So my girl and I work in the corporate live events industry in Utah and there's like 3 big companies that actually produce those big 10s of thousands of people events
Then they pay a mix of labor companies and individuals on 1099 contractor basis which is another giant pain in the ass that's definitely seudo illegal but not the current issue
So labor coordinator from labor company X (call her Brittany calls me and we're friendly enough that she unloads some information about why me and my girlfriend haven't been getting as much work lately.
Apparently she's been friends with the labor coordinator from the main big company (Karen) for a decade or more and they talk still but apparently Karen HATES MY GUTS for unknown reasons (I've had very few interactions with her and I've never fucked up an event or given her reason to feel that way) and won't let my GF on any gigs because her new boyfriend (Steve) either expressed interest in my GF or possibly she just thought my GF was prettier than her Brittany couldn't decide what the deal was but dropped that bomb on my lap and just moved on to other random topics.
For context the winter time always sucks for our industry there's no work there's no unemployment benefits there's no savings we really fucking struggled and her struggles began in like October inexplicably and it's now middle of February before she gets another gig.
On top of all that she's an attractive human that's spent the better part of 5 years learning how to be excellent at this job that she loves all while getting sexually harassed by every gross meth head looking burnout 50 year old on the crews and or running them and never once been treated like a valid technician and given the same respect her male peers enjoy. Including constantly getting looked over for higher level positions she's over qualified for.
So I had to tell my GF what was going on despite feeling horrible about it and wishing I could shield her from that wound, we started discussing how illegal that shit is and how we would ever begin to bring this to a judge and realized if it's not the company employing us but their client doing the sexism we're basically fucked right? And she can't go after every one of the disgusting pricks on the crew doing the same shit either