Thank you so much for the kindness you have shown me over the past few weeks. You’ve made me feel welcome and appreciated. But I wish you’d know me better.
You know my name. You laugh at my jokes and you listen to my feedback. I feel like you understand me. You ask for help, and you are unafraid to ask me for work. You’re talking to me every day, but I wish you knew how to address me.
The first time you heard of me was in an e-mail that said she’s coming over to show us her work
. The first time you saw me, I proudly showed off my career as a woman in type
. After I started, you seem to have forgotten all about it. So much for first impressions.
You’re good people. I know you care. You’ve welcomed me! How could you be bad people? But in every meeting, I am afraid to be introduced. Every time you talk about my work to a client, I hope you leave me out of it. Every day, I brace myself for the scattershot boy
, man
and dude
, for the casual he
and him
.
And every day I kind of blame myself. I should just tell you that you’re supposed to refer to me by the only obvious — I’d think! — pronouns. I should just interrupt you. I should just stop you in the middle of your sentence and correct you. But you might see how that’s not so easy. And I wish I could tell you this.