Workplace gender training: Now with X-Change

As you sit down in the conference room you see everyone from the company is there. You take out your phone and stare at your reflection for a moment before unlocking it and tooling around for a moment. You are a handsome 20 something man, nothing crazy but your looks do work well for you.

Before you manage to even decide what you were doing on your phone you hear your boss come in. You knew her in college and worked together in school a lot. When she founded the company she hired you on. You work for a company that does hardware customization for business and personal clients. Computer or any device comes in one way and goes out another. Simple stuff really, good money and you never physically interact with people.

You see Hunter clear her throat before tapping the mic at the front of the room. "So as a few of you know we have to move to comply with new federal workplace standards for our health care plan. Not a big deal really, the reason we are sitting here is because hidden in there is a carrot. If we comply with workplace sensitivity training standards this year we get a lot of money. Mostly taxes and things like that but we are talking about an amount we can't really turn down.

She looks out at the crowd before continuing, "Well part of that is undergoing a gender training lesson. I don't think we need it, we are about 40% men 60% women and have never had any issues." Seeing as there are like 20 of you feel she is kind of overblowing it. "The lesson as some of you have heard is simple, take X-Change for one week and see how the other side lives.

There are murmurs across the crowd at this and you shift in your seat now uncertain. "The thing is simple for us really, most of us either basically live in this office or right next door. We will be paired up with someone swapping the other way and expected to live together to provide advice and support through the week."

You zone out at that point thinking about it. You don't really have any friends outside of work, your company is like a family. You have had issues but you always work them out together and come out stronger for it. You are in a young company too, no one here is over 30, for most this is their first job out of college. Hunter outlines the plan you will come in Monday head to your partner's house before switching, that way someone is there if anything goes wrong. If you want you can take the day off but you have to do at least 30 hours of work that week.

Still daydreaming you feel a poke and lurch forward to try and show you are awake. Having slightly miscalculated, you end up pushing your chair over. As you sit in your chair now laying on the ground you come to a few conclusions. You were out a bit longer than you, though, Hunter is standing over you trying not to laugh.

"Would you look at the time, I better get home," you say holding up your bare wrist.

"As funny as that is, you aren't going anywhere, Alex," Hunter says looking down at you.

Standing up you rub your head before looking around, "You are my partner for this" you hear, all you manage is, "Huh" as you turn around it hits you that you will be living with your boss for a week as a women and you start to groan.

You feel a light slap on your back as Hunter says, "Don't give me that, we used to live together on campus."

"Because we were poor," you try and say.

"Suck it up, we are the last ones here and since you fell asleep you are starting tonight, not Monday"