The Customer is Always Right, except ...

There has been much written the last several months about corporate and venture capitalist harassment of female employees and entrepreneurs. Yesterday I witnessed a customer harassing one of our employees. The (to remain unnamed) customer was complaining (incorrectly) in a conference call, with several of his employees and me on the line, to our customer success manager, who happens to be female, about late delivery. They went back and forth with our manager being quite calm and professional. It was when the customer began to use fowl language and get agitated that I stepped in. I had represented myself as just the other person on the phone, not her manager, boss or executive of the company. Just another employee - albeit male. Nonetheless, the customer quickly changed his tone and told me that he had no issue with me - but only with "that lady." I tried to also calmly explain that my colleague had maintained her professionality while he had not and that she had a name - and was not "that lady" and deserved to be treated accordingly. I am not sure that we will retain this customer. And frankly, this kind of behavior, seemingly due to the gender, is not acceptable even from a paying customer. It is unfortunate in this age that men in business have not figured out their place in the world. I am becoming more sensitized every day to the realities that women face in the work place.