And I still pine for role models...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! I'M SO FUCKING FRUSTRATED!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't scream and pound the table in my office, so the blog gets the brunt of it.

Just had a rather interesting experience. As I've mentioned, being an employee of B---- has its perks; among them, Book Clubs! And if you join a book club, you get the book free! So I joined the book club "Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office", which I've wanted to read for some time. The book is sitting on my desk right now--and it's hard to not read it at work when I'm alone. :)

And because I joined this book club, I got a notice of an upcoming MS LiveMeeting Seminar featuring Dr. Lois Frankel, Ph.D, author of Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office, called "Nice Girls Don't Get Rich"--taken from her new book. I thought, Excellent! A good excuse to not work for awhile and learn something!

And I certainly did learn a few things, mainly about money management--I'm thinking now that I might like her money book more than her work book. But in the first few minutes of the seminar, I almost hung up.

Maybe I'm more advanced then I think, maybe I'm just younger. But the first few questions--"Is it REALLY important to have money in your own name? What's wrong with sharing?"--"So many women see discussions like this as an occasion to be rude; I think there should be more emphasis on mixing assertiveness with good manners"--and Dr. Frankel AGREED with her--and, from a man, "Why only women? I'm a "nice boy" myself"--and Dr. Frankel spent the first 10 minutes of her presentation talking solely to this man, and any other men in the audience (less than 1%), about how that was a great question and how they, too, were at risk--and then she went right on with her Nice Girls presentation, which completely undermined her message. The next 10 minutes I spent thinking, "Why the hell is she even talking about Girls anymore? She's already made it clear that one man's needs far outweigh ours." Not to mention, every statement after that starting, "Women are more likely to..." I tempered with her statement echoing in my head that "MEN face these problems, too," which made me feel that I--and ALL women--didn't have any reason to complain because everyone faces these problems, and women had no excuse at all for why they were behind, and clearly we were just stupid.

The first twenty minutes were absolutely awful. And then things got better--the way Dr. Frankel described women's behavior toward money fit me to a T, and I lost my superiority complex to some degree. And Dr. Frankel stated at the beginning that she herself was a recovering nice girl--I just didn't know she was that far behind on her recovery. Here's what I would have said:

To the woman who asked if it was really important to have money in your own name: "Please take your shoes off and and go back to the kitchen, but get your tubes tied first." Any woman who still asks questions like that needs to clear out of the business world and leave space for us who a) can understand facts, like basic financial statistics about divorce, for example; b) has even a modicum of self awareness and knows that statistics apply to her, too; c) and while she's at it, remove herself from the gene pool.

To the woman who reminded us about good manners: "Fuck you." No, really. Has it not occured to you that women spend their ENTIRE LIVES being reminded of good manners? Good posture, nice things to say? THAT'S NOT THE INSTRUCTION WE NEED! Believe me: women will always have better manners than any men around them. For God's sake let's concentrate on our WEAK points, not the stuff we already do by instinct.

To the man who was so important to Dr. Frankel that she devoted 10 minutes only to him: "Did you not catch the title of the book? Are you a girl? Go find yourself a book with a title like: 'Stop Bein' a Wimp: 101 Ways to Tackle Your Enemies and Touchdown in the Financial Success Zone.'" Newsflash: we live in a White Male society. EVERYTHING is ALREADY geared towards you, you ignorant self-absorbed complacent pillar of society. Would it kill you to leave us women our one corner of support? Oh--excuse me, I guess it would.

Sigh. Where are MY role models? Where's the business advice that assumes women already know how to be as successful as their male counterparts, and now want to stage hostile takeovers? Where's the business advice column that answers questions like, "I have 2 personal assistants and 60 people working under me. How do I stay "hands-on" regarding daily activities?"