Looking in the mirror

I have been reading Penelope Trunk (not her real name) for at least a decade. Sometimes she has (stupendous if hard to hear/read) career advice; sometimes she’s inflammatory; sometimes she shares too much information (sex assault, miscarriage, domestic violence, etc.); and, sometimes she seems to be taking a contrarian point of view just to get the internet hits. I appreciate that she does not sugar coat the experience of (women in) the (high performing) workplace. The themes recur, at times in more pointed ways than others; and, while I don’t always LIKE the messaging, I do often find she is making a logical point.

After a decade of the roller coaster, I just keep reading.

Today I looked in the mirror. The specific post was why women should not bother negotiating salary. She had five reasons. In the midst of point four, I hit this:

“Or you could just play the salary statistics game. Keep your maiden name, because women who keep their maiden name get higher salaries. You’ll earn 14% more salary if you drink alcohol. And keep your chin up when the company starts to fail. You’ll be a likely candidate for your boss’ job because women get promoted when the organization is already going to hell.”

So, yeah, that, 100% at one point point or another in my career history. Certainly not my plan, but those exact moments were part of my path.

So much so, that I quit reading her post to write this, and went back to see if there were more gems.

There were: “You will be fired if you report sexual harassment and you will be fired if you negotiate as hard as a man does. Deal with it.”

Raw, real, not easy, not politically correct. There is no it “should be” or “shouldn’t be” like that to be found. Deal with it.