My wife is the CEO of an engineering firm. They got an insanely large contract that they needed to farm out parts of, so they invited a highly-rated firm for discussion.
Wife: “I notice that you import [expensive component] from Taiwan. Do those come via shipping container through the Suez Canal, and if so, can we expect potential delays we’d need to account for in case there’s a repeat of the Ever Given?”
One of the representatives of the other firm looked to the men in the room.
Representative: “Why is the secretary asking all the questions?”
It took about five minutes to inform the representative that he had just cost his firm that highly lucrative contract, and she would be calling his CEO to tell him exactly how and why that went down.
Making No Secret(ary) Of His Sexism
My wife is the CEO of an engineering firm. They got an insanely large contract that they needed to farm out parts of, so they invited a highly-rated firm for discussion.
Wife: “I notice that you import [expensive component] from Taiwan. Do those come via shipping container through the Suez Canal, and if so, can we expect potential delays we’d need to account for in case there’s a repeat of the Ever Given?”
One of the representatives of the other firm looked to the men in the room.
Representative: “Why is the secretary asking all the questions?”
It took about five minutes to inform the representative that he had just cost his firm that highly lucrative contract, and she would be calling his CEO to tell him exactly how and why that went down.