Girls Fight Club

We formed the Girls Fight Club at my office after the Noodle Incident. It’s not what you think – we didn’t meet in the parking lot at lunch to slap fight and plot the end of civilisation. That’s a Boy Thing. Girls Fight Club was more about banding together and defending ourselves against our boss, known collectively as Loathsome Daryl.

Loathsome Daryl was an incredible specimen: Chauvinistic, slightly racist, dim-witted, and fond of plaid pants that fit poorly in ways that were difficult to describe. Under different circumstances, we would have pitied Loathsome Daryl. Since he was our boss, and because he had a definite thing against the women in the office, we despised him.

It started off with comments. Nothing too outrageous, but the sort of snide comments containing the words honey or sweetheart that raised hackles. The other men in the office went along. Privately they all expressed disgust, but he was their boss too. Slowly things got worse. Daryl assigned as many menial tasks as possible to the girls, trying to treat us all as secretaries. His verbal assaults grew uglier and uglier. It all came to a head during a lunch status meeting, all of us in the large conference room with Chinese food. Daryl was in fine form, making snarky comments, finally just coming out and insulting Carrie after she’d given an admittedly less-than-stellar status update.

And Carrie had sat there for a few seconds, then picked up her carton of Street Noodles and tossed the lot in Daryl’s face.

We all applauded – even some of the men. The girls all met for drinks that night and formed the Fight Club. As in, we were going to fight back against Daryl. He couldn’t fire all of us. I went home filled with fire, and went online looking for a symbolic gesture – and found these incredible Fight Like a Girl Clear Bags. The little light bulb went off over my head – getting into our building was a pain because security spot-checked bags. The clear bags would solve that problem, they’d remind us all to fight back, and, double plus good, they would support Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Perfecto!

The bags came in a few days later and I distributed them. From that moment on, the Girls Fight Club challenged Daryl at every step. We resolved to always gang up on him, so there’s be witnesses and support, and to document everything he said and did. Every morning we arrived with our Fight Like a Girl clear bags like a badge, and we’d make Daryl’s life miserable. After a while the guys joined Girls Fight Club, too, and a few months later Daryl got fired – after everyone in the office made HR complaints.

Girls Fight Club is dormant now, but still in effect – and we’re reminded of it every day when we arrive with our keen Fight Like a Girl clear bags, sailing through security!