On December 12, 2010, I was fired for being a girl. On March 14, 2011, Apple – my former employer – reaffirmed that I deserved to be fired. For being a girl.

It’s probably not that easy, but it makes for a nice opening statement. See, I was employed at a retail Apple Store in Arlington, Virginia for ten months. I worked as a Genius, which is Apple’s fruity name for Tier II tech support. We saw customers, handled software and hardware issues, and repaired machines. I loved my job.

Let me clarify that – I really, really, really loved my job. I looked forward to going to work every day. I adored working with customers, and getting to spend half my shift neck-deep in computer hardware was a dream come true.

Unfortunately, I worked on an all-male team that didn’t take too kindly to a girl joining their secret club. In fact, they hated it, and my teammates went out of their way to antagonize and harass me on a daily basis in order to make me look bad to management. The slightest mistake on my part was immediately reported, behind my back, to the manager on duty. My coworkers would deliberately ask me questions or set me up for situations that would allow them to go to management with more dirt on me.

And, stunningly, the lead manager of my former store fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Only three and a half months after I started working there, at the beginning of July 2010, I was put on a month-long “documented coaching” period, which basically meant  that I was given a list of goals to achieve or else I’d lose my job.

I successfully completed that month, and it put me on probation for a year. The others on the Genius team at my former store started being nicer to me once they realized I wasn’t going to lose my job. Unfortunately, that didn’t last very long, and before I knew it, they were once again looking for the tiniest slip-up so that management would realize how much I deserved to be fired.

A Genius from a store in Maryland transferred to the Clarendon location. He was funny, sarcastic, and had a loud personality – just like me. But as a male, the team adapted to his presence much more easily than myself.

Then I made a fatal mistake – I inadvertently violated an undocumented policy regarding alcohol. I brought a bottle of gin into the store to give as a gift to a Genius who had previously caused a lot of problems for me. Someone told management, and it was added to the list of reasons why I deserved to be fired, even though Apple had absolutely no documented policy on alcohol – which isn’t surprising, considering that Cupertino holds company-sponsored “beer bashes” on a regular basis, where free alcohol is provided to employees. In fact, Apple’s retail employee handbook specifically directs employees to the corporate policy on alcohol, which essentially says “no underage drinking at company-sponsored events” and “you’re responsible for your behavior while drinking”.

I told my store manager that I was facing a hostile work environment. He told me it was “just teasing” and “boys being boys”. When I reiterated this exchange with the HR representative who would later tell me I did indeed deserve to be fired, her response was “Well, I wasn’t there for that specific incident, so I can’t say anything about it”.

Oddly, though, while she wasn’t present for the six months of silence from fellow Genius Sho, who literally ignored me in front of customers rather than look in my direction or speak to me when spoken to, she managed to twist that into something that was my doing. This particular individual is the same person who said to me, verbatim (during a meeting with two managers), “I hate everything about you.” I was causing all the problems for a team that was victimized by being forced to work with a girl.

I sat at my dining room table tonight, listening to this HR representative, in her fifth year at Apple, explaining to me that all protocols and precedence had been followed and, with that in mind, she had no choice but to uphold the decision to terminate my employment with Apple. The fact that I was harassed and antagonized by my coworkers didn’t matter – it was my responsibility to put up with it and tolerate it without reacting to it, even though management continually did nothing to put an end to it. The fact that I flat-out told my manager that the environment in the genius room was hostile to my presence didn’t matter, and the fact that he discounted my concerns really didn’t matter – she wasn’t there, so she couldn’t possibly comment on it. The concept of a hostile work environment was completely absent from the conversation I had with this woman.

Then the real blow came. I found out that within a week of HR deciding to uphold my termination, a full-blown investigation was launched at my former store against senior management because of evidence that they were playing favorites, deliberately launching crusades to fire specific employees, and generally were making incredibly poor management decisions.

A senior manager with five years’ tenure at Apple was fired at the end of the investigation. His supervisor, the very same store manager who fired me, managed to lie and weasel his way into keeping his job. The fact that this investigation happened had no influence on the decision to uphold my termination. The fact that the leadership at my store was formally called into question for poor managerial behavior had absolutely no bearing on HR’s decision.

In the end, I was fired from a supposedly liberal, pro-employee, open-minded corporation because an all-male team couldn’t deal with an intelligent, outspoken woman working with them. I was fired by a supervisor who was going out of his way to find reason to fire me, and who was investigated by HR for that very behavior. I was fired for being unwilling and unable to continue to tolerate hostile, antagonistic behavior from my coworkers.

Is Apple really the kind of company you want to work for? Until tonight, I was convinced that Apple would make the right decision, and I would get my job back – or at least clear my name. Now it’s impossible for me to have any faith in a company I lauded as “a great company to work for”. Even post-termination, I told people that Apple was still a great company and that I wanted to go back.

I could file a discrimination suit purely on principle, but in the end, I can’t support working for a company that has no interest in doing right by its employees.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t expect everyone to like me or want to be my friend. I know that I have my own personality flaws, just like everyone else. But at the end of the day, each employee in any work environment must absolutely be held responsible for their own behavior and actions, particularly when it is negative or damaging behavior directed at coworkers, customers, or subordinates. This, to be frank, did not happen. I was clearly blamed in full for the behaviors of my coworkers who, when it came down to it, were not ever chastised for their actions and held to the same behavioral standard.

Sorry, Steve Jobs. I gave you a fighting chance, and you failed me in the worst way possible. It’s a shame, because I sure loved that job.