week 4 - microagressions

This is an example of microaggression of myself.  It is the end of the financial year, and our Finance colleague should prepare the year-end financial summary for management to review. As the finance manager is sick, I have to instruct the accountant to make the statements, etc.  Our accountant has been with the company for more than five years. She is a causal person always wearing jeans and T-shirt.  I always feel she is young and looks like a student.  I have seldom contacted the accountant directly for works in the past. She is  quite senior in the company finance department.  So I sent her an email listing all the required documents and statements I need. Also, I list her details of all the process and data where she should be able to find, etc. in very significant details. I also send her the sample of the reports that I need and the government may need for review.  Then she wrote me back an email politely acknowledged the receipt of my email and information. Then she also told me that she was the one doing all these works during the last five years. With a second thought, I think I am committing the microinvalidation. I think I do realize she is the one doing the reports most of the time. I have not dealt with her on reports before. So I gave her all details how to do it even I knew she might have known how and what to do.  I felt embarrassed when she told me she did this for more than five years. I was thinking “just in case” she did not know how to do it. I was with good intention to remind her what and how to do it. But in this way, I was invalidating her capability and knowledge and experience she had in her profession. She is an accountant. Of course, she should have known how to do it. She might feel bad as the boss did not know what jobs she was doing and how.  It was not nice to have a non-professional to tell a professional what to do her job.  I apologized for sending her an email.

Why did I send her email like this? I think her appearance and dress code in the office is very casual. In this way, she has not given me the confidence level that she can perform the professional job as an accountant. Further, I don’t have to deal with her directly most of the time. I do not know how well she performs so far.  It is my discrimination and stereotype based on her outlook, appearance and dress code that affect my judgement on her. So never make assumption or judgement on a person based on outside. In fact, all the documents she sent me were perfect and professionally presented.