Women. Sure, you can live with them. Working with them is another story. Engineering is quite a male-dominated profession, so until now I imagined that working with women involved chats about shoe prices over the coffee machine, and perhaps discussions about pregnancy complications. Those things I could have dealt with, but the reality is far scarier. Women, I have discovered, expect you to concentrate on the task at hand with the professional focus of a microscope. All the time.

I consider myself a hard-working, capable guy, but this woman  made me feel like a kid learning to ride a bicycle with training wheels.

Let me start at the beginning. A few months ago I was sent to a neighbouring country to work on a joint venture.

The head of this project, I was told, was one A. Smith. When I got to the project office, a woman showed me to a seat. “I’m here to see Mr Smith,” I said.

“Who?” she asked, sitting down on the other side of the desk. “Mr Smith. The project manager,” I said. She gave me a funny look. “I’m Ms Smith,” she said, “and I’m the project manager.”

From then on, it seemed that whenever I turned around Ms Smith was watching me, checking my work, asking whether I’d done things, why I hadn’t done other things, whether I couldn’t have done the things I’d done better… it was a nightmare.

When I got a weekend off I spent most of it complaining to P about how difficult women are. “What is it that bothers you about this Ms Smith?” she asked me. ”She doesn’t leave me alone for a minute,” I said. “I feel as though she doesn’t trust me. I know what I’m doing. Why can’t she let me get on with it?” “Hmm,” said P.

I know that ‘hmm’. It doesn’t just mean ‘hmm’. It means, “you idiot. If you can’t see what’s right in front of your nose then I’m not going to explain it to you. Not unless you ask, of course.” I have learned by now that it’s best to ask, because usually I can’t see whatever it is that might be right in front of my nose. I’m long-sighted.

So P gave me the benefit of her womanly wisdom. “I don’t think the problem is that Ms Smith doesn’t trust you,” she said. “I think perhaps you don’t trust Ms Smith.” “What are you talking about?” P sighed. “Think about it,” she said. “Don’t you always expect the person who holds ultimate responsibility for the success of the project to keep a close eye on everyone else involved?”

“I suppose so,” I said. ”So why is this any different?” I had to admit she was right. Ms Smith and I had got off  on the wrong foot. She wasn’t the problem. I was. She was treating me in exactly the same way as any manager would, but because I hadn’t worked with a woman in that capacity before, I took offence every time she questioned me.

“In any successful partnership,” P said, “the partnership has to be the important thing. Not the egos of the people in the partnership.”

Things were much better when I got back. I realised that both Ms Smith and I were concerned about the success of our project, and that the success of the project was far more important than my own sensitive skin. We’ve worked together pretty well since then. And the other day over coffee, I even gave her a tip about where to get good shoe bargains.