Typical Day
Cyril Wright gets up and at 'em and heads to work at 8:30AM, drinking his coffee on the way while preparing himself for the day ahead. Staying busy helps him stay positive, which is important because reading complaint after complaint about discriminatory employment practices can get anyone down.
Such is the life for an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission officer, but Cyril's found a surefire way to keep his spirits up: chocolate-covered marshmallows. He's beginning to resemble a marshmallow himself.
He walks into his office at 9:00AM, says hello to his co-workers, and settles down behind his desk. As he's booting up the numerous databases he uses for his work, he checks his phone and email for messages and fires off some responses.
Once all that small business has been taken care of, Cyril sits back in his chair, takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes for a moment. The next thing he's going to do is check his mailbox—which will contain a new, huge pile of workplace discrimination complaints—so he imbibes this one last moment of relative contentedness before diving into a thick stack of everyone else's problems.
The EEOC processes nearly 100,000 complaints of workplace discrimination per year (source). The initial evaluation is just the first step in a potentially very long process, and it's one of the biggest downers of Cyril's day.
Not only does he have to read about the various instances in which people are angry, upset, or shocked at their mistreatment in the workplace, he has to cast out the ones that, in his opinion, don't merit follow up. Neither of those activities is especially pleasant.
After about forty-five minutes of reading some legitimate complaints about gendered pay gaps, and less legitimate complaints about the line to use the office microwave being too long, Cyril's co-worker, Gina, knocks on the door. "Morning, Cyril."
"Hey, Gina! How are you doing?"
"I'm great." Gina steps into the office. "I was hoping you could help me with something. I was going over my contract last night because it's going to be renewed—"
Cyril can't help interrupting. "Congrats! I'm glad we're keeping you around!"
Gina grins, then sobers up. "Thanks, Cyril. But I'm a little concerned about one of the clauses. It seems a little unfair to women, but I don't know if I'm reading it right. All this lawyer jargon is so confusing. Would you take a look over it when you have a minute? I think I need a fresh pair of eyes."
Cyril has a lot of work to take care of, but he's happy to lend a hand to a friend in need. Lending a hand is pretty much the reason he got into this line of work, the unpleasantness of the morning mail notwithstanding. "Sure thing, Gina. Why don't you email me a copy and I'll get to it as soon as I can."
Gina looks relieved. "Thanks, Cyril. You're the best."
Gina leaves and Cyril checks the time. 11:10AM—he has about twenty minutes until his first meeting of the day. The EEOC puts out training materials for companies looking to shore up their non-discriminatory practices, and Cyril's been working for a couple weeks now on a presentation he's hoping will be included in next quarter's release. He gets ready and heads to up to the conference room to discuss his work with the higher-ups.
When he arrives, everyone's sitting around the table waiting silently for him, like they're in The Godfather or something. Cyril scoots up to the front of the room and puts on a big smile. "Hey, y'all. Let's get this show on the road, eh?"
There's no response. The higher-ups just stare at him, waiting to hear what he's going to suggest. This might be a tougher sell than Cyril had thought.
He smiles a bit harder. "I've spent the past few weeks pouring over all the data we've collected since 2009, with the intent to identify metrics that would measure discriminatory incidents having to do with new technology. I've found all sorts of trends, from the expected uptick in incidents involving electronic communication, to companies using passwords and user agreements to exploit their employees, to a lengthening of the average time it takes us to complete an investigation on such matters. In short, there are many ways we can improve these numbers."
The room stays eerily silent for a few moments, but finally Janice, the Lead Officer for Personnel Development, pipes up. "This looks great, Cyril," she says, thumbing through his detailed printout, "when would the changes go into effect?"
"Well, there'd be separate phases for the different objectives. We could easily add the presentation to the teaching materials we give to companies that inquire about improving their practices. To get deeper into the data, though, I'm proposing we create a project team to spend the next several months working with the numbers. I think there's a lot yet to be discovered on this front, and the people we serve will be greatly helped by these more modern discussion topics."
Janice lets out a satisfied "hmmm," sits back in her chair, then eyes the other big-wigs around the room. "Well thanks very much, Cyril. We'll have to discuss the efficacy of building a project team and whether we have the budget for it, but we'll start that with the accounting meeting tomorrow. That'll do for now though, we don't want to keep you from the other work you have."
Cyril practically skips out of the conference room. It's not so promising that the project will have to run through accounting—then the administrative branch, then the IT department—before being approved, but sometimes you can't avoid the commission's bureaucracy.
It is a government organization, after all; sometimes it seems like you need written approval and a notarized signature just to tie your shoe around here. But the response from the higher-ups was positive—that's good enough for Cyril, who's all smiles as he heads off to lunch.
After a quick ham sandwich, Cyril goes over the materials Gina sent him and calls her into his office. He tells her there's nothing actively discriminatory in the contract, but some of the language is a little outdated and he can totally see why she'd be uncomfortable signing it. He suggests some revisions that might make the wording better reflect the intent of both parties. Gina thanks him, smiles, and leaves.
Cyril shuts his office door, opens a fresh bag of chocolate-covered marshmallows, and starts to follow up with his current investigations. In the mornings he reads through new complaints, but that's just the earliest stage in the process.
Once the EEOC decides they'll pursue an investigation, Cyril has to keep in touch with the employer in question to gather information, schedule face-to-face discussions, and later write up his findings. The paperwork—endless, endless paperwork—takes the most time, and Cyril ends up doing that until the alarm goes off on his computer. It's almost time to go home.
One of the very best parts of the job is getting to leave right at 5:00PM every day. He's already packed up and walking out as the clock strikes 5:01PM, and as he pulls out of the parking garage he's already thinking of the Lean Cuisine (no more chocolate-covered marshmallows today) and Star Wars: Battlefront waiting for him at home.
After a long day of wading through inequality and discrimination, he's ready to relax and blow up a few TIE fighters.