Working Girl
Join us on Working Girl, as we dive deep into the complexities of gender bias in the workplace. Each week, we'll bring you candid conversations with real women sharing their experiences and strategic insights from experts who have been in the trenches.
Whether you’re a fierce feminist already clued into how gender inequality can shove a wrench in your career, or you’re only just starting to spot how those sneaky gender inequality hurdles have been tripping you up, this show offers the validation, support, and tactics you need to help you reclaim your career.
Working Girl
Season 1 (OLD FORMAT) - When Women's Work Isn't Valued
This episode is part of our first season, which focused on gender bias in the corporate world. The show has since evolved to focus on women on the front lines of social justice.
Have you ever stood up in a meeting, only to feel your voice quiver under the weight of a room filled with skeptical stares? This episode of Working Girl puts the spotlight on the silent battles women face in their professional lives, featuring a conversation with a trailblazing guest who has navigated through the murky waters of gender bias across multiple industries. She doesn't just share her story; she arms us with a trove of insights on asserting expertise against doubters, the emotional rollercoaster of salary negotiations, and the art of thriving in spite of workplace challenges.
Our guest peels back the curtain on the often-invisible labor that so many women contribute, labor that's crucial yet grossly undervalued. Listen as we exchange experiences that reveal the contrasting work styles and recognition between men and women—ranging from the meticulous to the streamlined—and how these disparities shape our paths to career advancement. We also tackle the complex topic of company culture, examining whether workplace training truly fosters accountability or if it's merely a box-ticking exercise, and we explore the transformative role of mentorship and personal branding in carving out a successful professional narrative.
Wrapping up, we delve into the strategies for empowering women within the workplace, championing not only for a seat at the table but also for a voice that resonates with confidence and authenticity. Our guest recounts fostering a supportive environment that embraces diversity of thought and personality, ensuring that even the quietest in the room can share in shaping the narrative. Join us for this empowering call to action, as we aim to inspire listeners to participate in creating respectful and inclusive work environments where everyone's talents—and struggles—are seen and valued.
If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. And share it with your fellow working women!
Welcome to Working Girl, your safe space to talk about gender bias in the workplace. I'm your host, rachel Impala, aka the Gender Bias Coach. I've witnessed firsthand the insidious effects of gender bias on women's careers. What's worse, no one is talking about it. That's why my mission is to end the stigma surrounding these conversations and to create a culture of openness and empowerment. It's time for women to stop shouldering these burdens alone and start receiving the validation and support they deserve. So sit back, relax and welcome to the ultimate support group for working women. Hello and welcome.
Speaker 1:I am so happy to have you on, and not only because I know you, but also because we share something in common, which is that we both have worked in several different kinds of industries, which I think is great for a resume. It's also great for lots of experiences with gender bias. So I cannot wait to hear all of your different perspectives, especially not from different industries, but also from different points throughout your career, because, as you have heard from other interviews, you know, we've all kind of found that our perception of the experiences we were having has changed a lot as we've gotten older, as we've learned more about these things. So I cannot wait to hear, I'm sure that your stories are very multifaceted and we've learned more about these things, so I cannot wait to hear. I'm sure that your stories are very multifaceted and we can learn a lot from them.
Speaker 2:I'm super excited to be here. I've listened to your other episodes and my first piece of advice is make that, listen to it. It's great. It's already given me new perspectives listening to the other episodes you already posted, so they're amazing, and I wish I had this resource when I started in the workplace.
Speaker 2:As you said, I've been in multiple industries. I have always been someone who really I'm a problem solver. I studied math in college and really my goals and all of my jobs have been around working with different departments and being kind of that interdepartmental bridge. I've always been really good at being able to figure out, okay, what is it you need? What is it you need? This is what I need to do, how can we get this? And I've always been able to kind of look at the big picture, see each of the pieces and figure out, okay, where are roadblocks, where can we do better? What can you know? Where can we put more resources or hours, or problem solving too? So I've had different jobs that are variations on that theme.
Speaker 2:Project managers are probably the most similar, is what I would say, and you know, much like one of your other guests, my first industry was a very male dominated industry and not quite the ratio that she had, but yeah, 150 is wild. That was crazy, it was. I was probably more in like the 30. I mean, and there were women that worked there, but they were mostly executive assistants or, you know, finance and those kinds of things. So I was actually working with like an engineering department and my job was project-based and figuring out all sorts of things. And really my experiences run the gamut from very overt gender bias to much more subtle, and I'm sure that that's what other people are experiencing as well is all the ones in between. And you know, one of the stories that really stuck out in my mind when we talked about getting together to talk about this was from, like, the first job out of college you know, I'm fresh and the math person and figuring all this all out and I ended up, you know, moving from my original job title to working for one project manager specifically, did a number of things and then got on this project towards the end of my career in that industry and it was just one of those ones where I'd been on this project towards the end of my career in that industry and it was just one of those ones where I'd been on the project the entire time. I was very well versed. I was really the only person who'd been on the project from the ground up. Everyone else had come in and gone at various times and they gave me a new what I would say just project manager, like I reported to like a functional manager.
Speaker 2:But then on this project I talked to this guy and he was someone who had been promoted to do this project management. He was not a manager before that, he was what I would call a worker bee and I would not say he was the best manager I've ever had. It might even be very close to the bottom. He really didn't know what he was doing and he also didn't really understand the project. So he held a meeting and it was me and a couple of the other guys from my functional team that we were all working together and we're in a meeting and he's going through the specs.
Speaker 2:My job was to, you know, read the specs and kind of configure this whole thing based on what those were, all that kind of stuff. And I said, you know I was just asking questions mostly about the limitations of the items because we had to. It was a weird shape and you know, we just had to kind of go around all sorts of things, so I really needed to know more than what was in kind of the generic specs, and so I was asking questions okay, how do you want us to handle this type of thing? Blah, blah, blah. You know me, so you know that if there's a problem, I really want to know all about it. I don't want to make assumptions. I would really like to talk out all of the issues so that we can get to a solution, instead of being like, oh, I didn't think about that. It was just four or five of us in there, all men, and he turned to me and he said you need to shut up and stop asking questions.
Speaker 1:For those of you who obviously cannot see me the way my eyes just bugged out.
Speaker 2:I was truly stunned. I mean, I think my face both drained of color and turned completely red, because I was mortified and furious at the same time. And it wasn't. I mean, I can get sassy. I was not sassy. I was in my early 20s, I was trying to do this thing, I had been one of the guys the whole time, and so I shut up Like okay, so I didn't, I didn't write anything, I was just like shaking.
Speaker 2:And afterwards, you know, at the end of the meeting, he said, oh, did you have any more questions? Nope, like he said it, like that. I said nope, and I got up and I walked out and I went to my functional manager's office, marched right over there and sat down in the chair and he looked at me. He goes, okay, and he closes the door, like I don't know what my face said, but it was not good and you know, obviously that was a horrible, horrible experience. But then what happened now?
Speaker 2:By the way, I loved my manager. He was amazing and I would have said this whole time, you know, he was an ally. He really, you know, rooted for his people. I told him what happened and I said I don't care what project you put me on, I will not report to this guy anymore. I don't care what project you put me on, I will not report to this guy anymore. And he said you know, I totally, I totally understand what you're saying. That was not appropriate. I just need to let you know, though, that you could end up getting a reputation of being difficult to work with Because you were setting that boundary.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, and I remember being super stunned going, I don't understand. He told me to shut up in front of other people and you're saying that I'm going to show it's going to be, it's going to reflect that I'm difficult to work with. Yeah, and I just remember like I felt like the floor crumbled from underneath me because that's the kind of situation where you think you have support and the support is not as strong as you thought it was. You know I'm not going to say it wasn't there, you know he wasn't saying I think you're hard to work with. He was saying that other people will think this and that could make it more difficult for you going forward. And so I kind of said something like well, I don't want to work with those people and I'm like, okay, you know, like you know that I'm not. And there are people that I've worked with and I had worked here for years you know six or seven years at this point and I was like there are plenty of people that I've worked with before that know who I am.
Speaker 2:And the rest of it was that the overall lead of the project basically came in and said I do not want to lose you, I can't get rid of this guy, but you will work for me. He will not be allowed to speak to you if I'm not in the room. And I said yes because I didn't. You know, it didn't really have a lot of options, but it was just.
Speaker 2:It was so interesting to see, at the same time, a super overt example of this bias, which he'd never said to anybody else. You know, he didn't talk like this to anybody else. Then my functional manager's response of like well, now that you've said something, it can be difficult for you. And then the response of like I really want you on my team. This is how we're going to handle this. He's not even going to be allowed to speak to you if I'm not there, and that was very supportive. But it's also like more like I need a man to make sure you know what I mean, as opposed to being like maybe this guy should just get reprimanded and learn on his own.
Speaker 1:I mean yeah, I was actually gonna say that when you mentioned that. He said Well, I can't get rid of this guy, like I can't do anything about him, but here's what I can do. It reminded me in my own career of how many times I've been told something similar, whether it's because that person was too high up or had too much clout or pull with certain people or you know, what I've seen even more often is I can't do anything about him, I can't get rid of him, which really meant it would be such a hassle to have to replace him.
Speaker 1:It's too much trouble for me. Yeah, yeah, and look, as someone who's been a people manager for a long time, I do fully understand the sentiment of like, oh you know, because it's so exhausting having to deal with that process, but at the same time, when it's a matter of a person being completely mistreated and disrespected, I don't really think there's a conversation that happens outside of that. Like it's just is what it is. I also think you know you mentioned how you were really disappointed because you thought you were going to get like that support and you didn't. And it reminds me in a previous episode we talked about how you know, in school they don't train you for the personnel side, right, they just train you to do the actual work. Not saying that you can't face similar issues with other students or professors, but the focus is on, like, how to do the actual work. And it can be, I think, unless you've already had exposure to it really jarring when you get into the industry and you're like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's so much stuff that I don't know how to deal with.
Speaker 1:So I remember early on in my career I still had the rose colored glasses on. I was excited to be a designer and do all these cool things and within a couple of months of starting this job the owner would have like knockdown breakout fights with his wife, like in the office and it was quite a small office and sometimes I'd be the last person working there so I'd be the only person listening. And one time it escalated so badly that the cops came and they were like trying to get me to like each spouse was like no, you should tell the cops like from their point of view, almost like taking sides, and I will just you know, disclaimer wasn't there much longer. I immediately was just like no, but I remember telling my professor, who was still a dear mentor of mine, and I remember she was just like oh my God.
Speaker 1:And I was like you didn't train me for this. You taught me how to design beautiful packaging, but you did not teach me how to deal with spouses who are fighting in the lobby. And she was like I mean, how could you? But it just I mean that's an extreme example and the listeners will know most of my examples are extreme, but it does remind me of that, like there's just so much that you cannot be prepared for and it can be really jarring when you go into it thinking okay, I've worked really hard, I've trained really hard for this, I've earned this job, I want to prove myself. And then you're like wait, what? What are these politics and dynamics I suddenly have to navigate? Don't you just care about what?
Speaker 2:I do, and I think that you will understand this, that as well, for having been in different industries. But I think one of the things that you tell yourself when you're in those terrible situations is like, oh, this is because this is like this X industry and if I get into something that, like, I really care about, it will be totally different. You know, if I don't care about the project or if I don't care about the product and you know I get into this other industry that I really want to be in, it will be different, because you know everything will be different. I mean, I think it's just because I'm naturally naive. Apparently I don't know, but I really thought that going in and you know that is one of the things that I wanted to talk about is that you know gender bias can be certainly much more overt in specific situations like the one that I found myself in or like the one that you know you're the other person that came in and had been on 150 men confined. But because every industry is made up of people, the situations will change, but the people don't always. So you know it's really about getting on a team, like you were talking about in your first episode, getting on and being part of a team where everyone is working, they are physically making themselves, move, those next steps and be better people and ask the right questions, and then, you know, showcase that they're learning and growing and not showcase like, hey, guess what, I didn't do this thing, no, but you know, just showing like hey, thank you for letting me know about this. And then the next time they don't do it, you know.
Speaker 2:So then I moved so that I was not super long at that job after that and then I went into, I kind of fell into another industry. You know, again, just, I was looking to be in the industry that I really wanted to end up in and was having a hard time getting there. And so you know, in the meantime kind of took a job that ended up being a little bit longer than I, you know, than a temp type of thing, and that was something where I was temping and then got hired on and I was working for a woman and she was kind of a no nonsense. You know, we're going to get along great as long as you don't lie or are incompetent and I was like great, love that, love that for me. And she retired not that long after there, the company was going through, I think, a reorg and a sell and a buy and all sorts of things.
Speaker 1:So she ended up leaving Typical corporate America.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep. And then they brought in this guy and on the very on the surface he seemed super nice, super fun, more, you know, real easygoing, and he was fine. It was whatever, you know, it wasn't a job that I particularly enjoy, but it was fine, he was okay. And with that reorg there was also an office move and all this kind of stuff and I ended up taking on more and more responsibility from, like, people that had left. They didn't, you know, they didn't backfill, you know people had been there years and I ended up with three and a half people's jobs.
Speaker 2:And then they moved the office and it was like another 40 minute drive in Southern California and I was like so I went to him and I was like I react and emotions come quickly and it's really hard for me to like to have these conversations with, you know, bosses and situations where it's about money without really getting emotional. But I was like nope, I'm going to do this and I put together this whole PowerPoint. It was like here's all the jobs that I took on. This is their weekly, daily, multiple times a day, whatever. And I was like this is what was in my original job description. Here's all the things I'm doing now.
Speaker 2:And I took it to him and I was like, hey, and I was asking for a very large raise because I was really like I'm doing way too much and I'm driving too far and this is not a job.
Speaker 2:I super lip, so I'm just going to go ahead and just swing for the fences. And he looked at it and he said, oh, okay, yeah, I mean, I see that you're doing all this, but really nothing that you're doing right now has value to me. So he said I want you to do this other thing that I want to do, and if you do it for three months oh, by the way, in addition to all the things, so it wasn't like this doesn't have any value. Let's get rid of this and get you some different responsibilities. It was no, no, no, you still have to do it, I just don't care about it. And then he said if you do this other thing and you do it for three months, then maybe we can talk about like a 5% raise. And I'm just. I was just flabbergasted that he had the ability and temerity to just say like I don't have any value for what you're doing.
Speaker 1:I'm honestly speechless, like I'm trying to think of the response and I'm like I don't. I'm so dumbfounded.
Speaker 2:He's like I understand if you feel like you need to look for another job, and I was like, oh, I'm already looking. And this was someone that I thought we had a pretty good rep. And this was someone that I thought we had a pretty good rep. You know, I didn't feel like he was. You know he didn't really make super overt statements like that, but he definitely had his own agenda within the company and but I truly was like he would not have said that to a man.
Speaker 2:You know, I was definitely not long at that job, but that was really something to me that I thought like I mean I would say, luckily I had to deal with the other situation, so this wasn't the first time that something had like that had been just kind of pulled out. I mean, you know, if I had been the same age that I was at the other job and you know that was what I had after working there for a couple of years, it's like okay, you know, I really felt invalidated in a lot of ways of like am I not doing anything that's worth anything? Like it was really hard to kind of bounce back because he said it so casually.
Speaker 1:It's interesting too because I feel like a lot of women I speak to, as clients often say they are made to feel like their contributions don't really mean anything, when what I think it really boils down to in my opinion and I'm not saying this applies to every situation, but I feel like if the work you're doing isn't flashy, if it's not the work that gets the people going and gets the C-suite excited and that is like news headline worthy, then it's kind of disregarded. And yeah, a lot of that work I would guess is being done by women. And I do wonder, even though it's all not very flashy, what would happen to a lot of companies, businesses, big and small, if all that work just went away right, if nobody was doing it. And it's so interesting because I find that so much. I think women are really good at identifying the things that aren't getting done or are really good at identifying the gaps Right. And I think you know, for example, I'll use like my husband and I as an example. You know my husband's really good because he's an accountant. He's very like cut and dry, right.
Speaker 1:So when we were preparing to move into our new home, I had given him like a task. I was like okay, you write your own to-do list of what you think are the things that need to be done, and then I will do the same and we'll come back together. And his were like find a realtor, get a loan, move Right, right, get boxes. Yeah, mine was like two pages long. I had calculated, based on our square footage, the exact number of small, medium, large, extra large, extra extra large boxes we needed. I had already looked at like 12 reviews for movers. I had already contacted like eight realtors. I had already listened to an entire podcast on the home buying mortgage process and it was. I think it's not that he had done anything wrong. I just think we're always like 10 steps ahead. You know, we're like what are all the things that no one's thinking about and I need to make sure they get done. No one's thinking about and I need to make sure they get done.
Speaker 1:And it's sad in the workplace because, I won't lie to you, throughout my career I did really focus on the flashy stuff because I identified very quickly that the politics of the workplace really were centered around being noticed. And then it was my. I clued in on very quickly okay, what gets noticed? And I realized a lot of that work that didn't get noticed. I'm like, well, I don't want to do that, because I want to be rapidly promoted, I want to move up the chain. And throughout my career I often had friends who would say, like I don't understand how you're getting promoted like every other year and how you're moving up so quickly. And then I was looking at it. I'm like all my friends who weren't getting promoted regularly were women. But it wasn't that they weren't good at their job or that they weren't working hard. And I really quickly identified like, oh, I just think they're doing the work that isn't getting noticed, but that without it the company would fail Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it's interesting because, you know, once I finally got into the industry that I wanted to be in and I loved, I thought, okay, this is it, here's my ticket, ready to go, and I didn't move up. And the reason, I think, is because one, I am not good at identifying politics, like you know. You said that you figured out. Okay, these are the things that are getting noticed, these are the things I should be working on. I'm not good at that because I'm really good and I'm not saying you're not because I know you are, but I'm really good at the gaps. Oh yeah, if we don't do this, this, this, this and this are all going to fall down. This, this, this, this and this are all going to fall down. This is just a house of dominoes. I need to fix this. And so I am always in those weeds because for me, my goal has always been I'm part of a team and our goal is all the same, which is honestly, one of the problems. It's not. That's my advice to people now.
Speaker 1:That was your first incorrect detour.
Speaker 2:I think yes, that's the detour that has really held me back a lot. I have worked for people I absolutely adored working for. I have worked for people that I really struggled to work for and I've worked. You know, I've had people work for me that I, you know, learned a lot from and, you know, learned a lot about myself with. But I think one of the things that I really struggle with is that idea that we might be on the same team but in my work ethic is this If the other people's work ethic is not this, then there's going to be a disparity and the leadership is what balances that out or not, right?
Speaker 2:So if leadership comes from I'm gonna say a flashy point, right, they've worked on the flashy stuff their whole lives. They've moved up that way. That's how they got there. Now they're in charge, they've never really had to deal with the rest Then they're not gonna understand people like me, they're only gonna understand people like them. And it really takes what I think needs to be a dedicated and strong and balanced C-level to have some of that recognition, and I think that's the same, whether it's about promotions or gender bias or racial bias or any of those kinds of things. You need to have a dedicated team of equally level people that come from those different places. And if you have all people that come from oh, this guy came up from this level and this kind of flashy thing and this kind of and if you have all people at the top like that, you're going to be really struggling if you're not one of those people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and unfortunately it'll likely never happen, because it seems like we're already pulling teeth just trying to have like a diverse C-suite in corporate America, right. It seems like we're being made to feel like we're asking for a lot when we're like, hey, let's have more than one race, right, exactly. Or gasp, like, let's have people of different ethnicities or I don't know genders or sexual orientation, and it's like people are shocked, they're like what? That's the woke agenda and I'm like I just want it to reflect the company, that's all.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it would be amazing to go to somebody's C-level suite tab page, and if you switch the people's pictures around with the names, they wouldn't all be interchangeable. That would just be great, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think what something like this podcast does is if you can get a really strong middle right, if you can get you know. Obviously it's hard to change the corporate agenda. It's hard to change the C-levels. It takes a long time for that change. It's easier change for the middle management and for the people that are reporting to those C-levels and I think you can change I'm not going to say from the bottom up, but I think you can change from the middle out if people that are in the workforce are paying attention and listening and I definitely wish that my math classes they would never have done this, but I wish that there was some sort of an expectation of people management.
Speaker 2:You know in colleges or something like that that really talks to you about. You know the politics of working with different people Because you know if you started in. You know if you're in high school and you worked retail, it's going to be a very different environment than working corporate, where people are much more able to kind of. You know if you're in high school and you worked retail, it's going to be a very different environment than working corporate, where people are much more able to kind of, you know, follow their own agendas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it reminds me of you. Know, I don't know if every high school had this, I'm sure they did. But, like in my high school, we had like that class that you had to be in senior year. It was meant to be like your prep for college and everyone knew it was just like the class where you just talked with your friends, right, okay, at least in mind, at least in mind. Like he barely, he barely taught us anything. He did not care. You know, it was like the end of the day for him. He was just like we just would chill in the library. And because of that and many other reasons, college was such a shock to me, right, like we thought it was just going to be cool, we'd be on our own. Like, yeah, we would still be in school, but like we were going to party. You know, we were going to have fun.
Speaker 2:Go to class if you want. Don't go to class if you don't want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Whereas for me it was like the first time I'd ever have a job, and so I remember my first debit card. I kept going negative because I didn't know how to balance an account. I quit my very first retail job after like one week. I didn't even make it through training so I was like, nah, I don't like this. There were so many aspects of being out in the real world in college that I just wasn't prepared for that. A class could have absolutely prepared me for, and I do think college is the same Like if there should at least be a course within your program that helps you deal with like typical or standard situations that may happen in your industry.
Speaker 2:I mean, even in the workplace, when you have to go through, you know, sexual harassment, training or whatever at your workplace. All the examples that they give are like crazy edge cases from the 70s. You know, there's nothing that's like really subtle or teaches you to listen to your instinct or teaches you to, you know, speak up. In a way it's like, yeah, if that guy is saying a rape joke, then you should report him. Well duh, but what if the guy tells you to shut up in a meeting? What if the guy tells you that what you do doesn't bring value and it's your boss? Those are situations that are really what do you do? And obviously you can't do every sort of case and like a training like that, but a training that just gives you obvious edge cases is not really useful. What really is useful is you know learning to navigate the politics.
Speaker 1:You know learning about what kind of listener you are and the people around you are, and figuring out how to communicate with them yeah, I think you know a lot of those trainings too, because I know several companies do them different ways, if they do them at all. They have the online ones right, they have the in-person that comes in, et cetera. I find that, no matter how well-meaning the viewer or participant may be, a lot of it's going to just go not over your head, but it's just gonna like kind of roll through one ear and out the other, like because even I will sometimes like take the quizzes on those types of things and I'll like get the question wrong and I'm like, well, that's genuinely what I would have thought to do, right, but it's telling me it's wrong and it doesn't mean that the quiz is wrong. I mean, I'm sure there was something I learned, but when I talk to people and they ask like how can companies do better? You know, yeah, training I think is important. I'm not saying completely forego any sort of educational content. More impactful is setting a precedent, making statements like sharing company values and then demonstrating them from the top down regularly, creating a culture where people actually feel like bad behavior can be dealt with properly, where good behavior sets the tone and influences others positively, where people feel like they can be proper allies Because, for example, in your first story, when your boss told you, or your pseudo boss told you to shut up, nowadays I would have probably said something.
Speaker 1:As someone sitting in the room, I would have probably said something like hey, I don't think that's like a respectful way to speak to someone in the workplace, or whatever I mean. Obviously it changes based on hierarchy and you know whatever, but like I probably still would have said something, or at the very least I would have made a point to go up to you after and make sure you were okay, and then so you didn't have to I probably would have reported it, right, right, and because I'm sure of just the time period and like the Me Too movement likely hadn't happened yet, nope, I think at that time I probably would have froze as being someone in the room and would have just let it happen to you and probably wouldn't have said anything and would have just assumed, like that, it is how it is. And so I think, even though the word accountability really stresses people out although I find it newsflash, only stresses out people who tend to be the ones- who don't have it held accountable.
Speaker 1:Right, because if you don't have anything to be held accountable for, you really shouldn't be that nervous about it. But I just think holding people accountable is so critical and I think that there's a way to do it that doesn't have to feel like a witch hunt. But you know, it's just, for example, like when I in my first episode talked about writing that personal essay and how I had chosen not to mention any names of the people who had been problematic. It's because my goal really wasn't to do a witch hunt and, like get them all in trouble. My goal was more of like can we just start having this conversation and work to improve it?
Speaker 1:And I think if people realized and companies did it the right way of let's say, something happens, someone says something, something inappropriate happens. There's a set way that the company deals with it that allows that person to learn from it. Right, unless it's egregious, but like it doesn't mean you're going to automatically lose your job, as long as you're willing to learn from what you said or did or improve the behavior and take accountability with the person you wronged. Like that kind of culture, I think could really cultivate actual change, and I do see a lot of companies really trying hard. I also see a lot of companies who don't. Right, they will put out a blanket statement of like we don't tolerate blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but then when people report it, they're like but we can't lose them. So it can be really hit or miss, but I think that's what's incredibly important. When companies want to do this, I'm like stop with the online trainings and certifications and actually set a precedent of what will and will not be tolerated and then actually stick to it every single day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know, I think that this guy would not even remember this incident at all, but it has stuck in my mind since very early on in my career. And you know, like you said, if I had been in the room and he had said that to somebody else, I don't know if I would have had the courage to say something at that moment, but I know now that I would probably have, you know, written it as a note and probably talk to the person afterwards and then maybe even said do you want me to come with you to your manager to report that? Just to showcase like, hey, there are people in the room that recognize that it's not okay and this is not okay behavior. And I think that it's those conversations that people aren't used to having and so, to avoid embarrassment or to avoid possibly saying the wrong thing, they just don't have them and it's like that's also a choice. That's the same as saying the wrong thing really is not saying anything, because you're making a choice to not say you know, and whatever you do afterwards, however you handle it like I get it Like there's, you know, sometimes you're in a space where you're not ready to do those kinds of things. But as companies, we still need to have the conversations and as groups, you need to have the conversations. And I think that you know, one of the things that I feel like may be a bit of an unintended side effect of gender bias and racial bias is that bad management is allowed to flourish more than it should, and that makes it really hard for people who are experiencing that bad management and it makes you feel sometimes like you're in a silo, like okay, this guy said this to me. Did I do something wrong? You know? And I think that you know, and you were saying like back to our early point about it being the flashy thing.
Speaker 2:I think another thing that women are inherently told more often than men or inherently shown more often than men, is that don't brag about what you're doing. Like, just get this stuff done, you know, and I think that's also part of it, right? So the flashy stuff like men are very good at being like yep, I did this. Great, look at me, I'm so amazing. And it's like, yeah, good, good for you, you know what Women need. To be much better at that. We do. I mean, I think I saw some sort of a statistic or I read something that was like on LinkedIn a woman won't apply for a job if she doesn't have at least eight of the 10 criteria, and men will do it at like two or three. Like it's really incredible and I think that that showcases the mindset from the get-go of how, because even now I still see myself, I'll look at jobs and I'll be like, yeah, I don't think I could apply for that because I don't, I only have this and this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like when I first read that stat, I also was thinking back on my entire career and how many times I would not apply because there was like one thing that I didn't have, whereas I've seen so many men hired that I'm like what? Who did they pay to get this job?
Speaker 2:When we had to hire and I was looking at resumes. I'm like nothing on this resume lines up to anything we've asked for. Yeah, you know and I mean obviously I didn't read all. You know there's the HR department and recruiters. God bless them for reading a lot more resumes than I ever had to. But even some of the ones that got through, I was like this person does not seem qualified and you know, most of the time when it felt really weird that they were applying for this job that did not seem like they had any sort of link to it was a man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, once in my career we were hiring and I literally put line number one of like expectations. I said this blank skill is mandatory. If you don't have experience with that, I won't even. It's literally the most critical thing of this job, and mandatory was in all caps. Every single woman that applied had that experience. I probably had at least five men apply that didn't have that experience and I'm just like it was literally the first line. So either and I believe both scenarios, but I'm like either you read it, you were like once they can learn they'll realize.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they'll realize how great I am I'm still going to apply or you just didn't read it, which is almost as bad. Yeah, I absolutely know what you mean, but it doesn't surprise me. I think something I learned really early on is the importance of having a personal brand, and I think that that was a big reason why I was able to move up in my career as quickly as I did my reputation in my career and how can I cultivate this right, like I don't think personal brands were even big in terminology yet and influencers weren't big yet, but I would almost look at similar to how influencers kind of look at their careers of like okay, I need to be very aware of how I am perceived at all times, both on a professional level, a personal level, a work level, every single aspect of what I do and how I present myself in the workplace, and I want to be 100% in control of that narrative. And cultivate is the perfect word, because that is what I felt like I was doing.
Speaker 1:I was cultivating a personal brand and I think that made a huge difference, because I could tell it was a game and I learned how to play the game. I got the equipment and I went in and I kept winning and I think that and maybe this is controversial, but I feel like a lot of men just go into the game having never played the sport and don't even have the equipment and they'll probably still do okay, whereas a lot of women, they don't even like pick up the racket right, they're just like no, I just want to do a good job. I don't want to have to deal with any of that, but the truth is you have a personal brand, whether you're trying to play the game or not. Right, and that's the hard part is that like, even if you feel like you're not playing the game and you just want to do a good job, you still have a reputation. You still have a personal brand.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think that's me. That scenario that you're describing is me. I went in and I was like no, no, no, the rules are the same for everybody. No, we're all playing different games in the same game. And I think what happened to me is that and much like I think your first guest was talking about, she was too passionate.
Speaker 2:When I care about something, I am very passionate about it. I do, you know, and even if I don't care about something, I want to do it right, I want to do it well. And I think for me, I never really understood that personal brand aspect. And then what happened is, if something happened, you know the scenario where I may have gotten emotional or something like that, something where people would have gotten like a negative spin. It was then harder for me to come back out of that, because now that was part of my brand and I didn't realize it.
Speaker 2:I just thought, no, no, no, they'll see how good of a job I'm doing and recognize for it, and that's unfortunately not really the case. It is for some people and it isn't for a lot of people, but you're right, men will be like, oh cool, it's a racket, I'm just going to pick up and swing it like whatever. But I think women in general are held to higher standards than men, so it's much harder for them to just say they can't just say whatever, they have to cultivate. You're right, they have to cultivate. They have to understand that really they're on every moment that they're dealing with work people.
Speaker 2:And that was the hardest lesson for me to truly take in. I felt like I understood it and didn't take it in because I felt like oh no, no, no, these people are my friends and they were. I'm not saying they weren't, but in a workplace we're all in the game. So they are going to have to do what they have to do, no shade, and I have to do what I have to do. And if I can't reconcile those things, if I can't understand that, I'm on. You know, whatever we do outside, if they're work people, you know it's not necessarily 100% that you can trust.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's some that you can more than others, but I've definitely been burned by that, where I thought people were more my friend at work than I realized and then they would like repeat things I had said that honestly. I shouldn't have been saying this was like early in my career.
Speaker 2:But you know, I do think we're young and dumb.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, but it was a hard lesson of okay. At the end of the day, no matter how much you care for these people while you're working with them, you need to be very careful. I think it can be different if one of both of you have left the company, but it can be quite challenging, and I'm not saying there aren't exceptions to this. I know plenty of people who are like truly best friends with people at work, but I think generally it's just really important to be cautious. And you know, I do want to just call out with everything we just said. I don't think either one of us is at all implying to anyone who's listening that you have to, like, harden yourself or change who you are, because you're always having to be on and you're always having to play the game. I think that you are more than capable of being yourself, being your own personality, having your own definitions of what success looks like for you in that role, do you want to just be a person who clocks in and clocks out? Do you want to be a person who's hustling up the ladder? I think there's room for all of that, as long as you recognize that it's critical that you are the one cultivating how you are perceived. Just know that you're always being viewed. You mentioned you're always on when you're around work people. I would almost argue too that you're on outside of that too, because you've got social media. You've got, for example, if there's a working mom and she's occasionally late because school drop off is late, well she may not be around work people or in the office, but there are people who will likely judge her for that right. So I just think it's important to recognize that, while you cannot control the people around you, you cannot control how your company deals with and or handles these kinds of situations or what kind of culture they are creating and allowing that, at the very least you can control your narrative and whatever you want that to look like. But also, it's okay if how you perceive yourself right now doesn't match how others perceive you at work Like, you can always change it. You can always modify it. You're not stuck in whatever.
Speaker 1:Because, for example, there was a woman who reported to me a long time ago and she was like a powerhouse talent. She had so many great ideas and she was very shy. She would never speak up. She would kind of let people walk all over her, sometimes without even realizing it, because she was just so freaking friendly, you know. And I came in and was just like, nope, absolutely not. We're not going to let that happen.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't that I wanted her to be more like me, wasn't the case at all. I just wanted her to have more confidence in her skills and what she brought to the table and be willing to talk to it. Because I would regularly say you should mention that idea and she'd be like ah, it's probably a bad idea, no one will like it. I'm like, but you don't know that. And so I've kind of walked her through how she was coming across and it was such a sad, emotional conversation because she was just like.
Speaker 1:I never knew that. I just thought everyone thought I was friendly. I'm like, everyone does think you're friendly. And she was like, and I thought everyone really valued my ideas and I said I think they do, but I don't think they know how many great ideas you have, right, because you're always afraid to share them. And I think once I helped her understand the importance of choosing your own narrative, then it was like she could flourish, being that super bubbly, friendly personality and not changing who she was, but bringing her full self to the table. And women, you have permission to bring your full self to the table. You don't have to change who you are to fit in at work. At the end of the day, it's just a job Like. They don't get to change your life or dictate who you are.
Speaker 2:Right and to that end, there's also room for all of us at that table. So you know, if there's a person who is having a harder time getting their thoughts out because they're shy or they don't want to come across in a certain way, and you are someone that recognizes that, as someone who can be more assertive, you can also clear the way for them to come to their ideas and be like hey, we didn't talk to you about this, what do you think? Because we've had some other ideas Like what do you think?
Speaker 1:Do you like these ideas? Do you have something else? You know you can also clear that space for them too. Oh, I used to put this person on the spot in group meetings and I used to say, actually I know for a fact so-and-so has a really great idea that would work well for this. And they'd always look at me just like, do you're in the headlights? Like how could you do this to me? But then afterwards they were like, oh, everyone loved my idea. I'm like, yeah, I know because you're great.
Speaker 2:One of the struggles I had is that someone who was in a position to be getting things done, that you know other ideas, people's ideas came to the fore. It's like all right, it's my job to get them done. I had to learn to stop and be like okay, let's hear the whole idea, like you know, because I'm automatically going to go okay, these are the challenges that we're going to run into. That doesn't mean no, for me that means how do we want to get around them? But I know that it can shut people down. So my job then was to be like okay, that's a great idea. Let's look at you know, just come back. You know, don't come back right away, because that does shut those kinds of people down, and I think you know.
Speaker 2:I also want to bring up that it sounds like I was saying like you know, you can't really trust the people at work, and that's not true. You know, to your point, you absolutely can. I think what I was trying to say is that you have to understand that when you say something to somebody, whether they're your friend at work or whether they're an acquaintance at work or whatever, that you might be putting them into a situation that would be hard for them if they had to repeat it or if they heard something else. So that's what I mean more by being on is like just recognize that the people that you're with and that you're friends with and that your acquaintances with are also in circumstances that you are not. And so, whatever you're going to say or do you know, make sure that you feel like for me it would be like make sure you feel like you can back it up if someone comes back to you and says hey, I heard this. And also recognize that whenever you're telling somebody something, you're giving them a trust and you don't know what they're going to have to do with it, what they're going to be forced to do with it, what they will do with it. You don't know what their circumstances are.
Speaker 2:So I think that's also what I wanted to stress is that you can be yourself. You're saying you're building this brand, this person, but just recognize that what you say to other people puts them in a different circumstance, whether that's how they see you or how they have to deal with something, or if they have another piece of information that it's like oh, uh-oh, I've made this connection now, so I too, don't want to be like you can't trust anyone you work with, because I have so many people that I've worked with that I've said stupid stuff to that. I'm like, uh, I shouldn't have said that and that's a learning lesson for me. But some of it has come back to me and some of it has not, and that's okay, like that's why we all learn things. But just realize that what you do does affect other people too, and how they have to interact with others.
Speaker 1:That's a perfect way to end it is. I'm so thankful that you came on and shared so many valuable lessons. It has been an amazing conversation, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I have really loved it. I've loved listening to the podcast so far and I feel so grateful that I'm able to be a part of it, because I think this is going to do something really wonderful for every person out there that's going to be listening.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for being part of this week's conversation. For more information and additional resources, be sure to visit rachelampalacom slash podcast for the complete show notes. And you know the drill make sure to subscribe, leave a review and, if you love the podcast, make sure to share it with another working woman in your life. You never know who could use the support. Thank you again for spending this time with me, rachel Impala, in this episode of Working Girl. Until next time, keep breaking barriers, shattering stereotypes and redefining success on your own terms. I'll see you soon.
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