
Martin Schneider and Nicole Hallberg were working at a small employment service company when they made some eye-opening discoveries about how differently they were treat by clients.
Hallberg was being constantly criticised for being too slow when working with clients.
One day...
So one day I'm emailing a client back-and-forth about his resume and he is just being IMPOSSIBLE. Rude, dismissive, ignoring my questions.— Martin R. Schneider (@Martin R. Schneider) 1489085686
Schneider then realised, thanks to a shared inbox, he was sending emails signed off as Hallberg.
It was Nicole he was being rude to, not me. So out of curiosity I said "Hey this is Martin, I'm taking over this project for Nicole."— Martin R. Schneider (@Martin R. Schneider) 1489085952
Schneider says there was "immediate improvement" in how he was treated, despite not changing how he was speaking to the client at all.
Schneider asked Hallberg if that happened all the time, and she said it happened a lot.
So...
We did an experiment: For two weeks we switched names. I signed all client emails as Nicole. She signed as me. Folks. It fucking sucked.— Martin R. Schneider (@Martin R. Schneider) 1489086229
And how did it go?
I wasn't any better at the job than she was, I just had this invisible advantage.— Martin R. Schneider (@Martin R. Schneider) 1489086659
He told their boss, who didn't believe Schneider.
Writing for Medium she explained:
He actually said “There are a thousand reasons why the clients could have reacted differently that way. It could be the work, the performance… you have no way of knowing.” For the first time in two years, I *almost* lost my cool. I wanted to grab him by the arms and shake him, scream in his face until he heard me, stress cry and scream at the sky until the world made sense. But I did not cry. That would be breaking The Rules that had kept me alive in this company for this long.
You can read her full story here.
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