44. A Major Bullet
I walked into a job interview once at an open space office. I realized very fast that I was the only woman in the room. It was a small company, but not small enough that there would be no women present at all. Towards the end of the interview, another woman walked into the space, walked up to the coffeemaker, and kind of announced to the room that it was a mess again, why hasn’t anyone cleaned it up? And with a huff, started organizing it.
I even asked about it in the interview. They said of course there are more women! They even got one to call me up after the interview, to prove there are girls. You shouldn’t have to do that.
There were other red flags there, but don’t work for any company that’s homogenous. If you can’t see any women/people of color in a big room, it speaks volumes about company culture, hiring practices, etc. At my next job, I met a woman who’d worked at that company and told me that I dodged a major bullet – she’d gotten a concussion on the job and they were trying to cheat her out of benefits.