Jessica was just out of school when she began working as a secretary-trainee for a small company.
Howard, a software developer in his mid-20s had the same aspirations as Jessica — to a higher income and attain a certain degree of recognition in the software world.
As things would have it, both Jessica and Howard would encounter not the success they dreamed of, but the frustration of having their dream bubble burst right before their eyes. These aspiring professionals were stopped dead in their career tracks not because of some mistake but because of harassment in the workplace. Their fall from corporate grace was due to a combination of envy, jealousy, and a fair amount of backtalk from their detractors.
Jessica was caught in the middle of frequent changes in leadership and movement personnel in their division. Even with her efforts to suggest office innovations and other alternatives to make work efficient, Jessica still became the butt of sexist jokes. Her good standing with their one and only boss only made it worse. Her diligent work was always praised within the hearing range of the older employees as well as the new ones — a fact...