Don’t be a bitch
It is exceptionally easy to be labeled a bitch at work. All you need to do is be assertive or have your own ambitions and BOOM #uabitch. You may not care if people think you’re a bitch but unfortunately, once you get the label it’s much easier for colleagues to ostracize you and devalue your work. If you don’t want to be the office bitch the logical fix is to go in the other direction. Act really nice (even if you’re not) and then people will like and respect you. But guess what? That won’t work either because then you run the risk of being too nice. And when you are too nice, and do things to help everyone around you suddenly you are the office Mom, a particularly interesting trope. I think it’s safe to say that most of the people we work with had a Mom or some sort of Mother-figure at some point, yet it would seem they don’t respect her enough to want to work with (some version) of her.
What’s crazy to me is that this was first noted in 1977. Dr. Rosabeth Moss Cantor wrote that women are seen as the default housewives and mothers of the corporate world. Gross. But fast-forward to today and not much has changed. Women still do the majority of the office “housework. ” This includes any person-oriented task that isn’t directly related to your actual job. There are the more obvious things like buying presents on behalf of everyone else, picking up/making coffee, bringing in treats, or cleaning up the communal space. But there are other tasks like taking notes, scheduling meetings, filling out forms, or mentoring that aren’t a function of your job and happen to fall to you because you are “so organized” which is just code for “a woman.” One of the reasons this is especially frustrating is that many of us either don’t mind doing these things or take on the task because we want to make sure that box is checked. A lot of this is incredibly subtle and it’s really difficult to recognize as problematic particularly when we’ve learned to accept it in basically every arena of our lives. Additionally, women (generally speaking) have the instinct to “tend and befriend” and this plays out at work in a variety of ways. Much like fight or flight, tending and befriending is a response to stress.
Tending involves nurturant activities designed to protect the self and offspring that promote safety and reduce distress; befriending is the creation and maintenance of social networks that may aid in this process. [The biobehavioral mechanism that underlies the tend and befriend pattern appears to draw heavily on the attachment/caregiving system, and considerable neuroendocrine evidence from animal and human studies suggests that oxytocin, in conjunction with female reproductive hormones and endogenous opioid peptide mechanisms, may be at its core].
When we spend our time doing these things we do not get credit for them because our altruistic behavior is (thought to be) just part of what women do. That makes it seem inconsequential, gets us nowhere and our male counterparts actually reap the benefits of our work. And speaking of the men, when they do these types of tasks they are rewarded and praised because office housework is clearly beyond their job descriptions. A smart lady might think to herself, “Noted, I will not be the Office Mom.” Turns out that is also problematic. When women don’t pitch in to help with tasks thought of as “office housework” we are seen to be violating those pesky gender roles. I believe that is called a lose/lose. We are literally wired to engage in these behaviors but when we follow these instincts we are punished and deemed to be “too helpful” to be taken seriously. YIKES!
So what the hell do we* do? The most obvious option is to just say no. Unfortunately, we all know that is easier said than done so it’s something we end up tightroping. There are small things we can try to start. Instead of agreeing to take the meeting notes, say that you would prefer to be active in the discussion (or something like that) and then (helpfully!) suggest someone else in your place. Don’t bring in treats or make the coffee or offer to get that condolence card. Basically, ask yourself: would [insert name of any guy from your office] do this? And if the answer is no: then move along, pretty lady! If you just absolutely can’t say no to these tasks for whatever reason, keep track of the time you spend doing them and include that in your annual review discussion. That way you have a record of all the time you spent doing shit that wasn’t your job!
Don’t be the office Mom, and don’t just be a bitch. Be the HBIC 👑
*I hate that we have to help solve this problem that we didn’t create
Circling back to quiet quitting
After I wrote about quiet quitting (a term that I still despise) I kept talking about it more with friends and colleagues. A thought provoking comment on my post and an intellectually stimulating conversation at Dave and Buster’s (a sentence that has likely never before been uttered) made me realize that I didn’t really address the organization's responsibility for this trend. My (made up) estimate is that it’s about 85% the organization’s fault. Leaders and managers are ignoring the signs of burnout all around them which is crazy because 72% of employees say stress or burnout is an issue for their organization. They are also failing to recognize that their employees are PEOPLE. Actual human beings with needs and desires beyond their jobs. Sadly, this is not new, it has merely been brought to the forefront by the pandemic. Companies have been mistreating employees in a variety of ways for long enough that many laws are on the books to protect employees. Are they working? That’s a post for a different day…
Much of the employee protection legislation deals with physical safety and non-discrimination but that’s not what quiet quitting is about. This phenomenon is driven by the overwhelming mental burdens being placed on employees. American workers are some of the most stressed on the planet. The combination of the lingering uncertainty of coronavirus and being asked to do more with less has brought many to their breaking points. For some the answer to this untenable situation was to quit. The Great Resignation saw millions exit the workforce (for a variety of reasons). Perhaps quiet quitting is just the next best option; it allows employees to reclaim some of their time and still get paid. But it’s not an actual solution to the problem. It’s like taking two Advil the morning after drinking four Mai-tais in the Maui sun. Theoretically it should make you feel a bit better but if you really wanted to feel better you should have not had so many Mai-tais, taken Advil before bed, and drank some water.*
The actual problem is much larger, it’s the organization's culture (or the sugary Mai-tais). It’s also the pressure from up the chain attempting to drive performance without much thought to the resources provided or the impacts on their employees. This disengagement from the humanity of employees just isn’t going to work anymore. If companies want to attract and retain talent they have to do better. McKinsey & Company just put out a great report on what they are calling the The Great Renegotiation. Companies have to understand that employees have more options now and better organizational cultures attract and retain the best people.
Creating a good culture doesn’t just happen. Leaders have to be purposeful in considering what will work and how to implement it. A great place to start is by taking a look at what is done to show employees that they are valued. How are managers truly acknowledging the work of their employees and their contributions to the company? If the answer is a shoulder shrug there is work to be done. Showing employees they are valued doesn't take a huge investment, it’s a combination of a lot of little things. There is so much research about how to motivate employees and some of the things are so easy and make a big difference. Remembering that employees are people is key. They want to be seen, to have their opinions heard, and to know that their work is appreciated.
Please know I am not saying that a hearty “thank you” or free bagels are going to eliminate quiet quitting. Thanking people visibly and loudly for the work they do is a start, but there needs to be specific attempts to lessen employee workloads. Here are some things I think will work:
Make a plan to remove some of the extra work from their plate so they see light at the end of the tunnel
Run interference when other employees try to delegate to already overworked members of your team.
Advocate for compensation that aligns with what people are actually doing, not just what is in their job description.
Organizations are run by people. We need them to do better on this so we can move on to the next catchy yet annoying workplace fad!
*This is definitely a made-up situation (no it’s not) #mauifever
Persevering down the rabbit hole
Graduate school teaches you a lot. One of the things you learn is that we really don’t have any new ideas. Every great thing we think we came up with someone else already said/wrote/did. It can be really disheartening to think you have a brilliant idea only to realize there is already research on the same thing from forty years ago. When this happens you have to get to the original source and find out if they really said what you are trying to or if there are ways to expand the idea in some way. Sources and citations are key in research for better or worse. They are our currency. The impact/importance of our work is often considered in terms of how many other authors cite you.* Not giving credit to someone via citation in a paper is plagiarism. That is bad. As a Professor of Business Ethics I do not want to be the person who didn’t properly cite someone (#unethical).
When I started working on tightroping I did my research. I looked at Google Scholar, I tried every key word similar to tightroping and I didn’t find anything. I looked at social psychology and sociology as well to see what those researchers were up to and I decided that I was on to something. Yes, there are other concepts that make up part of tightroping (i.e., impression management) but they are not the whole story. So off I went!
About sixteen months into my research and writing I was reading an awesome book called Delusions of Gender (2010). And there on page 58 I saw this written: This catch-22 positions women who seek management roles on a “tightrope of impression management.” This sentence took me to a citation that says this: A phrase (tightrope of impression management) coined by Janet Holmes, author of Gendered Talk (2006), cited by Cameron, 2007, p. 141.
As you can see from my thoughtful margin notes this threw me for a loop.
From the way this is written, it seems like this is a phrase people know. How did I miss it? “Coined by” makes me think this is something people say often!!! Was I stealing some other woman’s idea? Had I heard it and (accidentally) just repackaged it? Am I an idiot? Should I stop writing about tightroping? This was all followed by a flurry of texts to friends, a little bit of crying, some Scotch, and trash television to get it together.
I needed to find the Holmes citation to see what she was talking about. So I looked up the book and saw that Dr. Holmes was a sociolinguist (I am not) so I felt better about not bumping into this phrase. I also saw that the complete title of her book was Gendered Talk at Work: Constructing Social Identity Through Workplace Discourse. That’s a wobbly start. This told me that it was likely that Fine cited Cameron who cited Holmes and Fine may not have read the original quote. Still with me? Ok. No big deal so now that I had the Holmes book, I will see where she COINED this phrase. But guess what? She didn’t. On page 35 Holmes said: Joanna Brewis cites research on senior women who trod a tightrope of impression management. I looked up that citation in the index and found that, Dr. Joanna Brewis (Professor of People and Organizations), wrote: Telling it like it is? Gender, language and Organizations theory. This is a chapter in a book titled The Language of Organization (2001). By some miracle our library had an e-copy of this book. There, on page 299, Brewis said: Sheppard makes reference to the fact that her women managers had to be careful to tread a ‘tightrope” of impression management.
At this point I believe I literally lost just a bit of my mind. WHO IS SHEPPARD????
Off to Brewis’ bibliography where I found that Sheppard was a sociologist in Canada. She wrote a chapter titled Organizations, Power and Sexuality: The Image and Self-Image of Women Managers that appeared in a book from 1989 titled The Sexuality of Organization. I had to request an actual physical copy of this book from the library, wait for a human to find it, and then go to the library to pick it up. Like the olden days. Now, with The Sexuality of Organization in my grubby little mitts, I started reading her chapter. On page 145 this phrase appears: They (women) live in the spotlight, highly visible, and they are very much alone up there on the corporate tightrope. CORPORATE TIGHTROPE! Wait, WHAT??? After several long, slow, deep breaths, I checked to make sure Sheppard didn't cite anyone. She didn’t. I had come to the end of the citation rabbit hole. And what did I learn?
No phrase was “coined”
Sheppard is not using “tightrope” in the way other citations say she is
There is no direct mention of impression management
People don’t read the things they cite
I wasn’t stealing some other woman’s idea
The library pick up desk is on the ground floor
Academia is maddening (I knew that this was just a reminder)
If you made it to the end of this harrowing tale you, my friend, have perseverance. It has a lot of different names: grit, determination, moxie (that is a fun one!!), tenacity, stamina and it is absolutely vital to achieving your goals. When this is how you operate, you muscle through even when things suck. The initial research on grit indicated that it was the key element to success, but new studies show that you also need passion about what you are doing to truly get you through the muck. That makes sense to me. I always say I don’t have my PhD because I am a some genius, I have it because I am determined. Even when I was wallowing in statistics-related self-doubt I was writing a dissertation I believed in and that drove me to keep going. That little dash of passion definitely helped.
If you are thinking that this just isn’t something you have, it turns out you can work on it. Perseverance is a skill. There are some specific things you can do to develop your perseverance over time and part of making these changes is a growth mindset. If you aren’t currently feeling the growth mindset and don’t want to persevere through any of these readings, let me offer you Dr. Duckworth’s TED talk. Baby steps count on the road to developing this skill!
Now that I have confirmed no ideas were stolen, I am going to keep writing about tightroping. I made it a verb and filed my trademark application. This website is the initial citation and I coined the term. I hope it becomes popular enough to get mis-cited.
*If you ever use Scholar.Google for research look @ the citation count of a paper. That is usually an indication of the degree to which other researchers find it valid and useful. Alternatively, the count is high because this researcher is already “academic famous” and everyone cites them without actually reading what they wrote.
Why leaning in is trash
Writing about quiet quitting the other day made me think about “leaning in” because it feels like the exact opposite. Leaning in was a huge deal a few years ago and is all about women looking for new and more opportunities as a work. Sheryl Sandberg popularized the idea with her book of the same title which came from her TED talk. Leanin.org offers “circles” women can join, resources, research, and articles. All great stuff! There are some suggestions in the book that I particularly like*:
1. Sit at the table. Rather than being on the periphery (literally or figuratively) we (women) need to pull up a chair and make our presence known.
2. Don’t leave before you leave. Don’t pass up opportunities because you think your life may change. She gives the example of pregnancy and women who have passed up promotions because they are trying to get pregnant. Basically that will take at least 8-9 months (likely longer) and other people are advancing while you stagnate waiting for something to happen.
Awesome advice from the (former) COO of Facebook.** Here’s the thing though. Sheryl was writing for a very specific audience (crucial if you want to get a book deal which I very much do) but her book was touted as if it was a game changer for all working women. I wish! I wish that book existed (and that I wrote it), but it doesn’t and it won’t. Every woman faces unique challenges for a multitude of reasons (#intersectionality) so leaning in was never going to be the solution.
A brief summary of the life of Sheryl Sandberg:
Her dad was a doctor (ophthalmologist), her mom taught college french
She was a National Honor Society member in high school
Her undergraduate is from Harvard and she was the top graduating student in economics (that is exceptionally impressive!). She made connections with faculty there that allowed her to work at the World Bank.
She earned an MBA from Harvard with highest distinction (that is very bad ass)
Sheryl is highly educated, white, wealthy (her reported net worth is $1.5 billion. With a B.), straight, married, and well-connected. There is no doubt that she is an exceptional and brilliant woman but she is NOT the norm. Many, many women do not have the advantages she had from birth so her advice sometimes goes off the rails a bit for regular ladies. For example she addresses the important issue of partners stepping up and fully taking on ½ of the responsibilities of a parent and member of a household. Great. They should, but there are a lot of single moms out there with zero help. Added bonus, even women with partners can’t allow themselves the opportunity to lean in when childcare is insanely expensive, not readily available, and women continue to be the “default” parent when something goes wrong. And these are only the starting point of the issues being faced by working women.
This all makes me want to scream. Our systems are broken. We need support for women in so many ways but suggesting we do more is definitely not the answer (BTW there is a book titled Lean Out and it’s great!) but neither is quiet quitting. We need some sort of happy medium. I’m hoping tightroping can be part of it.
*There are other suggestions that are good but a little obvious. “Work hard” being one of them. No shit, Sheryl.
**Please note this book was published at a time when we didn’t all understand the depths of Zuckerberg’s terribleness
Free to be
This tightroping idea has been in my brain for a while now. I like the word. I like the concept and women know EXACTLY what I am talking about when I say it. But so what?
“So what?” was the question my PhD advisor would ask (after a painfully long pause) any time I told him a new idea I had for a project. It seems like such an innocuous question and yet it can totally destroy your day and your confidence.
I sat down the other day and started thinking about my “so what” and realized I have several. Today I want to talk about this one: I’m a Mom. In case you are wondering, I am 100% one of those annoying Moms who will show you pictures of her kid that you did not request to see. He is adorable. That is a fact. One of the (many) jobs I have as a Mom (as far as I am concerned) is to instill confidence in my kid. I want to make sure that he is comfortable in his own skin as he moves through the world and that the opinions of others don’t affect him. This is not easy. Have you hung out with any kids under 10 lately? They are savage with their opinions, disheveled, and generally terrible.*
We are trying to develop his confidence by creating an emotionally healthy home that offers psychological safety. Having long talks about how and why all people are different. Validating his feelings. Playing songs with important messages. And reading books that highlight all the great things that result from just being yourself.
The current favorite song is W.I.T.C.H. by Devon Cole. You haven’t lived until your 6-year old is singing “she’s a woman in total control of herself” while doing his chores.
If you are rolling your eyes I GET IT. Before I had a kid I would have made fun of me. But these little maniacs make you just want to protect them. Unfortunately, at some point he has to leave the house and interact with people that aren’t his loving, accepting, delightful parents and friends. That is when I hope that all of those talks, and stories, and hugs are enough to make him not compromise himself or dull his shine for others.
But GUESS WHAT??? I was doing the exact opposite in my own damn life. At home I was preaching the Free to be You and Me gospel but out in the world I was dulling my own shine. My words hold zero legitimacy if I am not applying them to myself so I decided I needed to make a change. I needed to cultivate the confidence of a six-year old dancing to his favorite Lady Gaga song in the living room.
To clarify, I don’t lack confidence in a general sense. I claim my accomplishments and think I am generally kicking ass at life but there is room for improvement. I realized that I was holding parts of myself back at work. I was reluctant to speak up In certain circles because I didn’t want to come off as “pushy.” I was unwilling to contradict some colleagues for fear of repercussions. I didn’t wear the nose hoop piercing that I love for fear it would look unprofessional. I let the inappropriate comments go. All of this was me sacrificing part of myself and letting the (potential) opinions of others determine my behavior.
That’s a hard pass from here on out. Me tightroping all of those behaviors and thoughts wasted my time, my brain power, and compromised the true expressions of my opinions which might have helped other women at work. I’m sure I will still tightrope things from time to time but when I catch myself I course-correct. Now I proof-read emails for errors not to check my “tone.” My nose hoop is in and I am committed to dismounting the tightrope at work. Watch out, I’m a W.I.T.C.H. 🪄
*I said what I said
A tribute to the G.O.A.T
Serena Williams is the epitome of a powerful woman. She owns her talent, strength, and opinions. In short-she is an icon. Last month she talked about the U.S. Open being her final tournament. Yesterday was the second round of the U.S. Open. Serena, currently ranked 605 in the women’s singles standing, beat Anna Kontaveit, the player ranked second. That in itself is impressive as is the fact that Serena is 14 years older than Anna. 40 year old bodies do not move and work like 26 year old bodies…
But here’s what I think is even more significant. Serena returned to tennis time and time again when people counted her out.* She came back from injuries, mental health struggles, and having a child. I can’t pretend to know what it is like to get back in Grand Slam shape after any of these issues.
I do think it’s important to acknowledge my own illustrious tennis career. As a high school freshman I played third singles. In theory that was because I was the third best player on the team. In reality it was because the team just started that year and there were about five players total. My sophomore year I was “demoted” to the first doubles team. I am not a team player. I do not trust people to do things the way I do. I have control issues. I am working on them in therapy. So we had a doubles team consisting of one player who wasn’t happy to have to be a teammate and another who thought she was too good for doubles. It wasn’t good. We didn’t work together. We didn’t like each other. And then one day she didn’t run for any shots and I threatened to hit her in the head with my racquet. I was demoted to third singles. We were terrible. I switched to track the next year and that is a story for another day (#longjump). The end.
In her on-court interview after the match yesterday there was a moment that was spectacular. Here’s how it went:
Interviewer: Are you surprised at yourself with your level (of play)?
Serena: Literally CHUCKLES
Interviewer (apparently just realizing who she’s talking to-the damn G.O.A.T.): No. I know.
Serena: I’m mean, I’m just Serena, you know.
Just Serena. Just the greatest tennis player (and maybe athlete) of all time. Just a barrier breaking, African American woman who is a role model to millions of women and girls. Just a player who rocked a catsuit in protest of gendered dress codes in tennis. Legendary. Her comment in that interview is a lesson to us all. We can’t be shy about owning our accomplishments, ladies! Serena knows she is good. It’s not a fluke. It’s because she works hard. We do too. We have to own our accomplishments (this isn’t bragging!) because if we don’t someone else will take credit for our amazing work.
Here are some tips on how to claim credit without being insufferable. If you still aren’t ready to toot your own horn, have someone else do it for you. Maybe even get together with a few women and decide to form a group (coven?) where you purposely highlight each other’s work. Don’t fly under the radar. Be like Serena. Be the G.O.A.T. in your office!
*Let’s be honest, people were counting her and Venus out for years. Until they started kicking everyone’s asses.
Quiet quitting is stupid
I don’t know how some stuff catches on but I think this whole “quiet quitting” thing is truly dumb. First, it’s not actually about quitting. Anyone who is quiet quitting is keeping their jobs and basically shifting their approach to work. The idea is that, rather than spending your time going above and beyond at your job, you simply fulfill your required duties. This is not revolutionary and I would argue it is merely repackaged work-life balance. I would also argue that work like balance is an absolute joke and doesn’t exist but that is a rant for another time. The quiet quitters out there are shutting their computers off at 5pm and heading home for some self-care.* They are focused on work fitting into their lives and not the other way around. Don’t get me wrong, none of this is bad but it also isn’t a as exciting as TikTok would lead us to believe.
We are all trying to reclaim (i.e. desperately CLAW back) some of our personal time. While working at home during Covid, the line between work and home completely disappeared and now that many of us are back in the office the shift is jarring. No more folding laundry during meetings or middle of the day Hot Girl Walks. Instead people have to readjust to being back at their desks for many hours and day and the idea of staying late or working at home in the evening is no longer appealing. But was it ever? I have never encountered anyone who adores working long hours at the expense of personal time.
Where I really struggle with quiet quitting is that someone has to pick up the slack. Yes, it is an organizational issue when employees are tasked with more than their fair share of responsibility for things beyond their job description but it all needs to get done. If you work as part of a team and opt to quiet quit (but don’t say anything, you know, because it’s “quiet”) that extra work is likely getting foisted on them. Some people may simply not care but, as I have said before, we work with other HUMANS and they would also likely enjoy reclaiming a bit more of their time as well.
Maybe one good thing that will come of this is a realization by leaders in organizations that the boundaries between work and home need to be reestablished. That’s tricky territory considering the many ways Covid completely transformed the way we work but it is possible. Maybe start by looking at our European friends. They are implementing the four-day work week with great results. Employees are happier and more productive. Their overall mental health is improving and they have extra time for laundry and Hot Girl Walks. Sounds like a win-win to me.
*Unless they have kids in which case they are heading home to be bossed around and to cook pasta for the thousandth time.
Sabbatical blogger?
In about two weeks, my sabbatical starts. If you don’t hang out with professors this concept is likely completely bananas to you. Even if you do hang out with us it’s still kind of nuts. Every seven years I can take one semester (full pay) or a whole year off (1/2 pay and impossible to do with SD mortgages) from teaching to do something. That something is pretty loosey-goosey. Some professors move abroad, others create new courses or work on a time-consuming project. I got pregnant on my first sabbatical so it was productive (because I made a human) but not in an academic sense (because I felt like trash most of the time). This time I am going to write (and absolutely not get pregnant).
Unfortunately, graduate school only trained me how to do one kind of writing- the kind that leads to publications in academic journals. Have you ever read an academic journal article? No? Well let me remedy that! Here is a link to my latest peer-reviewed academic article. I’ll wait…
On a scale from 1-10 how dry would you rate the content of that article? Over a 7? Wrong! That’s a pretty sexy little article. We* threw in some current events, brought up Chick-fil-A’s political leanings (#bigotchicken), and explained where companies can go wrong with their corporate social responsibility efforts. That is all very exciting in academic terms but that’s not what I want to write.
I want to write funny, snarky things that people like and that are useful. I want to write the kind of stuff that makes you accidentally snort and then have to pretend it was a sneeze so you don’t look bonkers in public. I want to write the kind of stuff that women take a screenshot of and text to their friends because they find it so relevant. Only problem is that I am not entirely sure how to do that kind of writing. So I’m going start here and see what happens.
*please note my co-authors Ed and Tej are amazing scholars and delightful gentlemen to boot! They put up with my shenanigans and allow me to make asinine comments in our shared docs and I appreciate that.