursing was originally a predominantly male profession).

      1. Madame Arcati*

        I absolutely agree with you but am interested in your last bit about nursing originally being a male profession? I learned that whilst men had hold of medicine/surgery, nursing was originally not really professionalised until the work of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole in the Crimean War, and their tribes were women. As so often in history (or any subject) it’s often just a bit more complicated than that, so I’d be glad to know more!

    5. Jennifer @unchartedworlds*

      The reason women are underrepresented in these jobs, the military, etc. is because it is an incredibly physically demanding…job

      That and bullying, hazing, sexual harassment, putdowns, always having to disprove pre-judgments that they won’t be good at it, team-mates not “having their backs” in dangerous situations, role-modelling they didn’t see as a young person so it never even crossed their mind to try, etc. We literally don’t know what proportion of firefighters would be women in a non-sexist world, because the experiment hasn’t been done.

      1. Jackalope*

        Yeah, the moment someone says that feminism is irrelevant, that’s usually the moment when it’s most needed because the person is about to spew some sexist or misogynistic nonsense.

    7. bamcheeks*

      Mate, this is simply more of the sexist bollocks that LW1 is dealing is. It’s as much to do with men liking physical jobs to be a boys’ club and actively working to push women out as it is to do with average strength.

      Any heavily physical task depends on teamwork and skill as much as brute strength. The equipment is designed for specific average strengths, and members of the team needs to operate at a similar levels. The fact that those levels tend to be set towards men’s physical averages is habit and practice, not ineffable law.

      LW1, thst doesn’t mean you have to be the person breaking down barriers. Do network with other female firefighters! You might still decide this isn’t for you and that’s fine, but take your best shot from the strongest position, and that means one where you’ve reached out for as much support and community as you can, not one where you’re feeling isolated and defeated.

      And look at what you’ve learned over the last few months, and figure out what you can do with that knowledge. Is there any you’ve met on this journey whose job you’d be interested in? Trainers? Recruiters? EDI people? Mechanics and technicians? Fire engineering might even be a possibility, if you did a maths, physics or engineering degree as your route into teaching. The alternative to being a firefighter doesn’t have to be “go back”, it can be “go on somewhere new” too.

      If you want to talk it over and you’re in England, you can speak to a careers adviser by calling the National Careers Service. I think Scotland, Wales and NI have similar services. You also might still have access to careers guidance through your university: some do lifelong offers, some do three years.

    9. Pippa K*

      Do you think men are “innately wired” to bully women out of predominantly masculine workplaces and career fields, or are we just going to pretend like social factors don’t shape society at all?

    10. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Women are overrepresented in nursing because of historic and systemic sexism, not because they’re innately more wired to be nurses than men (!). This has been thoroughly refuted at this point and I’m closing this thread.

    11. Ellis Bell*

      So, there’s this thing called growth mindset. Basically, there are people who believe that we only have natural or innate skills that come easily (fixed mindset) and there are those who believe in taking risks, failing over and over, and working hard to overcome gaps in knowledge and skills (growth mindset). Fixed mindset is responsible for beliefs like the working classes being inferior, which is why we didn’t even try to educate many people for centuries. OP is a teacher, you aren’t going to convince her to tap into magical womanly skills that she doesn’t have to learn! It’s fine if the role doesn’t make her happy and the challenge isn’t personally worth it, or if she feels the support is not there, but making out like it’s impossible or unreasonably difficult for someone of her gender is a red herring and self fulfilling prophecy.

    12. philmar*

      This comment is gender essentialist and transphobic. There is not some innate quality to men that make them better firefighters. The physical demands are not as onerous as you imagine them to be, except when they are SO high that it neutralizes strength differences (ex. fighting a fire that is so powerful and such a stressful situation you suck down a 45-min air bottle in 8 minutes). Calmness and mental fortitude are far more important.

      The military physical standards are not intimidatingly high (in fact, a lot of people consider them laughably low) and the vast majority of members do not have an incredibly physically demanding job. Navy SEALs and Army Rangers make up a very small if well-publicized part of the military.

  18. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

    OP3 (offered salary too low)

    > “Pay me more because I want to earn more than I’m earning now” will never be as compelling — or as relevant — to the employer as “you should pay more because it’s the market rate for this work done at the level you want.”

    This isn’t necessarily the case. The salary being a big ‘downgrade’ from what someone has already is an obvious and easily understandable reason they can’t take the job (setting aside situations like starting in a new field, dropping back in responsibility level due to life reasons, crap salary for now but massive potential for growth etc etc).

    The “market rate” argument can actually be much more nebulous, because there are all sorts of reasons (real and fabricated) that the “market rate” doesn’t apply to this particular role, or that the concept itself is meaningless in that field due to so much variation, or because the role is ‘niche’ enough that there isn’t really a useful comparator or benchmark… Or many other reasons.

    “Less than I earn now” is concrete and measurable in the way that “market rate” isn’t (despite what HR consultancies try to tell companies when offering salary benchmarking services!)

    1. Mango the Expat*

      I agree. I recently agreed to be interviewed on a whim. At the end of the conversation, they asked for my requirements, I asked their range, and they gave one that was 40K to 30 K below what I make now. I told them that we were too far apart, gave them my current base salary (I get extra to live overseas, but this was a US-based position), and said thanks.

      They sent me an offer of ~5K below my current base. I turned it down without negotiating because I decided I was too unsure of what I would be doing when the position started, but my point is that they heard what I was saying, realized their range was too low to get the expertise they wanted, and readjusted. It often won’t work that way due to the realities of budgets, but it can.

    2. Grith*

      Agree completely, I was a little surprised by the response here. How much money I will earn is *the* headline reason for deciding if I want to move job – to be coy and pretend that’s not the case is a little out of line with AAM’s usual directness and desire to be up-front.

      “Market Rate” is great for large-scale statistics and determining what someone hiring thinks pay should be for a certain role, but for an individual deciding if they want to take a particular job or not, it’s irrelevant. What matters is how it compares to what I currently take home and what effect that will have on my quality of life.

      If I think I need more money to take a role then Market Rate might be part of the justification, but the root cause is that I as an individual need a (bigger) jump in pay to make this move. And as a company, if you hear this from multiple candidates or can only get lower-quality candidates interested in the range you set, it’s possible to extrapolate to “maybe we’re not paying enough for this role”, but that’s not up to individual candidates to work out for you.

      1. MassMatt*

        I don’t think Alison was suggesting that the compensation doesn’t matter, of course it does. But I agree that the market rate for the position (and yes, this may be hard to determine) is a stronger case than saying I need more than what I make now.

        The latter argument cuts both ways, and it’s why employers always want to know what you are currently making before they give a salary figure. If you are making a career change, or have an employer that pays well but is a nightmare to work for, and you say you make $60k, you are often kicked from consideration for a $38k job. Likewise, if your current salary is low (moving from retail, say) your low current salary is justification for them to offer you a lowball salary.

        The salary argument is grounded in what you the employee want and need, but the case is best made based on what the job is worth and the value you bring, not a comparison to what you are currently earning. Though certainly I’ve been approached by recruiters that seem puzzled that I’m not jumping to take a job making much less than I currently am.

    3. Emmy Noether*

      I think it depends a bit on the point of view, no?

      For the employer, “you can’t get anyone good at that low price” is a compelling argument, where “I, personally, need more, otherwise you’ll have to go with another, equally qualified candidate” is not. For the employee, it’s the other way around.

      It’s also sort of a circular argument though. If the company is prepared to pay X to get this specific candidate (because she’s the best one), then apparently, X *is* the market rate for someone with those skills and qualifications, by definition.

      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        It’s this. You are alerting them to the fact that they are out of touch with general market trends. OP did check the job title and salary range in that city and found it was mostly higher. The employer needs to know that people are unlikely to take that low a salary.

        Which is, of course, an excellent reason, why salary disclosure in the job ad is such a good idea. And it sounds like at least one person there knows it.

    4. Kristinyc*

      I’ve used “This job sounds great, but I can’t take a paycut. I need at least $## to consider making a move.” That still tells them they’re offering less than I make, and where I’d want to be.

      I live in NY so technically they legally have to disclose the salary range on the job posting now (yay! It’s saved me so much effort!). Some still don’t, but in those cases, I always ask the recruiter the range before I agree to a call. If you live in a state that doesn’t require it, it’s still fine to ask up front. It’s become the norm the last few years, and I’ve found they’re almost always willing to tell you now.

      (Language I’ve used if it’s helpful to anyone: “Are you able to share the salary range for this role? Want to make sure we’re in the same ballpark to be respectful of each other’s time.”)

      1. Lily Rowan*

        I once said, “This job sounds great. I need at least $## to consider making a move,” and the people at my new job assumed I was taking a pay cut! Which I 100% was not.

    5. fhqwhgads*

      “Less than I earn now” is concrete and measurable if your current job is comparable to the one you’re applying for. If it’s a different role, then what you make now is irrelevant to the compensation for the new role.
      “You pay too little for me to want to take the job” is a very different conversation from “you pay too little for anyone qualified to do this to want to take the job”. The reason to discuss it in terms of market rate, is so you’re making the latter argument, not the former. IE it’s not just about you and your salary requirements personally, it’s about the role.

    6. House On The Rock*

      I agree. When I am hiring (at an academic medical institution that has frustratingly low salaries), I completely understand if someone tells me what they currently make and I can’t match it. I am actually less convinced when someone gives me a “market rate” they found that may or may not match their own experience/education/etc.

      To be clear, I’m not saying I want to lowball anyone – our HR kind of hates me because I refuse to do that and am always asking them to make higher offers – just describing what resonates with me more as a hiring manager.

  19. Punk*

    D&D is story-based so I can’t really picture two games happening side by side in the same room. Even with the same starting point, the games would eventually spin off into different stories and that’s two noisy conversations happening at once. And there wouldn’t necessarily be much interaction between the two groups, which doesn’t solve the problem of some people getting more face time with management than others.

    The management thing is separate from the rest of the group already existing at work. You don’t always have to invite newbies into an outside group that’s built around an activity that has some significant barriers to entry and where personality compatibility matters. And I think it would be good if a D&D game wasn’t the implied “official” team building. It’s a lot to sit through if it’s not your thing.

    1. GingerNP*

      A few years ago, one of my friends ran two separate adventuring parties in the same world/time and then we all met up to fight the big bad together at the end – two tables, 16 players, a deputy DM, IT WAS AMAZING. But also not a thing anybody wants to manage for an indefinite period of time. Friggin epic and also totally wildly impractical.

  20. Calamity Janine*

    i’m gonna be real with you, LW2 – if everyone with a personal twitter that included nsfw furry art was too shockingly unprofessional to be employed, a good three quarters of internet infrastructure and IT development would implode within thirty six hours of the mass firings.

    chalk this up to how life is a rich tapestry woven by those around us. and also maybe an aesop about the perils of googling colleagues.

    remember the golden rule of “just, like, be cool ok” and endeavor to wipe this knowledge from your mind. unless you suddenly need a gift to butter up this person and you can find a cute plushie or coffee mug with their chosen fursona’s species. but really, gifts shouldn’t flow up, so you’re in the clear to forget about it.

    1. Pinky*

      joke i saw on social media the other day:

      A furry, a trans woman, and a sysadmin walk into a bar…

      …She orders a drink.

      1. Calamity Janine*

        this is a joke i would post on mastodon to my friends, but i think i know so many people that resemble this remark i couldn’t hope to tag them all – and blessedly there is no @everyone feature LOL!

      2. Furry Aware*

        I have dealt with furries online, and I find it interesting how much overlap there is among the groups listed in your joke.

  21. Madame Arcati*

    Lw#1 I have two stories for you (I am also in the U.K. if it’s relevant):
    1) I spent the first several years of my career in an area of my profession that I was really proud of – in the wider sense of the mission but also of my specific duties. I was badass. But when thinking of changing areas for reasons of work life balance and burnout, I was concerned about not being badass any more. I remember saying to a friend, what if my job is the most interesting thing about me? (It’s not lol). But I made the change and it was for the best. And guess what; I’m still badass. Just in the more calm, cerebral, desk-based sense of it. Maybe i used to be Batman; now I’m Alfred. Or maybe I used to be Bond, now I’m Q, or M (as played by Judi Dench of course).
    Maths tutors are just as valuable, and cool, and life-changing to others, as firefighters.

    2) my dad, when I was a child, changed from high school teaching into a private sector financial role for a few years. I was too small to be included in the reasoning at either end but when he decided to return to teaching, nobody thought badly of him or questioned his decisions and neither did he of himself. All schools thought were, yay experienced STEM teacher, glad to have you. I bet it would be the same for you.

    1. Former Female Firefighter*

      I’ve also struggled with this thought process. My job is one that impresses people – it sounds cooler than it is, though there are certainly high stakes elements to it – and for a long time it’s been core to my identity.

      But it also broke me, these past several years.

      In the rebuilding process I’ve had to sort through whether that admittedly-fun part of impressing others is enough for me any more, or if I can let that (and parts of my career that were hurting me) go.

      It’s been interesting to realize that I rarely talk about work any more – even though I still find it really interesting, and am pushing forward in my career. Instead I talk about my garden and family and special interests. They’re not as capital-e Exciting, but they’re more settled and calm and authentic.

      And I’m still at heart the same brave person who climbed those ladders and crawled through burning structures.

  22. Madame Arcati*

    LW2 I reckon the key phrase you’ve used is “NSFW”. But Jane’s art isn’t AT work. She isn’t showing it at work or sharing it with you her colleagues or making your customers the subject of her drawings. It’s suitable for the context in which she is sharing it. It’s not illegal so you have to ethical responsibility to call it out, and as for telling her it’s easy to find, why wouldn’t she know? She’s set her usernames, handles, display names etc to what they are and she’s in her twenties and tech savvy; if she wanted or needed to hide the connection between the art and the rest of her online footprint and real life identity, I’m sure she would.

  23. I'm not a teacher any more and now I don't have to have private profiles for everything*

    LW2, the beauty of being a coffee shop manager – rather than say a teacher or doctor – is there is far less expectation from the world at large that you have to look like an upstanding professional at all times including in areas of your life that have nothing to do with work. Let her do what makes her happy.

    1. Lisa Vanderpump*

      Thanks for saying this. Something about the expectation that someone is always “a worker” and must always present in a “safe for work” way is really making me see red. Outside of M-F from around 7:45-4:45 I am doing whatever stupid BS I want. Work owns enough of me, they don’t get to own my free time too. If I have to be “work appropriate” 24/7, then they need to pay me 24/7.

      Though I would say that teachers and doctors should be able to do this too.

      1. Queer Earthling*

        Thank you for saying what I was thinking better than I could. People get to be people on their time off. (Or anthro animals, as the case may be I guess.) Many people are, astonishingly, horny and/or weird in their free time, and they must be allowed to be. And yes, that includes teachers, doctors, actors, whoever. It doesn’t affect you.

      2. metadata minion*

        Agree. There are some obvious exceptions like bigotry, but those are exceptions because they’re things that you can’t just compartmentalize and not be a racist asshole at work if you’re obviously being a racist asshole on your time off. But the assumption should be that people are able to keep their sex life and/or NSFW hobbies separate from their work life unless there’s some clear evidence that they can’t. Being into sexy fox art has no bearing on your ability to be a barista or a sysadmin or a marketing consultant.

        1. Dahlia*

          Also, like… not to be a Debbie Downer, but even if you’re talking about bigotry, there are so many people not losing their jobs over that. Like no one is expecting Walmart to interrogate their workers about how they feel about trans people or BLM.

  24. GoodBenefitsLousyPay*

    OP3, academia nearly always pays significantly less than industry but typically offers better benefits. It’s a tradeoff that may not work for you, but you should expect it if you apply for jobs in academia again. Just FYI, non-profits also typically pay significantly less than industry too.

    1. Internship Admin*

      That was my thought! It might still be a little low for comfort but adding up the total compensation would show that it’s maybe at least equal to what they’re making now or a little more.

    2. DataSci*

      Not relevant in this case but “benefits” can be intangible – I took a pay cut at my most recent job change in exchange for a much shorter commute (like 10 minutes instead of close to an hour). I was quite literally buying time.

    3. ccsquared*

      So I’m actually in a very similar position to LW3, but in my industry, benefits are great. I was a little surprised that the university seems to have comparable heathcare options but wants to take more out of my paycheck. And only 3 weeks PTO for the first 8 years! (This is a staff role, so the only school break is the last week of the year.) Retirement seems pretty good, but I’m pretty set from being able to max my 401k and am not sure I want to lock away more money that I can’t touch until retirement.

      So what should we looking for, especially benefits that tangibly make up for lost salary? I saw the university has gyms for example, so that’s something that wouldn’t be an ongoing expense, but curious what else to look for.

      1. metadata minion*

        Universities typically let staff take classes for free or at highly reduced rates, though that’s a benefit that’s not going to be particularly relevant to many people.

      2. bamcheeks*

        Don’t know how this applies in the US but in the UK a lot of people move to the public sector for maternity/parental leave benefits. They tend to have good schemes that pay over the statutory minimum. They’re also often better at offering flexible working (everyone has the statutory right to ask for flexible working— usually a change of schedule or to go to part-time— but the employer can turn it down on business grounds and the public sector is more likely to make it possible.)

      3. doreen*

        I think especially with universities you need to look at non-standard benefits. My daughter worked at a university that offered 90-100 % tuition remission to employee/sponsor domestic partner/dependent children – and up to $8000 /yr tuition at other institutions. For employees, it included graduate programs. That doesn’t matter if you don’t expect to have anyone attending college while you are employed there – but it’s worth a lot if you do. They had a defined benefit pension plan that employees did not contribute to, something that has become rare in the private sector.

      4. Snax*

        It sounds like in your particular case, it doesn’t make sense. I work for a large prestigious university where salaries are pretty good, meaning better than other nonprofits but lower than big corporate employers. While I’d like to earn more, getting 6-7 weeks of vacation, 5 weeks of sick leave, a high retirement match, and good healthcare coverage all make me very hesitant to leave for more money alone.

      5. Insert pun here*

        I’ve worked at several private universities and this is what I would look for:
        -403(b) match— at least 6% and ideally more
        -4-5 weeks PTO (and generous sick leave, though I use that a lot less)
        -gym membership — should be about half the cost of the next cheapest option in your area
        – education benefits for you and your dependents (latter is sometimes called something like “sons and daughters scholarship”) — some will pay up to half your kid’s tuition!
        – library privileges — this one is hard to quantify/put a $$ amount on but if you read a lot, you will love having access to a university library (yes, they will have popular fiction) which typically has a very high limit on the number of books you can check out and also a long loan period
        -health insurance varies widely but is often (not always) much better, especially if the institution has a hospital

        The thing about academia is that this stuff varies widely by type of school. If these benefits are important to you, you’re mostly going to want to look at well resourced private R1 schools, Ivy or Ivy-adjacent.

    4. Anon for this*

      I (like a LOT of other people) am currently trying to leave campus-based academia for this reason. The benefits at the university I work at are straight up phenomenal. They’re actually pretty powerful as a retention strategy, and I may have started looking a lot sooner without them, because I’m very aware that they aren’t the norm. But my pay is garbage, and the messaging is that there is no interest in resolving that. My HSA match and the substantial vacation bank that I never have time to use (or money to go anywhere) aren’t helpful to me when I’m living paycheck to paycheck in an already low COL area. No sane person would sign on to do everything I do for the money I make, and now I won’t either.

  25. Keymaster of Gozer*

    1. There is a lot of pressure put upon women, sometimes by ourselves!, to be excellent at anything we try to do that is outside what society thinks our gender should be doing. I’ve worked in IT for over 20 years and was a research scientist prior to it and truth be told that ‘I’ve got to succeed else they’ll believe women can’t do this!’ feeling never totally goes away.

    Now, having said that, failing at something isn’t a mark on your character. I suspect the environment you’re in (basically full of blokes) is almost setting you up to fail – dealing with sexism all day will drain anyone. My personal advice would be to go through the tests/exams/whatever so at least you won’t have the uncertainty of whether you might have passed or not.

    And if you fail? You still DID the training for a firefighter and that’s a lot of work that you should be proud of!

  26. Akcipitrokulo*

    LW1 – “I loved that I was showing my children that you can dare to be bad at something again…”

    Add onto that “… and that not succeeding at it is something that can happen, and that is OK and not a reason not to try!”

    Showing kids how to fail successfully is also important.

  27. Sharpie*

    LW1, I’m also a woman who tried doing a very traditionally man’s job. I joined the British Army at the age of twenty, after a year working to get fit enough to pass the fitness requirements. I always struggled with the fitness side of it, and that’s a big thing in the military. I ended up posted up to Edinburgh, at the other end of the country from my family, and never went on deployment at a time when we were actively engaged in Iraq and there were mutterings about Afghanistan (9/11 happened when I was in Basic training, for the record).

    I ended up leaving the Army of my own accord after about three and a half years, because I was struggling with the physical requirements and the mental challenge of being posted to a tiny unit that didn’t do anything I’d trained for.

    But because I was where I was, someone else was freed up to go to a combat zone where they did much better than I would have done, and I will always be able to say I served, even though I never got a medal or anything.

    There’s no shame in withdrawing because you’ve given it a shot, you know what it takes and honestly, you’ve done what a lot of other people wouldn’t even consider, you’ve tried it and that’s automatically so much more than the vast majority of people. You are an amazing person for going for it, there’s no shame in walking away because you can’t do it. At least you know and you won’t have that if-only thought later on – ‘if only I’d had the courage to try that…’

    You are an amazing person who has an amazing story to tell and some incredible experiences that you can build on in your future. If you go back to teaching, you can inspire all those young girls that they can do anything, and know what you’re talking about.

    2. UKDancer*

      Definitely. I always find I regret more the things I didn’t do than the things I did. If I’ve given something a try and it hasn’t worked then at least I know I gave it my best shot. Well done for doing 3 years, the army is not an easy place especially for women.

  28. anon24*

    OP1:

    I used to be an EMT on the ambulance. I did it for over 4 years, including the first 2 years of Covid. I stopped for a few different reasons, mostly related to moving and much lower pay in my new location and it would have needed me to go back to school to still get lower pay than what I was making. It also had a huge mental health component. It was bleeding my soul dry.

    EMS always was and always will be my only love. I hated it, it made me miserable and unhappy, but it was also the only thing that made me feel alive. I was so proud of it, and I did love it too. I loved being on the ambulance, I loved the people I worked with, I loved the area I ran in, I loved getting calls when I genuinely got to help people. But it was also killing me emotionally. I was drinking too much on my days off and I was a dark angry person (I always have been a dark person, but it really pulled it out of me)

    Walking away was the hardest thing I ever did, but it was what was best for me. I still volunteer very part time as a first responder and it’s like a kick in the stomach every time the ambulance crew says “wow, for being just a volunteer you really know what you’re doing” and then I get sad and depressed and wish I was back on the rig, but if I was back on the ambulance I’d probably be even more depressed as well as being angry all the time and drinking too much again.

    It’s ok to walk away from something that isn’t working for you, or isn’t healthy. It’s ok to leave something that you are really proud of doing. You still did it, and you still have the memories.

    That said, the beginning of being a first responder is just really hard and stressful! Are you sure this isn’t just growing pains? I remember being a brand new baby EMT and one of my co-workers asked me how I liked it and I said that I liked it but that I wasn’t any good at it and she laughed and said “don’t worry about it, literally everyone sucks so much for the first few months, you’ll be fine.” She was right, and later on I passed that encouragement on to other baby EMTs who were stressed out and anxious. It took me over a year to feel fully comfortable.

    Whatever you decide, to stick it out or not, don’t feel bad about it. You still got to be a firefighter and that is awesome!

    1. AnonRN*

      Burn nurse at a trauma hospital waving at you here. I see what rolls in on the stretchers and I know I couldn’t do what you were doing in the field. You see too much. Heck, some days I see too much. It’s not even about the gore, it’s about the carelessness (drunk drivers), the piteousness (elder abuse), the hopelessness (drug addiction, trafficking, suicides). It’s seeing the results of the system we’ve designed that treats people as numbers. It’s realizing “there but for grace go I.” It can be really inspiring to do good work under those circumstances, and devastating to see it come to nothing. When you need to get out, I respect anyone who makes that call for their own safety and sanity.

    2. GingerNP*

      I had my last day in the ER a week ago after 15 years elbow deep in all of it. I’m looking forward to starting a position (finally) as a Nurse Practitioner in family medicine. Emergency med/nursing has been incredible and also incredibly hard and I’m grateful for it, but, like you, it really amplified the darkness that already existed in me. I don’t regret doing it as long as I did, but I’m very very glad I’m done and looking forward to a job where Death isn’t constantly hovering over my shoulder.

  29. Lavender*

    OP1: Several years ago, I decided I wanted to try working in a different field—let’s say teapot making. (This field doesn’t involve the same intensive training and long hours as firefighting, but any role beyond entry level requires a certification process that can be lengthy and often expensive.) I decided to try an entry level role in the teapot making industry before going for the certification, and it turned out that it absolutely wasn’t for me. I didn’t enjoy it and I wasn’t very good at it either.

    It was disappointing to discover that I didn’t excel at or even enjoy a career that I thought I’d be great at, and it was awkward to tell my friends and family that I wasn’t going to be a teapot maker after all. But I don’t regret trying it, because now I can stop wondering if I should have been a teapot maker. I feel a lot more satisfied with my current career now, because I’ve stopped thinking, “Yeah, this job is fine, but it’s not teapot making.” (Now it’s more like, “This job is great—I don’t have to make teapots!”) Sometimes a bit of fish is worth it, because even if it doesn’t pan out, you can stop wondering “what if?”

      1. Myrin*

        Not to worry, the fish doesn’t make your comment any less profound and in fact adds an exciting twist! :D

      2. The Night-Mare Life in Death*

        Everything is profound if you say it in the right tone :p

        And fish are profound…ly tasty.

      3. Jackalope*

        I thought you were trying to make a pun on cooking fish in a pan (“a bit of fish… didn’t pan out”).

    2. londonedit*

      Yep. It’s not a career thing, but I’m a qualified football (soccer) referee. I did the qualifications about 15 years ago because I love football and I really wanted to get involved with the game. At the time, the women’s game in this country didn’t have nearly the level of attention it currently does (come on England, let’s have another couple of goals here) and I very much felt that I wanted to smash the patriarchy and do my qualifications in the men’s game, because I thought that otherwise people wouldn’t regard it as ‘proper’ refereeing.

      So I did my refereeing course and I passed the exams with flying colours, and I did really well in my six assessed matches, so I became a Level 7 ref (which is the lowest rung on the refereeing ladder). And then I was out in the real world of men’s Sunday league football, which is great fun but also in many ways an absolute shambles – you had teams turning up without enough players, teams forgetting their kit, blokes turning up hungover and having to ask to be subbed off so they could go and throw up on the touchline, etc etc. At the time I was being paid £35 a match, and a match would take up the whole of my Sunday morning as I’d have to travel to the game, do a pitch inspection, ref the match, travel home again and then write up any disciplinary reports that needed doing. And all the time, I’d be treated like dirt and subject to all sorts of abuse. Usually not because I was a woman, to be fair, but simply because I was a ref. I awarded a penalty in a cup quarter-final and the losing team threatened me with violence. I was shouted and sworn at every week by people on and off the pitch. You can send people off and report their behaviour but what else can you do? As a referee you have to take the high ground and never let anyone think it’s affecting you.

      So, I did it for a couple of years, and then after another sodden winter of freezing pitches and rainy Sunday mornings I decided it just wasn’t worth it. And I felt incredibly disappointed in myself, because I was meant to be smashing the patriarchy and showing everyone that women CAN referee in male environments and we’re just as good as anyone else. I absolutely felt like I was letting myself and the whole of womanhood down by admitting I didn’t want to do it anymore. People still ask me about it, and I still feel a little ashamed when I have to tell them no, I haven’t done any refereeing in about 10 years (though I have kept up the qualification). But the thing is, I just wasn’t enjoying it. And there’s no point in slogging on with something that you’re not enjoying.

      This has got incredibly long so I’ll shut up, but LW1 I think you should go for your final exams and see how you do – but then you should totally assess whether you think being in the fire service is the job for you. It’s HARD and dangerous and one of those things that you have to be fully committed to, and there’s absolutely no shame at all in realising that you’re not cut out for it. You tried, you got through the assessments, you gave it the best go you could, and that’s all anyone can ask. You should be proud of yourself whatever you decide to do.

      1. Seeking Second Childhood*

        Adding to LondonEdit’s excellent points, even if you realize you ARE good at the job, you’re STILL allowed to decide you don’t like DOING the job.

        1. Lavender*

          Yes, that’s also a good point. You’re not under any obligation to keep doing a job just because you’re good at it.

          I do find that I tend to be better at jobs that I enjoy, because if I like the work I’m more willing to put effort into improving. But that’s definitely not always the case!

        3. The Night-Mare Life in Death*

          Oh this so much! So much media pushes the idea that you have to use your gifts for the benefits of others even if you don’t want to, but that’s not true. I’m good at maths but I’d be absolutely miserable as a maths teacher, I don’t actually like maths. And let me tell you nothing is worse for education than a teacher who doesn’t like their own subject.

  30. RinaL*

    #LW1:
    If you are mentally in the position to do so, I would recommend a pragmatic approach. Take the final test. And if you fail, so be it. You can then still evaluate if you would perform better if you try it again – or not. If you pass – you can still decide if you want to actually do the job or if you have proven yourself that you could do it and find something else. You are definetly not a failure if you decide that its your dream job but the working conditions are not compatible with your life! Happens a lot..

    From a practical point of view, a lot of woman are trained to hold themselves to higher standards and are more critical towards their own achievments than men. Combine that with a not favorable enviroment ( I know the feeling – I am a woman in tech) and you get a lot of self esteem issues and doubt. I second what some of the commenters suggested: Get the viewpoint of another woman in your field, if possible. It is not just about suceeding in the final test or not, it’s also about dealing daily with external stressors while constantly proving your worth over and over again. You want to make an informed decision – and those are best done with enough “data” on hand. ;)

    1. Keymaster of Gozer*

      Another woman in tech! Hello :)

      Getting the viewpoint of another woman in the same job is an excellent idea and can provide clarity and direction.

  31. Kiitemso*

    OP #2, I agree with the advice to leave it alone. I remember randomly looking up the username of a friend on reddit (thinking I would find a profile that wasn’t her or wouldn’t find anything at all), and found a reddit account which mainly posted in autism-related subreddits. I had no idea she was on the spectrum – she never disclosed it to me. But I thought, not my business and if she wants to let me know, she can. You should probably do the same and just try to forget/not think about it much.

  32. Falling Diphthong*

    OP1 “I tried this, I learned a ton, it ended up not being ideal for me, and I’m choosing to do something else.”

    The latest episode of Your Hidden Brain is all about how hard it is for humans to learn from failure–it reads like a threat to ourselves that we have to protect ourselves from. Really interesting and worth a listen. One part that stuck with me is that we can learn (the best strategy for a game, in this case) by watching someone else fail–adding that one layer back, from player to watching over the player’s soldier, made people able to extract a lot more information.
    https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/learning-from-your-mistakes/

    1. Another Math Teacher*

      There’s also a podcast called “Carry the Two” (math applications IRL) that had an episode interviewing a math professor at UChicago and how he taught math to his graduate students. The most compelling bit is how things changed when he shared his own failures as a math grad student, and acknowledged that the field IS hard, and you know exactly how much you don’t know and that it would take you a 100 years to know it…

      …at your current rate of learning. But, he says, your rate of learning doubles as you know more, so it ends up being a handful of years instead. Being open about failure helped not only his grad students, but lots of others in the field.

  33. HappyFriday!*

    LW1 – I second Alison’s advice but have an additional thought about your struggles with the exams. Are you familiar with “stereotype threat?” If not, please look into it and consider how it could be making things harder for you. Long story short, the fear of confirming stereotypes can add to cognitive load in a way that undermines performance. One well-known example is a study in which girls who were primed to think about the stereotype that girls are bad at math did worse on math tests than girls in a control group. Your fear of reinforcing stereotypes if you’re not good at firefighting could actually be causing you to be less good at firefighting than you otherwise would be. If you truly enjoy firefighting and want to continue, working to release yourself from the pressure to represent your gender might allow you to enjoy yourself more and improve your performance. (I’m saying this as a female attorney who knows every time I set foot in court that it wasn’t long ago that I wouldn’t have even been allowed to do what I do.) Good luck to you with whatever path you choose!

    1. I am LW1*

      Thank you. I am aware of stereotype threat but had forgotten about it and certainly hadn’t thought of it in my current context. Something to mull over.

  34. DJ Abbott*

    #1, I’d like to tweak Allison‘s suggestion of how to address leaving the job with your children.
    I would not say you left the job because it’s not ideal. This will give the impression jobs are supposed to be ideal, and they’re not. I would say something like. “ I did my best and worked hard but it’s not a good fit, so I’m moving on to find something that is.”
    If I was advising a young person on what to look for in a job, I would say do something you’re comfortable with and good at, where you can make a good living.
    One of the things that held me back when I was young was my mother’s flaky, uncommitted example. She gave the impression I should have a job that’s ideal in every way, and there’s no such thing.
    I think it’s good to give your children the example of stopping something that’s not working. It’s much better than giving them the example of continuing to struggle with something until it messes up your head and life.

  35. Irish Teacher*

    LW2, I once stumbled upon information that a colleague’s partner had been in prison. I don’t want to get into details here as it is a pretty specific situation that could out me or the colleague, but let’s just say that we were talking something fairly high profile (not something really horrifying like sex abuse or anything, but think something like involvement in a high profile fraud or involvement in organised crime, that kind of level). It was before they met, but it was still rather surprising.

    I haven’t mentioned anything to my colleague. They must know it is possible some of us could have come across the information. In their case, there isn’t much they can do as it’s not on any of their accounts, but even then, your colleague presumably knows her username is linked to her identity and seems comfortable enough with her social media being available to the public. You say she’s fairly tech savvy, so it’s not like she isn’t likely to be aware that she can make her facebook account, etc more private or ensure her username for more personal stuff is not linked to anything publically visible.

    Like you, I did feel a bit guilty about having information about somebody that they would likely prefer I didn’t have, but it’s sort of the nature of the current world, where information is so easily available.

    LW1, do you like being a firefighter? Is it a job you enjoy or would you if you got “good” at it? I’ve read you saying that you don’t think you are very good at it, that it’s hard feeling you aren’t good enough (which is likely to be a temporary thing; I spent my entire student teacher year thinking “I’m not much good at teaching now and that makes it hard but I think I am going to be a good teacher some day and I think I’m going to enjoy it” and my first year as a qualified teacher, thinking, “I do enjoy it but I’m worried I’m not going to be much good after all. I’m qualified now. I should be at the point where I’m good at it. I’m now 20 years since I started training and I love it and my colleagues seem to think I’m good at it), that you like the kudos of being a firefighter and that you don’t want to be seen to give up and that you want to show that women can succeed in the career, but I didn’t see any indication of “I really enjoy this and wish I was better” or “I really don’t enjoy this and feel it’s not for me but I would be embarrassed to give it up.”

    I’d say think about what you really want. If nothing else was a consideration – how good you were at it, how much it might inconvenience your family, the example it could give to your kids and others, the reactions of others when you say you are a firefighter, the lack of women in firefighting – which would you prefer, being a tutor or being a firefighter?

    If it’s something you would love, if only you felt you were better at it, that is likely to come with time. By the sound of things, you are still training and it will probably be a while after you finish your last exam that you really feel comfortable in the profession. I think it took me a couple of years after I qualified as a teacher. Certainly, my first year, I did not feel competent or my second year either.

    And as I think somebody mentioned above, when you are part of a demographic that is massively underrepresented in a career, it’s easy to feel like you should be better, like you have to prove yourself and any mistakes mean people will think you don’t belong, even if those of the demographic more likely to be in the profession are making as many or more mistakes. Plus those of us who are teachers tend to be used to being “the expert in the room” and often aren’t very good at not being the expert.

    On the other hand, if you really don’t feel the career is for you (and your post didn’t sound too enthusiastic about it or as if you really enjoy the job itself), then there is no shame in changing paths. Part of being a strong, independent person is being able to say “I tried it and it didn’t work out so I’m going to do what’s right for me now.”

    And I think that is a very important lesson for kids to learn too. People often enourage kids so much to not give in when they hit the first hurdle (and there is good reason to do that) that the kids take it too far and think that changing paths on anything is a sign of failure. I don’t know if it’s the same in the UK but here the media tends to talk about the numbers who “drop out” of college (uni) as if it’s some kind of failure, when statistically, I think most of those young people are changing courses, not leaving college completely (and that wouldn’t be a failure either; deciding college isn’t for you and you’d rather a trade or whatever is again just changing path, not failing at something). So showing young people that changing your mind on something is possible and positive is also a good example.

  36. So Tired*

    LW2, I don’t see how you intentionally looking through her profiles, taking that name to google, and then finding the twitter account is you “accidentally” learning more about your colleague. Like Allison said, it’s completely normal for people to google their coworkers, you didn’t do anything wrong! But also let this be a lesson to think more before you start googling. Are you prepared to find things you aren’t expecting? Because while you didn’t do anything wrong in googling your coworker, she also hasn’t done anything wrong and hasn’t done anything that you’d need to speak with her about.

    Wipe it from your mind if you’re bothered by it, and let this be a lesson going forward.

    1. Former Female Firefighter*

      It wasn’t wrong per se, but it certainly is closer to “starting to be awfully stalkery” than “oops gosh I stumbled on this”.

      I’ve never done this kind of googling of anyone at work. I might do it for a new boyfriend who was giving off odd signals.

  37. Synaptically Unique*

    LW3 – I think your approach was perfect and I would have appreciated it very much. Our jobs are posted with a huge pay band range, but I was able to get them to list a legit hiring range for my last open position. I still got applicants who were already making at or above my max, but not nearly as many as usual. When I know a qualified applicant would have to accept a pay cut, I always initiate a frank discussion before moving them forward. This last time I still brought two in for interview. Neither of them were offered the position, but I’m close to adding another staff member (same role) and one of them is still very interested in joining my team. We’ve now had two conversations regarding the role and pay, so this previous applicant is going to be a top contender if/when I get the green light to add to my team.

  38. L-squared*

    #1. It doesn’t seem like you really WANTED to do this, just liked the idea of being a woman in this role, and now you are finding out the reality of it and you don’t like it. You are falling into the sunk cost fallacy. Also, think about your family. It doesn’t sound like your family NEEDS your income from this. So is it worth 12 hour shifts away for a job you don’t like, just to make a point? I’d say probably not. People realize they don’t like jobs all the time. There is nothing wrong with that.

    #2. Did you do anything wrong? I guess no. Is it your fault? Yes. For whatever reason, you chose to go down this rabbit hole. You could’ve stopped by looking at the suggestion on facebook. You could’ve stopped on Insta. But you had to keep digging. This is what happens sometimes. And bringing it up will be making things awkward for her, when its something that you chose to do. That wouldn’t be fair

    #4. Probably unpopular on here, but I’d say no. I don’t think you need to stop a current thing just because new people are starting. This was your thing, and you can keep it going without feeling guilty. That said, maybe someone else may want to start a new out of work activity for people to get together. Maybe the (Dreaded on this site) monthly happy hour. Maybe a monthly bowling game. Besides the fact that I’m not into DnD, I couldn’t see myself getting upset being new somewhere and not being on some out of work activity automatically. I’m into sports. If my department had a bowling league, and I came in, I wouldn’t just assume that now I would be invited to join. Nor would I feel bad that I wasn’t a part of something that existed before I started.

    1. New Jack Karyn*

      Re #4: The problem would be that the manager is part of the game, which includes some but not all of the workers. There would be in-jokes that might come up during work. Some members of the team get more face time with the boss. It’s got the potential to go sideways.

  39. Blarg*

    LW1: I’m going to quote Pearl Jam to you because this is a reminder I often need.

    You can spend your time alone, redigesting past regrets
    Or you can come to terms and realize you’re the only one who cannot forgive yourself

    It’s ok. It’s ok to stop. It’s ok to push forward. You wouldn’t be giving up. You’d be pivoting again, like you did when you decided to try this out.

    1. Jack Straw from Wichita*

      I’m not sure if it will reach the OP, but I certainly needed to read this today. TY for sharing it.

  40. Dido*

    Being bad at your job as a first responder is RISKING PEOPLE’S LIVES. That’s the only reason LW1 needs to quit her job immediately

    1. bamcheeks*

      These comments are wild. The best people to judge whether a new trainee is bad enough to be dangerous is *the experienced professionals running the programme*. Trainees aren’t in a position to make that call and it’s a ridiculous responsibility to put on them.

      1. UKDancer*

        This so much. If she were failing then the teachers and programme organisers would tell her. Trainees don’t always know, that’s why they have a training programme to ensure the students learn but also to make sure they don’t harm others while they learn.

      2. L-squared*

        And one of the people running the program said “she is not up to scratch”. This isn’t commenters making this up. It is in the post.

        I think some of you just WANT this to be like some movie where the woman in the male dominated world has a miraculous win and sweeping music comes across, and the sexist guys do a “I may not like you, but I respect you” type thing.

        But from all accounts, she is passable, but not great. And she doesn’t even like it.

        If this was a man writing in about how he went to medical school, and while he could “pass” the assessments, his attending said “I don’t think you have what it takes to be a good doctor”, I feel like so many people wouldn’t be trying to convince him that he should keep going, and discounting the people saying that lives are at stake

        1. AMH*

          There’s nuance here that you are missing, and you’re making some sweeping statements. It may be that you simply missed LW #1’s comments so I encourage you to read those, because they add a lot. In one, she said:

          “I appreciate I didn’t give specifics in the opening letter. The feedback I had received was, on reflection, a bit vague. I focus “too much” on preparing for the assessments, I need to “ask for help” when I struggle (I do, plenty of colleagues could vouch for me on that but there are colleagues who I do not approach for help because my experience is that they won’t be helpful).”

          It’s not as simple as “She’s passable, but not great.” That’s certainly not “from all accounts.” LW #1 should feel no shame about leaving if she doesn’t want to be a firefighter, or if she doesn’t want to be the token fighting sexism, or if she indeed fails out. All of those are perfectly reasonable and possible scenarios.

          1. AMH*

            I didn’t finish my thought! All of those are perfectly reasonable and possible scenarios. But if she WANTS to be a firefighter, continuing is also a perfectly reasonable & possible scenario.

        2. parrot*

          Men in medical school are a whole lot less likely to be receiving biased feedback based on their gender than a woman firefighter is. It’s not a 1:1 comparison.

          If you look up at LW1’s comments, she says that the feedback was over things like spending “too much” time preparing for exams or things she did 18 months ago when it’s supposed to be a review of the last month.

          TBH it reads like some of the comments in this thread are so busy trying not to look like one of those feminists that they’re just wrapping around to pretending sexism isn’t a major factor in male-dominated fields.

          1. bamcheeks*

            Also, an absolute ton of doctors have heard the feedback, “I don’t think you have what it takes to be a good doctor” at some point and gone on to be excellent doctors! I have worked in medical education and “you don’t have what it takes to be a good doctor” is a decision made by several committees, after a months-long process, and a vast quantity of written evidence, with an option for appeals. I promise yoh that if a male junior doctor or medical student came to me and told me that someone had said that, my advice would not be, “well, you’d better give up being a doctor and go into cyber”, it would be to go straight to your supervisor and get a second opinion!

            1. Irish Teacher*

              Yeah, I can’t speak for medicine or firefighting, but I have met teachers who have decided a student teacher “doesn’t have what it takes to be a teacher” because that student teacher struggled with discipline in their first few months as a student teacher and often with inadequate support.

              And yeah, in line with the paperwork stuff, I had my supervisor say my lesson plans weren’t detailed enough. I started rephrasing stuff from “ask students questions on the chapter they read for homework” to “I will ask students a number of questions on chapter 5, which they were supposed to read for homework, such as “what did we learn about such a character?”, “how was the theme of the novel developed?”” and she said that was much better, even though I had changed literally nothing other than how I phrased stuff and changing that had no impact on my teaching.

              I don’t know exactly who the LW got this feedback from (perhaps she mentioned in one of her comments and I missed it), but if she is passing the tests, I would assume she is doing OK.

              And honestly, unless there was more information about why the guy would not make a good doctor, I would think it really weird if he were passing everything but somebody said he didn’t have what it took to be a doctor and wouldn’t necessarily trust their judgement. If it were something like they had the knowledge but were dismissive of patients who aren’t white, straight males, then yeah, I’d see the point, but if it was just vague, “I don’t think you have what it takes,” I’d probably doubt the judgement.

        3. bamcheeks*

          If you think essential services give feedback like, “you’re not up to scratch”, and mean, “you’re not safe and you’re putting people at risk, but we’re not going to remove you from the programme, because why would we do that“, you’re completely detached from reality.

          Everyone in a safety-critical role takes responsibility for themselves, of course, but within the context of a larger team and organisational culture of safety. It is NOT a trainee’s job to decide they’re not safe: it’s their job to be honest and open about their progress and concerns so that people with significantly more experience and knowledge can judge whether or not they are safe.

          “You’re not up to scratch” (which is clearly a paraphrase of a broader conversation!) might mean, “your paperwork isn’t detailed enough” or “your paperwork is too detailed” or “you need to put more effort into this small technical aspect” or “you just can’t spend this long on the bureaucratic aspects of the role”. The fact that you are taking it to mean “you’re obviously not safe” is just part of the sexiest shite female firefighters have to put up with.

      3. Jackalope*

        And add to that the fact that in every position people will start off as newbies and make newbie mistakes. That really sucks for jobs where people’s lives are on the line, but it’s still a fact that the only way you can become an experienced professional in any field is to gain experience. Someone who has done well at all of the tests she’s taken so far and is facing only “vague feedback” that she might not want to keep going is clearly competent enough to have at least the option to keep going.

    2. londonedit*

      Yeah, this is mad. I don’t know about where you live, but here in the UK as a firefighter you’re not going to be allowed to attend emergencies if you’re not up to scratch. All firefighters are subject to regular assessment and training, and as a trainee the OP is going to be subject to even more of that. No one is going to let her go to an emergency call if they don’t think she’s capable of handling the work. It may be that she isn’t able to pass the final assessments – but she hasn’t tried yet, so although she’s getting some feedback that she might not be up to the final standard, we don’t know that she will fail. She may well pass. And at any rate it’s perfectly clear that she isn’t failing so badly that she’s a danger to anyone, because if she was then she’d never have been allowed to get this far.

      1. Keymaster of Gozer*

        I really don’t get where this ‘you have to be perfect and know everything’ stance has come from. Everyone has to learn something! Firefighters, A&E doctors, air traffic controllers, nuclear reactor operators – nobody comes out of the womb knowing how to do these jobs.

        1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

          Plus! Lots of fields have continuing education requirements, which pretty much makes the point that everyone has something to learn, even experts!

    3. Ellis Bell*

      OP isn’t taking it upon herself to run off to fires as a vigilante, they are simply wondering whether maintaining the push to qualify is worth it.

    4. Heather*

      Yes for heavens sake. I’m a nurse, which is another “lives on the line” field. But we don’t tell every not-so-great nursing student that they need to leave the field immediately lest people die. Good lord.

    5. Irish Teacher*

      But we don’t know she is bad at it. She feels that way, but it is very common to feel that way when starting a new job. It is even more common if you are either from a demographic that is underrepresented in that career or if you are coming from another career and are therefore used to performing at a high standard and the LW is both.

      Given that she is passing the tests, I think we can assume her performance is high enough not to put anybody’s life at risk. I would hope the tests are challenging enough to weed out anybody whose performance falls into that category.

      If everybody who felt that they weren’t good enough for such jobs while still in their training period, quit their jobs immediately, then I suspect there would be few to no firefighters, doctors, nurses, pilots, etc, since all those jobs can risk people’s lives if done poorly and I would think very few people feel good enough while training.

      In fact, I would be more concerned about a person who never feels they aren’t good enough while in their training period because if somebody doesn’t doubt their abilty at something that others’ lives depend on, I would wonder if they were taking it seriously enough and were going to take enough care.

      It’s far more likely that she just doesn’t feel she is one of the highest performers/is likely to make a splash in the career than that she is doing really poorly and will risk people’s lives.

      That’s not to say she should stick at the career. If she’s not happy in it, she shouldn’t, but I wouldn’t equate “I’ve passed all the tests and shown myself capable but still don’t feel good enough” to “clearly not performing adequately and likely to put somebody’s life at risk.”

      1. Irish Teacher*

        And yeah, she did mention getting some negative feedback, but given her follow-up comment, it seems questionable how valid that feedback was and how much of it was related to stereotyping her based on gender.

    6. Keymaster of Gozer*

      This is a ridiculous comment because you’re forgetting that OP is a TRAINEE and you are not the one evaluating her. You’re falling into the same error as the locked thread above.

    7. AnonRN*

      Being bad at any number of jobs is risking people’s lives! Trades (I don’t want my house to fall or burn down), transportation, health care, many manufacturing environments, etc. And yet, people get these jobs and grow into mastery of them. It’s a process, not an instant jump, and I would hope the final assessments take that into account. In my field, for example, I’d expect a newer nurse to know when to call for help and not hesitate. Like, that *is* the required skill. Or I’d expect any nurse in an emergency situation to follow certain closed-loop communication protocols. I don’t expect the new nurse to know “give this obscure drug for this rare emergency” but I expect to be able to say “give this syringe of bicarbonate now” and the nurse will do it and say “bicarbonate given.” Developmentally, that *is* the appropriate skill.

      I don’t know what the analogs are in firefighting but I’m assuming the LW isn’t going to be running a 5-alarm fire on her first day out. She’s going to be priming hoses or directing traffic or stabilizing a ladder, and following orders.

      1. Dahlia*

        Even the most “basic” jobs ever can be risk peoples’ lives. Bad at your fast food job? Hope you like food poisoning. Bad at baby-sitting? Well, no one really minds if their toddler wanders into traffic, right?

      2. Former Female Firefighter*

        “I don’t know what the analogs are in firefighting but I’m assuming the LW isn’t going to be running a 5-alarm fire on her first day out. She’s going to be priming hoses or directing traffic or stabilizing a ladder, and following orders.”

        You are right on the money. Put out traffic cones, do light work during the actual fire, and then lots of work after it’s out – taking hand tools and bashing holes in drywall to make sure there is no fire behind, drawing out smoke by setting up fans and hoses facing out of the house, getting equipment back on the trucks, then back at the station drying the hoses, getting everything back to orderly…

  41. Jack Straw from Wichita*

    LW #1, I want to pull out and highlight something Alison said, because this one sentence could be her whole response and be complete: “I understand the pleasure of seeing people’s surprise when you tell them you’re a firefighter, that’s not enough to compromise your day-to-day quality of life.”

    I still have awards I won while teaching hanging in my office at my corporate job. I work in training/talent and development now and still tell people I’m a “former educator” or “former high school/secondary/English teacher” or “have an Education degree” even though I haven’t been in a classroom for 5+ years.

    But you know what? I let my license expire and will never, ever, ever, EVER go back. My physical health is better. My relationships are better. My mental health is better. My everything is better. I realized that 90% of my personality was being a teacher, too. It was a rough first 1-2 years while I unwound myself from my job, which I think is the case for any caring profession. But I’m still me, and I’m happier than I was five years ago.

  42. Ex-prof*

    LW #1, the late Peter McWilliams said we should never feel guilty for not choosing the work that we think we should be doing, because for someone else it is the right path and they will do it.

    And it cuts both ways. You do the work that’s right for you, and it will be the work that someone else thinks they “should” be doing.

  43. Yossariana*

    LW1 (firefighter), you’re “passing all the assessments” but are still being told “you’re not up to scratch”? I swear on a stack of US Constitutions that I really am not the type to see everything through a lens of sexism, but given the context here (so few women in the profession, for one thing), it seems *possible* the problem is them, not you, and that they don’t like a woman infringing on their all-boys’ clubhouse so they’re holding you to higher standards and trying to push you out. And if you self-select out and conclude that *you* “failed,” they get to keep on keeping on on their merry all-male way. “Thank goodness she’s gone. Now we can get back to doing our….whatever can only be done in an all-male environment [whatever that is!].”

    I have no knowledge of the firefighting world, but in the legal world, I unfortunately continue to see it all the time……female attorneys in law firms gradually get some perception that maybe they won’t make partner, or maybe are not cut out for it, or maybe maybe maybe this or that…..so instead of forcing the point, they decide, “I won’t go for partner, I’ll start with Senior Counsel…” and then remain stuck at SC forever. Or they leave firm life altogether. Not that staying forever at a law firm as a partner is a perfect life or the only ideal path – far from it – but I see so many more (highly talented!! High-billing!! More impressive than the men!!!) women than men go through this mental process and convince themselves to self-select out. Meanwhile, so many less-talented, even mediocre, men happily line themselves up for partnership consideration….and get it.

    I hate to see it.

    1. Cat Lover*

      Soooo, I’m assuming she means physical tests as most of FF school is physical. You can pass assessments and not be up to par. I’ve driven FFs into the ground with drills because they passed school but aren’t up to snuff.

      Too many people are pushed through fire school that aren’t ready and are a liability on scene, and that can kill people.

        1. Cat Lover*

          Didn’t see that in the letter my bad. Yeah, that’s a whole other set of issues then.

      2. I am LW1*

        If you mean my physical strength then no, while I am very far from the strongest on station, my strength has not been criticised.

        If you mean physical skills such as running out hose, then I can say that that has been minimally criticised and was not mentioned at all in the report.

        1. Cat Lover*

          Gotcha! Trying suss out what was being referenced. Is it more concepts, books stuff? That’s way easier to fix, imo.

  44. Former Female Firefighter*

    Firefighting can be a first step rather than a final one.

    A lot of firefighters springboard it into another career. Because it’s a really hard career for many people – punishing work, punishing schedule that makes it hard to have a family, dangerous (one of my former fellow firefighters died in a fire, and a friend’s EMT husband died on a call), and for many women the station is toxic AF (I have many stories) with a no-girls-allowed mentality. I was mostly an EMT on an ambulance, so hear you on the self-doubt, but it truly doesn’t matter.

    So what are the next careers?

    BUSINESS CONTINUITY. That’s a people- and computer-based job where you help organizations identify what their core work is that needs to continue in a crisis, then train people and test processes. Having a background as a firefighter, even brief, is wildly impressive to people in business, and gets you a lot of street cred (even if you know it wasn’t your thing), and importantly, the experience is actually really helpful in the job.

    It’s required as part of good business practice (ISO 22301 is an international standard), and in cybersecurity frameworks (a US standard is the NIST Cybersecurity Framework), so you’re likely to get a good job. You can get trained and certified online by DRI International (Certified Business Continuity Professional), and they have a female-focused networking group called WBCM.

    CRISIS MANAGER. This is a job one does for businesses, helping the business prepare for crises (in coordination with Business Continuity, and the IT equivalent of Disaster Recovery), managing the crisis response with groups across the org (HR, IT, Facilities, Supply Chain, etc), doing lessons learned analysis and then closing gaps during steady state. This job is more episodic than Business Continuity (which is year-round, as opposed to crises which tend to come in seasons – like in the US the summer/fall hurricane season) so executives can decide to cut these positions more readily, and the work can be more traumatic (workplace violence, Covid).

    EMERGENCY MANAGER. This is a role you can do for local or national government, in what in the US is usually called an Emergency Management Agency. The work is progressive over time. For an Action Officer role, for instance, in a work shift you would answer phones/review portal tickets and log issues, flag priorities, pull in the right experts to resolve it, and track to completion. Eventually you could get up to the equivalent role of Crisis Manager, actually managing government response to crises. The certification for this is Certified Emergency Manager.

    DISPATCHER. This is an office-based job, that I wouldn’t recommend because it tends to be traumatic and poorly paid, with culture issues. But as a short-term stint to build experience that you can apply toward a professional certification, maybe.

    1. ccsquared*

      This is an amazing comment – let’s make it a thread!

      Cybersecurity is also a field that is badass, noble, AND needs more women. It does require constant learning, but there are so many types of roles that it’s likely you can find one where the knowledge needed better matches your learning style and the way your brain retains things.

      1. Keymaster of Gozer*

        Yes! More women in cybersecurity please.

        Additionally – we have crisis managers at our firm (sadly, loss of life does happen around big machines that run on rails) and I think from memory a lot of them come from Emergency Services backgrounds or training.

        1. JustaTech*

          Another place in tech that experience as a firefighter can be useful is for any kind of “emergency” response – an emergency like “all the servers are down” or “we’ve been hacked” rather than “a tornado came through town”.
          My husband worked a sys-admin adjacent position for a few years in Big Tech and his EMT training was super useful as they developed their response system using the idea of an Incident Commander. (I learned about the system when I took Disaster Recovery as part of a public health degree.)

          Oh yeah, there’s another place experience as a fire fighter would be useful – public health and safety!

    2. Another Math Teacher*

      Emergency Managers are IN NEED – at least in the US. Our local community has been looking for one for months.

      Do not underestimate your skills that bridge the gap between first responders and civilians.

    3. I am LW1*

      A bunch of jobs I’ve never heard of, thank you! I’m not sure whether they all translate to the UK but it’s food for thought.

      1. Former Female Firefighter*

        BCI is a UK based business continuity org, and they also have a female-focused networking group. I’ll post a link in a follow-up.

        Oh! And I forgot Health & Safety. I see a lot of jobs in the UK for Safety, Safety and Health, and Health & Safety.

  45. I should really pick a name*

    LW1

    The headline says you’re proud to be in firefighting.
    You say being a firefighter gets you such kudos, and yiu enjoy the surprise you see in people’s faces.
    You say you’re glad to be breaking into a male dominated field.

    Nowhere do you say that you LIKE being a firefighter. Absent that, it’s going to be a lot harder to be successful in a field that you’re struggling with.

    You’re not obligated to be a firefighter to teach your children a lesson. It’s not a failure to try something and decide it’s not what you want.

    1. not a hippo*

      I’d argue it’s a bigger more important lesson to teach your kids that’s it’s ok to attempt something and discover it’s not for you and change gears than to force yourself to suffer through a job/hobby/course program you hate.

  46. 3DogNight*

    D&D–Wrap it up.
    1. My hubby and I play, and he frequently hosts/DM’s games. And he is a leader at work. There have been times when people from work have participated. It really does foster a closeness, and does provide more access and a more casual relationship with each other and leadership. It’s a bad plan. To be clear we’ve never had any of his reporting line over (we work at a huge company).
    2. 7 is too many to manage. 2 games is too many to manage.

    1. Jackalope*

      Many people are saying this, and I want to push back a bit. I currently play in a weekly D&D game game with 7 players and a DM who also runs another weekly game where he is often the DM, and it works. This is one game night a month; it would be more work to DM two games, or DM for 7 people, but for one night a month (two if you go with option a), that’s a feasible amount of work.

    2. DM-OP*

      Adding another game to run would be 5 total games I’m running rather than 4 so that doesn’t super worry me, I just feel like it doesn’t solve my problem and maybe creates a different one by creating two cliques.

  47. Glazed Donut*

    LW4: Are you assuming the new people want to play? I can’t tell from the letter if you have run it by them or are taking a guess that it’s the Thing People in Your Office Do Socially.
    If I were a new hire, I would not want to play your game.

    1. DM-OP*

      That’s super fair. I haven’t asked yet, we’re still actually in the middle of interviews, but the worry occurred to me because I didn’t want them to feel a) pressured to say yes if they, like you, weren’t interested or b) excluded. I feel like I read so many letters on here about cliquey offices or certain people getting extra social time with management while others don’t so if I could avoid contributing to that, I want to.

      1. not a hippt*

        Are there other regular opportunities to get extra facetime with management outside of work? Bowling team, knitting circle, book club, drinks after work, etc? Like the recent post about team events, you’re not going to be able to please everyone with one activity. But as long as there are options, I think you’re being fair.

  48. Pizza Rat*

    I am truly not trying to be adversarial, but I need help understanding the “market rate” reasoning. I understand the need for aggregate comparisons rather than anecdotal evidence, but couldn’t the fact that clearly *someone* is willing to accept (or currently accepting) the salary at $x undermine the argument that “market rate” is actually higher ($x + $y)?

    In the case of LW3, while she had some visibility into what she might expect a similar role to pay, the fact that there was so much disparity between her research findings and the actual budget for the position suggests – at least to me – that there could be some disconnect in her understanding of this particular role and how it relates to similar roles within the industry (I understand that it’s also just as likely that the institution is out-of-touch). Ultimately, though, saying “the job needs to pay more *for me to accept it*” is a very different message, but one that cannot be undermined or questioned because of the personal nature of the justification. No one can say it isn’t a valid reason — just because it may not be valid for the recipient of that message doesn’t mean it isn’t valid for the LW. On the other hand, “[institution] can’t reasonably expect to hire someone for only $38k” is much stronger and much more…accusatory? indicting?… – in a way that invites argument and/or justification from the institution.

    I will appreciate any clarity or additional context that anyone can provide to unlock my brain!

    1. Insert pun here*

      I mean, if firms 1-19 pay $50/hr and firm 20 pays $25/hr, I think it’s safe to assume that the market rate for this kind of work is $50/hr.

      In reality it’s not this clear cut, of course, but that’s the general idea. You’ll always have outliers from “market rate” (in both directions.)

    2. Jessica*

      Market rate is “the usual rate charged for a good or service in a free market” (as opposed to the state controlling the prices). In terms of jobs, it’s usually a range, but it’s closer to the mode than the mean, and it’s certainly not “the minimum you can get any single candidate to accept.”

  49. Jake*

    Kudos to #5 for considering that facetime with a manager is a valid reason to consider changing it up.

  50. not bitter, just sour*

    My job has a D&D campaign going and I wouldn’t really care except it’s really the only opportunity to schmooze with upper management if you don’t already work with them (which I don’t). It’s incredibly cliquey but there isn’t anything I can do about it.

    So I guess I’d just make sure you have other options for people to get that facetime that doesn’t involve amateur theatrics.

    1. Dust Bunny*

      Yeah this. I have zero interest in gaming and would be A-OK with the game continuing without me, unless it meant that I was missing out on networking. If it’s really just a bunch of people getting together and *not* talking shop, I don’t care.

      1. not bitter, just sour*

        If it’s work people, I very much doubt it wouldn’t involve talking shop!

        I should also add, these campaigns are held after hours but still at the office so the chances that people aren’t talking shop are about a snowball’s chance in Hades

  51. Gyne*

    LW5, sorry, you need to end the campaign. The negatives of exclusive team building events have been discussed to death here. We’d tell you the same if you had a monthly golf game, monthly poker night, monthly happy hour, pretty much anything. Start changing it up- I have no idea if there are “one night” D&D style events that would be suitable for a large group, so you can possibly keep that in the rotation but it can’t be the only thing.

    1. Jackalope*

      Sorry, but there’s not enough evidence for that. See above for other options, but the OP has other choices than just keep going as-is or end the game entirely. Have two games in the same room, rotate running, etc. And you said that she has to end the game and start changing it up; why? The group could keep running AND add another monthly activity. It sounds like it’s a small team; if they want to add a second monthly activity (so they have a social event happening every other week rather than once a month), that’s still feasible. More than many people would want to do, but certainly an option for a small, close-knit group that likes hanging out. I don’t understand why everyone is insisting that it’s either the D&D game OR something else, and nothing else is possible.

      1. GythaOgden*

        I think the comment is fair. We’d be down on them like a ton of bricks if it was something like golf or poker or sports, and while the activity is one that gels with our proclivities on this forum, in general, I think Gyne has a reasonable point in general.

        1. Jackalope*

          The part I disagree with is the idea that the OP needs to end the campaign because of this possible issue. I’m 100% on board with adding in other possible activities. Given that the game is one night a month for 2-3 hours (based on the OP’s comments, not the original letter), it would be fairly easy to just add one more event per month, which could always be the same thing too (say a dinner out), or could rotate.

          The bit that I’m finding frustrating in the comments is that there are so many people who have decided that the best and/or easiest solution MUST be to stop this game and switch things up entirely. It might be easier to do it that way (or perhaps not; it can be a lot easier to keep an established thing going than to start a new thing), but the OP wasn’t asking for the easiest solution. They asked for input to make sure that everyone in their dept feels welcome and isn’t excluded by the existence of a dept D&D game. Again, that could mean stopping the game, but it could also mean several other options. And this is a problem that doesn’t exist yet. The OP has said that the 2 new people aren’t even hired yet; maybe they will also be interested in this game! Or maybe they will have another interest that the office can start doing each month as well. The nice thing about such a small dept is that they can have more flexibility in making an agreement that actually works for everyone.

      2. Colette*

        I disagree. I think they do need to end the game. The team is getting bigger, and management is participating in the game, which means they’re going to run into issues soon, possibly legal ones. If they hire a woman with small children or a person with a disability who is unable to make a monthly evening event work, for example, that’s going to cause problems – because people have a tendency to prioritize peoplel they know over people they don’t, so the out-of-the-workplace game could easily lead to in-the-workplace discrimination.

        1. New Jack Karyn*

          There are solutions to this! The manager can leave the game, for starters. That solves two problems: additional face time with the boss, and the group becoming too large.

  52. Level 13 accountant in Papers and Paychecks*

    As a DM myself – could you have someone else DM the game? Two is a lot for one person, and 7+ is too many people for a party. But these are short term solutions. What if the department grows even more? What if you get people who don’t like D&D (gasp)?

    Could you schedule other similar social events for the people who are joining now? Or turn one session a month into a general board game night?

    1. DM-OP*

      We started because everyone in the department was new to the game except me, so I’m not sure about the feasibility of a second DM, but someone suggested above splitting the duties a little (i.e. someone does things like initiative tracking and rule checking while someone else does story and NPCs and so on) which might make 7 manageable.

      I do like the idea of making one session periodically something else though! I might even be able to get them into other TTRPGs!

    2. Jackalope*

      It’s currently only one session a month as-is. Which doesn’t mean no rotating ((a lot of people like to change things up!), but it’s really not the huge weekly time suck everyone is imagining.

  53. M. from P.*

    Re#4
    I’m surprised about Alison’s take on this.

    Spending a few hours once a month with upper management vs not having that access is a huge deal.

    I don’t think upper management should participate. It’s fine now because everyone participates but going forward, with more people coming in, it will unavoidably create an in-group and out-group.

  54. RussianInTexas*

    So, I don’t know if this was covered anywhere above, but maybe ask if the new people even want to play D&D before trying to do anything?
    Because I would rather work extra hours than play any D&D ever (and I play various board games).

  55. Lizy*

    OP1 – why not reframe it as a kudos to firefighters, instead of thinking “I couldn’t hack it”? Like dddnd in the course of it all I realized I might be doing just that, so I’m leaving the firefighting to those better suited.”

    If you want to stay in the field, you might see if there’s other options for you. For example, one of the gals on the local team typically handles traffic control and the like (we have a rural, volunteer fire department). She’s definitely still a part of the department, but her role is typically more tangential.

    And remember – feminism isn’t just “WE CAN DO IT” – it’s we can CHOOSE. I would say that trying it and having the courage to say “this isn’t for me” is arguably more feminist than trying to force your way through something that isn’t really making you happy. IMO someone who says “Yeah I tried it – it was awesome, but ultimately I wanted to do something else” is self-aware, confident, and secure in who they are.

    Also, maths? 100% awesomeness and feminist. My father was my biggest supporter in maths, because it’s pretty male-dominated and because it’s what I liked and chose.

    You got this!!

    1. Calpurrnia*

      I’m amazed I had to scroll down this far to find anyone mentioning volunteer fire departments.

      LW1, if this IS something you truly WANT and feel called to do, you can look into volunteering with a fire department. You don’t have to make it your entire career and identity. The FD in my town is 100% volunteer, and all of them do this on the side while having regular paying jobs (my neighbor is an electrician and also a volunteer firefighter). It’s a way to support their community that they believe strongly in, choose to put their time into, and sign up to do for some length of time. When they don’t feel it’s a good fit for their lives anymore, they move on and other people step in.

      Regardless of what you decide to do about this job, your training would be incredibly valuable to have walk in the door of a VFD. If you want to stay involved you could consider volunteering in a support role, like a board member, with a nearby VFD. If those aren’t a thing in your area now, who knows where life will take you – maybe a decade from now you move to a new place, and you can show up at the local VFD meeting with all these relevant skills and knowledge from this training. In a small department that strains for resources as it is, having a trained firefighter with a teaching background who could help train their teams would be HUGE.

      So many people in these comments also assume that firefighting is all “running into burning buildings”. But at least out here, our firefighters get called out as first responders to all sorts of things. Helping people get out of car wrecks, cutting firebreaks in high-wildfire risk areas, removing fallen trees and electrical lines blocking the road, calling in medevac for severe injuries in remote places, search-and-rescue for lost hikers… Sometimes the safest response to a structure fire is to let the shed burn itself out while keeping the embers from spreading into the grass or forest. Sometimes it’s just being there with a calm and rational head to help a family in crisis, no fire involved.

      It sounds like you’re rethinking whether this is really what you want to do for your career, and that’s totally legit. But I just wanted to point out that the choice doesn’t have to be “become a full-time firefighter as my career” vs. “go back to teaching/do something else”. You can, if you want to, do both. You can be a teacher who also volunteers as a firefighter, or who trains firefighters, or who is on the board of a fire department, or tons of other options. If your local FD is going to be misogynistic and drive you away, their loss – there are lots of fire departments out there that are struggling to get by and would be soooo grateful to have you.

      Whatever you decide, being a firefighter is a huge task and that you’ve been taking on any part of it for any length of time isn’t a failure – it’s an amazing undertaking and service to your community. Doing “traditionally male” jobs isn’t the point of feminism. It’s being *able* to choose to do them *if you want to*. And just as much, it’s being able to *decide* a life path isn’t what you want, and choose something else instead.

      2. Cat Lover*

        I’m a volunteer paramedic and help with fire side as well. Volunteer fire/rescue departments don’t exist everywhere, but they are great. I work full time EMS as well, but many people have regular jobs (my boyfriend is a volunteer FF and a works full time in pharmaceuticals).

        You are held to the same standard as any other firefighter however. Emergencies don’t care if you get paid or not. But, volley companies do have more understanding in that you don’t do this full time and training takes place during shifts and on weekends.

  56. linus*

    re: D&D: the lowest effort solution that’s fair is to stop running a D&D campaign every month if not everyone can participate. If you still want to run a monthly game for your coworkers, consider pivoting to running a different one shot with a different system every month (for example, run Honey Heist one month, Agon the next month, Mork Borg the next, etc.). If you make is a totally different game each time with a totally different sign up each time, you can make it a more casual event and one people can drop in/drop out of month-to-month. Removes the pressure of having to write and run a whole campaign, you still get to run a TTRPG for your team.

    2. Tech Writer*

      Since I don’t like RPGs, this would still leave me out. Really switch it up if you continue.

  57. Lobsterman*

    LW4, either the director needs to bow out, or you have to wrap it up.

    If the director bows out, there’s no bonus or penalty for participating, so it’s ok if not everyone is in the game. If you wrap it up, there’s nothing to worry about.

  58. Immortal for a limited time*

    Letter #3 – I agree with Alison’s reason for not pegging your desired salary to your current one; however, I still think it’s meaningful for the hiring manager to know that it would be a significant pay cut to provide context for your decision to withdraw. I’d want to know that, if I were the hiring manager. I’d also want my administration to know that the lack of transparency on salary is wasting people’s time and making it harder for me to hire people.

  59. learnedthehardway*

    OP#1 – if you feel that the assessments you are getting are a fair and objective evaluation of your skills, then I think it makes sense for you to either look for additional resources to help you achieve the skills/knowledge you need, or to pursue other directions in your career. Are there other resources that you haven’t adequately explored? Could you take additional time, get a tutor, learn in other ways (eg. personally, I learned statistics NOT from my professor – who was literally incomprehensible and had written the incomprehensible textbook – but from online sources).

    If you have exhausted the available resources and still feel that this isn’t working, I would suggest that you evaluate your strengths (and weaknesses), and pursue roles in which you can be successful, because you bring the right strengths to the table. Consider that you are telling your children that it is okay to try new things, but that they also shouldn’t overcommit if the new thing doesn’t turn out to be a fit. That’s an equally important lesson for them to learn. It is OKAY to not be good at everything that you thought was appealing.

    If, on the other hand, you feel you are being unfairly assessed or discriminated against in your assessments, then you need to decide how much effort this is worth to you to persevere. There is often resistance to women moving into untraditional fields.

  60. Barefoot Librarian*

    LW4 – Fellow DM here who has run games for students at my local colleges, faculty, coworkers, close family, and friends over the years. Some were short campaigns, some multiyear sagas. I would wrap up the current campaign either way, but consider running an West Marches style game as a replacement. If you aren’t familiar with that format, basically it’s designed for large groups and frequent absences. I run that style for a group of local business women and artists in my town. The group has, on paper, 12 or 14 potential players, but I never have that many. The night it runs (every other Friday) is set in stone, but it’s an urban campaign with very episodic encounters to encourage people to drop in and out as needed. On a busy night I have had as many as 8 players and that’s a lot but doable. Most of the time it’s around 5. I find that the flexible nature of the story allows the people who are really invested in certain story arcs to be there, while the more casual players can still feel part of the group but only attend when they feel like it.

    1. Barefoot Librarian*

      The mechanism by which I allow easy, no stress drop ins is that the party owns a tavern that they take turns running when they aren’t on an adventure. It works because they will share stories of rowdy patrons and bar fights they had to break up with the other players to explain their absences. There’s tons of ways to anchor the group in a particular area though.

  61. learnedthehardway*

    OP#3 – it’s a shame that the company wasted your and their time by interviewing without first ensuring that the role would be compensated at a level that would appeal to you.

    Personally, I ALWAYS check that before bringing someone in for interviews. If they’re not comfortable telling me what they are looking for, I’ll give them a range and ask if it would be satisfactory. I tell people I can’t guarantee where in the range an actual offer could come in, because that’s also based on experience and skills, etc., but at least I can ensure that it makes sense to talk further.

  62. Cat Lover*

    #1
    As someone in fire and rescue (and a woman) I’m going to be blunt- it’s extremely physically and mentally taxing at times and for many it is a deep passion.

    From reading between the lines, are you still in fire school? Are you struggling with physical aspects such as line drills, burns, mayday drills, SCBA usage, etc? I know many firefighters (male and female) and just physically aren’t up to par and it can be dangerous in scene. Not saying this is you, but trying to get a read of the situation.

    Finish training and see how you feel after.

    1. I am LW1*

      I did 8 weeks of fire school, and will finish my two years of development (on station) this December, if I pass everything.

      1. Cat Lover*

        If you’ve made it through two years, then you definitely have solid basics. I wonder if they are trying to push you out. I would see if you could talk to other female FFs in other stations/counties.

  63. Diocletian Blobb*

    As someone thinking about changing careers without a super strong idea of what I want to do, #1 is literally my nightmare scenario. It might not be as bad for me, since I don’t have kids to support, but the idea of putting my whole self into something for so long and then just having to accept that I can’t hack it sounds like hell to me. Props to OP for trying something new though, you’re braver than I am.

  64. GoldenHandcuffs*

    OP#1 – You’re also modeling for your kids how it looks to try something and not be “successful”. Learning from “failure” is a powerful lesson that lots of kids and adults never learn. (Quotes added because I don’t think this is truly a failure on your part.)

    It’s okay to be sad about it not working out (if that’s what happens) but how you handle that will be very powerful to your kids. You tried! You learned new stuff! You did something you wanted to! It’s okay when things don’t work out. You’re not a failure if you don’t stay in the profession. If someone leaves a profession, most people don’t think they failed. They think it wasn’t working or the person was ready for something else. Whatever happens, you still did this amazing thing for as long as you did! And that’s something to be super proud of! Good luck to you!

  65. Jessica*

    I’m sorry, what? $38k? When you have 7 years of experience???

    Maybe it’s just my coastal-ness showing, but that seems criminally low.

    If you can’t afford to pay someone in a role an actual living wage, you can’t afford to have that role.

    1. Weaponized Pumpkin*

      For reference, according to Forbes the median wage in the US for 25-34 years old is 53K. So yeah 38 is too low but it’s not out of range depending on the location and type of org. Sadly, education and non-profits can pay on the low end. That said, some do pay well and marketing can earn a lot more than that (marketing has a big range) so I feel confident the LW can find what they need. Good luck LW!

  66. H3llifIknow*

    Firefighting is HARD. The hours way from family are HARD. The physically demanding nature of it is HARD. It is NOT for everyone. My son is a Firefighter/Paramedic. He has been for 7 years now. He is 27 (And, oh by the way he’s a very strong, healthy 6’2, 190 pound man) and recently married and they’re having their first baby. He is looking to go back to school for an IT based degree because even for him, this doesn’t feel sustainable for more than a few more years of the damage to his body (back injuries, dislocated shoulders, several surgeries, damage to his lungs, and the 24 hour shifts away from his soon to be family, as well as the exponentially hire risk of multiple cancers that come with the job have led him to this decision. Do NOT feel like a failure. The fact that you made it as far as you did, as long as you did while also raising a FAMILY is so impressive. Firefighting has a high burnout rate (I’m sorry; I had to do it) and it’s nothing to be ashamed of to realize that even though you put in a tremendous amount of work, it just isn’t the right fit for you. Seriously, BIG KUDOS to you for having gone for it.

  67. SnappinTerrapin*

    LW1: The advice you’ve received runs the gamut.

    I’m not in a position to assess how much impact sexism has on your experience, but I believe it is a factor, and I know it does exist in environments like the one you’re in.

    For what it’s worth, my sense is that it’s not yet time for you to decide. I think you need to focus on the next round of testing, and see what happens. I sense that you will feel better about your decision after that test. I have a gut feeling you’re going to pass.

    At that point, whatever the results, you can assess what you really want to do. Weigh what matters to you and your family, and do what you think is best.

    I think you are a good role model for your children, and I think you can and will make your community better in whichever occupation you feel most inclined to pursue. Both of the occupations you have worked in are important, and we need good people in both.

    You might also decide to pursue something else, and I suspect if you do, you will be energetic and conscientious in that field as well.

    Best wishes, whatever you choose to do!

    1. SnappinTerrapin*

      By the way, anticipating possibilities, thinking ahead, and considering alternatives, are signs that you could be very well suited to firefighting and similar emergency managing occupations.

      Your determination to prepare is a good trait. Don’t let “them” spook you.

  68. ScottishLass*

    LW1: so cool that you turned your hand at firefighting!!

    I understand that it’s been hard and I don’t think there’s any shame in quitting, quite the opposite: you can always be proud that you did that.

    But I do wonder: what if you just took the big tests first and see how they went? Often things are the hardest before the biggest challenge. And once you’ve learnt all you need to know, these things will become routine over time, just like surgeons have to think about every tiny thing during their first pracical exams, but once working don’t have to think about all the basics before every operation – that’s just normal now.

    If you still decide to leave, you’ll always have the experience of having tried this, but maybe delaying this big decision until the pressure of upcoming tests is over ,you can decide with more peace of mind and clarity. :)

    PS. I’m in the UK too :)
    PPS. You rock!!

  69. All Outrage, All The Time*

    OP1 – I’d bet cash money they are trying to psych you out by saying you’re not up to scratch. You’re DOING the work. You’re PASSING THE assessments. Chances are you’ll pass the final exam too. They are looking for people who persevere against the odds, who won’t give in or give up. If you want it, keep going. Don’t count yourself out by quitting. Take the exam. I bet you’ll pass it and qualify. Then decide if it’s for you or not. You have to want it with every fibre of your body because you’ll be doing really, really hard work if you start as a firefighter. It’s going to tax you on every level of your being – mentally, physically, spiritually. That’s why firefighters are heros. Don’t confuse not enjoying something with not being good at it. You’re not learning to be a poodle groomer. You’re learning to do a job that is potentially lethal for you, and for others. If you were enjoying it, I’d be concerned. What you are doing is achieving mastery in a very hard profession. The satisfaction will come with a job well done and with the lives you save. You may never “enjoy” it, but you’ll be proud of yourself and your service. Keep going. It’s too soon to count yourself out.

  70. RagingADHD*

    LW#1, if you feel like you need forgiveness from your “inner feminist,” then I think I’d like to have a talk with her about some of her outdated and problematic views.

    You do not have to earn some kind of feminist badge by forcing yourself to do work you don’t like and aren’t well-equipped for, just to be a showpiece. Traditionally male-dominated fields are not “more feminist”. Traditionally female dominated fields are not less-than.

    The point of feminism is that there should not be gender barriers to people doing work they like and are good at. And they should be paid equally for it.

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