patrick.net

When interviewing at a new company, I alway notice a small flurry of interest in me by all the women who I come into contact with.

The effect seems subtle until once aware of it, but then it's unmistakable and not subtle at all. From the receptionist to the HR woman to potential co-workers, there's a feeling I'm being watched, judged, and talked about. An unlikely number of new random women just happen to walk by and look into the room where I'm being interviewed, no doubt informed explicitly or implicitly by the other women that there is a new man to evaluate. They cannot let the competition get there first! They smile and say hello, as if that were normal on the street. But it's not.

The receptionists and HR women clearly have those jobs partly because it's a way to check out a continuous stream of men for short- or long-term mating potential, and a way to block hot women from getting jobs there through various deliberate accidents and omissions in their application and interviews.

Alas, within a few days or weeks of starting a new job, the women have all had their look or chat, and their attention is back to checking out whatever new man comes in the front door, smiling and saying hello at him now.