Elizabeth Benassi was 18 years old, three months into her first professional job, and trying hard not to stand out. She had even quietly asked her manager not to mention her age to coworkers, worried they’d write her off as the kid of the group.
The manager told them anyway, at a bowling alley team-building night.
That detail didn’t make it into the headline-grabbing part of Benassi’s story, but it sets the scene for everything that followed. Benassi had joined Maximus UK Services in August 2022, a firm that works with the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions to help people back into employment. Her colleagues were mostly in their early twenties. She was the youngest by a noticeable margin, and she felt it.
Then came the trainers incident. One morning, Benassi wore athletic shoes to the office, unaware the company had a dress code against them. Her manager, Ishrat Ashraf, called her out on it immediately. Benassi apologized. But as she looked around the room, she noticed something: other colleagues were wearing the same style of shoes. No one had said a word to them.
She sent Ashraf a measured email. “This morning you mentioned that I am not allowed to wear trainers to work,” she wrote, as reported by The Metro. “Despite not being aware of this, as I have never worn trainers to work before, I apologized for this, and you rolled your eyes. I have now realized that I am not the only one wearing trainers today, and I have not seen anyone receive the same chat that I have.”
...Grace Kang has worked as an attorney specializing in intellectual property and business law for 20 years, the last 16 in the greater Los Angeles area. A graduate of Stanford Law School, she said h...