About 10 or 11 years from now, sitting in elementary school, I was quite a freak, weird, nerd, to describe with the slang of today's era, I was a pick me student, playing victim, naughty, and it turns out I also engaged in non-verbal bullying that I just realized was included in bullying. But smart. My grades were good and I still had friends. I don't know, but back then I felt like my friends always disliked me behind my back. Clearly. Whether the reason was because I liked to act carelessly, seek attention, or envied my achievements.

Until one day, there was a routine meeting for parents and teachers. The mother of one of my friends (not the person I bullied, let's call this kid R) arrived early, and then we, his friends, greeted her. If I'm not mistaken, at that time I was in the 3rd grade, out of the blue, R's mom suddenly interjected, "Ranking is not important." Then she continued her sentence, but unfortunately, I forgot. After that sentence was uttered, I felt like lightning struck me. I don't know why, even until now I still don’t know the reason, but it certainly felt uncomfortable.

Since then, I stopped being the number 1 achiever. My ranking dropped, but still in the top 3. So did my self-confidence. I began to close myself off, afraid of making mistakes, often negatively assuming my friends' behavior. A male friend once said a sentence that has been etched in my memory until the day I die. I have forgiven him because that statement was inappropriate and I only understood it while in the dormitory. He said, "Wuuu! You have no self-respect!" Imagine, elementary school students back then were not like today. I didn’t tell anyone, we continued to be friends, still becoming the rival duo fighting for rank 1. Long story short, I graduated from elementary school, the day of sincerity went smoothly, and my relationship with my friends was also good.

Then my parents decided to enroll me in a boarding school. I decided to change my personality and behavior. I began to understand and grasp the meaning of bullying. I just realized that I used to be a bad person, perhaps making my elementary school life gloomy, even for a moment, because afterwards I often played with him, stayed overnight at his house, until his mother really liked making my favorite sambal. Yes, which mother wouldn’t be happy because this smart kid plays at her house.

Back when I was in the dormitory. There were several things that I just realized were the cause of my lost self-confidence. In my dormitory, there was a mandatory extracurricular activity for speeches. Whether we liked it or not, all dormitory students had to participate in this activity, not just those who were interested. The speeches used 3 languages. Arabic, English, and Indonesian. Every week alternated. When it was my turn to use Arabic, I distinctly remember, in the classroom, I asked one of the speech mentors if new students could read from a text? The mentor replied, yes, it was allowed. But contrary to reality. When I started to go up, I read the text, and that mentor humiliated me, threatened me, evaluated me in front of the public. Saying why reading from the text, blah blah blah, until I couldn't hold back my tears and cursed at the mentor. My self-confidence began to slowly decline. But there was still some left. I still dared to give speeches, express opinions. Until that confidence really faded thinly when I sat in 9th grade. I felt I was starting to disappear, this wasn't me. Since that day, I began to feel that I was no longer the main character. Academics, teachers, several things started not to side with me. What used to feel like all luck would always favor me, since that day it felt like the world began to speak, that the real world is like this. I have to struggle to be good, I have to pretend to be good, and I have to put in a very, very large effort. However, the output produced is not as great as the input.

Time passed, even until now, my self-confidence has not returned, my leadership spirit has faded, even my personality that used to be adaptive, brave, unashamed in expressing something seems to have vanished. Even until now I still have to provide large input and more than the output. Some things occasionally do favor me, but this is the face of the real world.

Some unexpected good things happened, and some things that were suffocating and damaging my physical and mental health also occurred. This is the face of the world, I do not want to return to being small, because I was a bad person. I also do not want to grow up quickly, because there are many things I must fulfill as an adult. I then thought, if only my efforts when sitting in elementary school had been greater, yes. Why did I just study a little, get ranking 1, and then feel that my task was done?

This story happened about 12 years ago when I (AS) had just graduated from high school. At that time, I was still training at a beverage franchise.

When I arrived at the place, it was only me and one guy my age (MG). He taught me how to make the drinks, package them, etc.

However, while I was on break, suddenly from behind, he put his hand on my breast. I could only stay silent because I was scared, even though it would have been easy for me to scream because people were passing by in front of the shop or buying. But I don't know, I was too scared at that moment. Not only that, he also kissed me on the lips when no one was around.

I decided not to continue that job and to live my life as usual. I chose to become a writer. Yes, even until now, I have not produced anything.

Am I traumatized? Honestly, yes. Because this wasn't the first time. I had a similar experience when I was in third grade that was done by my physical education teacher. It was very frightening for me as a child.

As a result of these two incidents, I, who am basically an introvert, found it even harder to socialize with anyone. I have suffered from severe insomnia for about ten years now. My weight has drastically decreased from 57kg to just 38kg. I have only just recovered from low blood pressure and severe GERD for forty days.

I only dared to tell my family last month. Of course, they found it hard to believe because I had never shared anything bad with them. But that is the reality.

Now, I really want to become a screenplay writer and also a director. But, I did not go to college because I was afraid it would happen again. Yet, I still want to be a screenplay writer and also a director even though I don't know how to do it.

I am a woman in my late 20s, and catching up for my career has been one hell of a disaster.

In this economy, one might say that the regular cycle is writing hundreds of cover letters only to find out all the replies are all about “we received your application”.

So of course I don’t mind it one bit when a relative of mine offered me to work at his company, a very small company that only has 4 employees, and to this day, I still don’t know what my job title or my job descriptions. But okay, beggars can’t be choosy.

With my bachelor degree after my name, I came to work every day, trying to get on to work at anything thrown at me, or even assign myself (and the company) targets, goals, tasks. I tried to be as handy as possible, I tried to really show them, that I can compensate for the lack of experience on my behalf by working hard.

I once thought of making a company profile since I learned (and experienced the repercussions myself) that the company lacks structure and my superior said; “No, we don’t do that thing out here”.

This kept happening. I wanted to do more, and met with a brick wall of a response.

Did I mention that I was the only woman? I should’ve put that in the beginning.

As I keep meeting roadblocks, I left with little to no job. I slowly became an obsolete employee. And my boss thinks highly of my supervisor, so he began to ask “what are you doing for today?”
I swear I never hated a phrase more.

I felt invisible, unappreciated, and most importantly, useless.

With my bachelor degree, my two years experience in an organization, it’s so embarrassing that none of it were of good use.

For that company, I learned to use designer software from scratch in three days, no mentor, no anything.

Since I began to realize that the only “missing” puzzle of this company is the marketing strategy, I upheld myself to fill that position. I believe I had something to give, I like designing, and Social Media is kind of my forte, so I did work on that solo.

Until one day I’ve had enough:

I came to work finding out that they outsourced a social media analyst (which conveniently consists of ALL GUYS) to “look up” on our marketing strategy.

Don’t get me wrong, I want the best for the company, but they didn’t even run it up on me that they’re trying to solve the marketing problem (that I was unaware of).

I will never forget the laughs they all shared in the meeting room, with no vagina to be found,

with me on the sideline.

Meanwhile when my friends asked me “What do you do in your company?” I would say that I handle their Social Media. Because I did!

These dirtbags can’t even press upload on the drafts of posts I planned, wrote, and designed!
If I didn’t actually wait enough time and upload them myself, they wouldn’t do it.

And my boss blamed me because it took too long for me to upload.

Long story short, after the no-vagina-in-meeting-room incident, I stopped giving effort.

And they found victory in calling me lazy, embarrassing, and unreliable.

At the end of it, they “terminated” me out of the office saying I should “work online”. No professionalism, or the good deed to legalize stuff on paper. Just the mere verbatim of, yeah you couldn’t go back.

I can’t help but think I could have ended things on good terms, but, since they didn’t give me that, I feel that it’s unfair that I get to be the bigger GUY, and I know they wouldn’t even notice if I do.

So yeah I no longer work there, I learned nothing because they don’t respect me enough to actually mentor or guide me through their jobs, and I’m left with huge trauma thinking “is this what workplace really is?”

But I hope you all can learn how bad it can get when you run a company with no vaginas.

Note: I am a very private person and I dreaded having my identity to be associated with this story. But funny enough, I don’t worry that my coworkers happen to stumble upon this story, not in a million years, because that’s how misogynistic they are.