So I work at a bank and overall it’s a pretty good job. I live in a really conservative state and it meant a lot to me when I noticed a few pride flags on some of the desks on my first day. Then months later during pride month my boss ordered additional pride flags and everyone was really supportive and put them up.
Recently, I got my very first bad review complaining that the company is too “woke” and is forcing employees to act like they support things that they don’t actually agree with. Ironically I am gay and I really liked how even well into July we hadn’t taken down any of the additional pride flags we had put up.
After the bad review though we had to take down all of the pride flags even the ones we had up prior. Corporate said that since there were so many it made it look like the company mandated them and that we could wear a gay pin or incorporate our pride into our dress in other ways if we wished to express our support. Corporate does put up pride decoration in June, but apparently they want people to be able to infer that the company adheres to the strict observance of pride in June.
It’s in the air if the bad review will stay on my record but in the grand scheme it’s not that important. It’s just weird how one bad review out of hundreds managed to bully this seemingly supportive organization.
It’s nice to see how the majority of my coworkers had a gay pin to wear before the week was out. People forget to wear their name tags all the time but somehow the pride pins make it to work every day. Honestly tempted to ask if we all want to get matching pins or stickers because then it looks like it’s something every employee gets when they get the job.