R E P U T A T I O N

 Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides.

Ladies, please guard your reputation with your life. If not in your personal life (although it may precede you) at work at the very least.  Nobody trusts, likes or respects a woman that has a poor reputation (this goes for men as well).

Reputation is preceded by what you say.  If you tell your colleagues details of your personal life that might create judgment (and you know everybody judges); whether good or  bad in your eyes,  it will come to hunt you eventually. Especially when there is the added effect that people do not have to see you anymore at work (i.e. they dont care what they say or who they say it to because either them, or yourself, has moved on).

This usually happens when someone in your circle of colleagues leaves for another job. This is when the real fun starts and the truth surfaces...
It was not long until a friend of mine had left her job, that people started saying "well since you are not here anymore, did you know? " or "I don't like this person" or "if you hear of anything please think of me", or my favourite best "I cant tell you this because I've got nothing to lose". Ding Ding Ding!

When at work, do it KSS style, Keep it Simple Stupid.  No need to share your most personal inner thoughts or fears and definitely no need to come to the rescue of those whom you never really spoken to. Because when you leave a job or if you are the one staying, all of the "supposed trust" you had on your colleagues is gone out the window. However, if you keep a low profile and are pleasant to everybody and not somebody's BFF, you will have played the cards right and will succeed at keeping your reputation intact. Most importantly, you will not burn any bridges with current or past employers or colleagues, and therefore your reputation will remain untouched.

In the social realm, appearances are the barometer of most of all our judgments, and you should never be misled into believing otherwise. One false slip, one awkward or sudden change in your professional appereance, can prove disastrous.

Sincerley,
A woman.

How do we live in Venus, yet have the option to travel to Mars?

In life, it is most times said that Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. In the workplace, I would say that Men have egos and Women ???

Question marks, filled now by tons of them in my mind. What would you put instead of the question marks? This is the question and answer I discussed with a good friend of mine over sushi a few nights ago…

I know that the posts in my blog have been morphing into posts where I make claims against the way women play the wrong cards at the workplace. I even got an anonymous comment on my "How to Fold a Napkin" post from of one my readers claiming that men also make our life miserable in the workplace. To this anonymous reader, please send me a note at the below email address, and share your story with me, I only speak from my own experience at work, and would love to hear yours - womenonlinecanada@gmail.com


So back to the question marks...to me, us women, have too much jealousy. Here is why - Wikipedia defines jealousy as an emotion and typically refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that the person values, such as a relationship, friendship, or love.

In the workplace, often times, we anticipate potential loss; we fear of others and at times develop insecurity. This insecurity most times, and as experienced, transpires from the fact that we consider other women our own competition. I mean...how can we compare ourselves to men if they are from Mars? Men are treated differently in the workplace, are valued differently, often earn more, don’t have to worry about mat leaves, pregnancy, sensitivity, and so on...right? Again wrong!

Men do have their own egos to build at work, I believe the pressure is just as much for them (or maybe not?). However, these men form their own "boys club" at work, and this, this is how they climb to the top.

I have seen it and experienced it! Whoever enters it, it’s protected by all and all will climb together, the way in which they bond in business is glued by accomplishments and power. Yes, power. Because in a group of men, they all have to pull their weight and push each other hard to do so. At my current job, I have a colleague (a true friend) who has infiltrated himself into the boys club...interestingly enough; I was the one who suggested such move. My friend is more of a “girls” type of guy, he is not a prick, he respects women and rarely makes offensive or stupid jokes, a true gentleman. However, at my work, we women could never butter his bread or help his case. The man reports into men and senior management at work are mostly male; therefore his bread should be buttered with testosterone. And this is why I advised him to not only become part of the boys club, but also to ensure that he was truly part of the clan. Women could never be part of this boys' club, and not because we can’t but because we just don’t fit and should never try to fit. Why? Because we ought to respect that we do come from Venus, and respect is earned not on how we equal ourselves to men, but on how we make sure we get noticed, respected and valued.

To make a long story short, after my friend became “part” of this club, in a matter of months, and also thanks to another man, he got a 10% raise on his salary (no review was needed) and is very happy with this, who wouldn't! The infiltration of this man into the boys club, helped me make my case on my blog as he became part of the bunch...off the record, the stuff he tells me is unbelievable, but his position at the company is now secured and untouchable. Note to self though, he does not like half the men in this club, he says they are true pricks, disrespectful and has told me stories that make me feel sorry for their young wives...which by the way, it will be another blog post in the future which I am drafting "Teachers and Suits". You will read this hopefully in the February post ;)

So back to my male friend, just because he does not stand the men, it does not mean he does not enjoy listening to the stupid stuff they have to say, because he, as a man, can turn OFF and ON the "care" chip, unlike women (come on, don’t say you don’t know what I am talking about). Because we are from Venus, this option did not come installed or is part of our package. We not only have the care chip ON all the time, but we make sure everybody knows it! And the problem is, we usually make sure our female counterparts know it too, because we also know they can’t turned it off either.

Recently, a girls club has been formed at my workplace, everybody knows who these 3 women are and understand why the bond was formed. Although the 3 are glued together and think their bond is powerful, the reality is that such bond is glued with saliva and nothing else. Meaning, it won’t last. Why? Because in the first place, the bond was only formed to please the big boss of the group and make sure the boss “buttered their bread”. Unlike in the boys club, which was formed because these men have power and they have all made sure their contributions are seen and cared for at the company. These men although pricks in life, are brilliant at work and they help their care, and trust me, no slacker will ever be part of this group. The girls club on the other hand was formed to protect their lack of sales known-how and to ensure their jobs are preserved. These women care more about hiring young women to do their work, than about making sure the team as a whole is successful, not to mention that in order to form this group, they had to alienate one of the strongest women. They feared for their own self-preservation, because they knew the strongest one might overpower them one day, and this they will never allow to happen. My take on things though is, if they all know they alienated the best due to insecurity (jealousy), how can any of them rise to the top ever? I bet you any money these women will turn against each other the moment one feels insecurity overpowers them. Trust me, that which is wrongly glued, will un-glue itself rapidly. There will be blood...and thankfully, it wont be mine =)


Me? I am the outsider.... looking from the outside in, and although a bit of a victim in the process, I have raised to the top in the end...how exactly? By living in Venus and traveling to Mars from time to time...=) Continue to follow my blog, and you'll know exactly how I did it.


Please feel free to email, post comments or follow me on the many social channels Women and the Workplace has! Would love to hear from you ladies!


Thanks a million for being part of this blog.


Sincerely,

A Woman 

Honestly? Honesty...

Bill Cosby once said

Don't play the honesty, find the honesty in the moment

and this my blog readers, is as true and real as the water we drink.

In this holiday season, I have decided to write a bit about honesty and how it plays in the workplace. I believe being an honest person makes a great leader and the opposite just sets ourselves up for failure...

A couple of weeks ago, I was assigned a "one of a kind" project at work that was given to me given my expertise. As this blog is anonymous, I can't really provide specifics on the project, however the overall picture is that I was to be the project manager and was to work with a team to implement. My new boss however, was to be in charge of getting approvals from senior management when required. During the project implementation up until launch, my boss decided to make decisions outside the scope so as to please senior management and launch on time.
I warned her not to do so and requested written approvals from her in order to launch as she specified. Although she hated me for it, she knew she had no choice but to provide approvals in writing as I was not in agreement with her decision-making and actually advised her against it.
Upon project launch, everybody was extremely happy. We launched on time and the project showed great results. Senior management congratulated my boss and gave her great reviews on the success of it once we/she showed the results. Never once was my name or that of my team mates' mentioned, nor was there any recognition, nor did she acknowledge me.
No biggy, I saw it coming given the fact that we bumped heads a bit during the implementation, and of course, I had a feeling things will surface one way or the other. So I kept quiet and went out of my way to congratulate her and show it was ALL her.

As the days went by, a few hiccups in the project started to show up...nothing major, just that the project had the wrong contact info in one market. Nothing major...right? WRONG! During project approvals, instead of showing the project "template" to senior management, she reviewed herself and off she went approving. Once a person from up above noticed the error, the s%&^* hit the fan. My boss was called on meetings, conference calls, etc. Even the CEO got involved as this person was really upset and she was called into a meeting to explain what had happened. Although this error could have been a mistake by anybody in the food chain (including me), senior management at my company always believe that as mid manager and project leader, the facing person is always in charge of making things right and taking responsibility for the project. I found out later on she threw everybody under the bus, including me. But I never once heard a bip of it from my peers or even the bosses themselves. So at the end of the day, I was happy I never got recognition as I was not directly responsible for the end result and I had written confirmation on all approvals. Like I said, no biggy.

I know this blog post is not as exciting as the "Dark with a bit of sugar" one, but it does goes off to show that you can not play the honesty. I believe that being humble, and not in the sense of one of my first posts, but in the sense of realizing when one makes mistakes...is paramount for one's career. Accepting to be wrong is accepting to be continuously learning and hence getting experienced on it. Accepting to have not done any wrong, its like denying one ever needs to learn. So to my boss...Honestly? Really though? Honesty :)

Sincerely,
A woman.

How to fold a napkin

Today, I am going to teach you how to fold a napkin. The only thing is that there are no instructions on how to fold it...nor will it come to you by osmosis.

In the workplace, as in life, we have always been taught to follow instructions and get good at following them.  Instructions to get somewhere (aka directions), instructions to assemble a piece of furniture (e.g. via Ikea), instructions on how to date (e.g. via our BFF's), but did we ever get instructions on how to handle certain situations at work? And most importantly, on how to just learn that sometimes it is not about how we fold a napkin, but the action of folding it?

Let me explain what I mean.  A couple of Friday's ago, a group of people from my work and I went out for lunch. For some reason, I ended up going with a group of seven guys. During that lunch, all I did was laugh my butt off.  I know most of you enjoy the company of guys a lot more than girls at times, and I do too. But this lunch was something I will never forget.

While we were waiting for our order, one of the guys started playing with his napkin. When done, the napkin had a rare shape that from far away I could not decipher. When I did however, I was back to laughing my butt off. The guy had literally made a male genitale out of that napkin. Although there was some embarrassment, there were definitely laughs, and laughs turned into a complete instructional class (for the guys only of course) on how to fold the napkin just like that. Needless to say, that was one of the most fun lunches I have had at work.

When I compare guys’ workplace rendez-vous with girls, I clearly see the difference in the dynamics.  Although more ‘ego’ driven, they are definitely more fun and less gossipy.  A lunch with a group of girls from work would have covered topics like dating, work gossip and at times some hypocritical comments; on top of the fact that we always want to get juicy details on the people we work with. And although I can at times count myself in that group, I now realize how much we women just need to relax a bit.  We need to be more reserved with the work gossip and definitely more attentive to just enjoying ourselves and have a good time.  I think we are all too consumed into making it happen for ourselves (professionally I mean) that it becomes our world…our life.

So in work as in life…how do we fold the napkin ourselves and make it the shape we want?

New URL for us + Follow us on Twitter and FB

Hello Ladies and Gentelmen,

Women and the Workplace has a new URL - http://womenandtheworkplace.blogspot.com/

As well, we you can now follow us on twitter at - http://twitter.com/womenandwork

See our Facebook badge on the right hand side of our blog and join us, or simple search for the FB group "Women and the Workplace" and become a member!

November's blog post "How to fold a Napkin" is coming soon!   Stay Tuned!

The ROCK

The much awaited rock! We, women, in general , dream about this very thing since the moment we got to know about Barbie and her long time companion - Ken.

But this one very sparkly, brilliant, shinny ROCK comes with its workplace disadvantages...

It all started a year ago when a good friend of mine got engaged. While engaged, she was looking for a job and ecstatic to not only begin to plan the wedding, but also to kick-start her career as she had recently come back from completing a Masters overseas. As a recently engaged woman she was proud to showcase her ring and her pearly whites to the world! But little did she know that the one thing that made her smile was going to be her Achilles heel at the workplace.

After months of job hunting, she landed an interview at a very well known company who she longed working for (thanks to the good word of an acquaintance). She passed to the second interview and after coming close to think the job was hers; one morning she received a call that will forever teach her a lesson....According to the recruiter, she had come very close to landing the job as she was tendering against another candidate with similar capabilities; but after much thought, management had decided the other candidate was more "suited" for the job. This nearly killed her, as she was almost certain the job was hers.

A few weeks after the bad news landed on her lap, she ran into the one acquaintance who had referred her to the job. He explained to her that he had found out through the grapevine that the final decision was made by a man who chose the other female candidate because she was "younger" and had no family attachments. According to him, to them it was very risky and expensive to hire a recently engaged woman as wedding plans and baby plans will come in the way very early in her career, so they could not afford to hire her.
Needless to say my friend was devastated to hear that the very one thing she loved the most, had caused her a career.

This, my blog readers, is what I mean by playing the cards right at the workplace...because, if we could change the system, and we should, then women should be able to be hired based on their capabilities and skill set alone...but since we live in a business world that still very much belongs to men, we need to continue to push and push until we get where we want. =)

So embrace your ROCK, for those of you who have met the one...just don't show it during interviews and avoid showing it too much to senior management once hired...let them be hit with it when the time is right...after that, the game is all yours!

Sincerely,
A woman.

My Blog :)

Let me start by saying that I strongly believe I have now hit the spot with this blog. I never really realized how much I like writing about a woman's life in the workplace, until I thought about the many anecdotes and stories one can get out of working. I enjoy my work, with its up and downs, but above all, I think its a pretty decent job...pays well, love what I do, people I work with are "nice", I am constantly recognized and I have some freedom.

Nothing wrong with a decent job...but what comes on the day to day, 9-5 time spam, is what makes it truly fun and interesting to write about.

I will try to update this blog as much as possible and truly hope you enjoy reading it, as I continue to embrace what comes out of Women and the Workplace.

Sincerely,
A woman.