Personal Ass Kicking

I ended yesterday’s blog with talking about “our generation” but today I thought I would give myself some credit on what I did in support of all those young women out there.

First of all it is important to me to give credit to my parents, in particular to my father, who raised me up to believe 100% in my value as a human being, not as a woman. He always said I could be anything I wanted to be and he never put me in a box that said “doing women’s work”. He believed in me to become a professional in any category that I wished to go into doctor, lawyer, engineer. My mother led by example with a work ethic by ensuring that I had chores, dish duty, baby sitting and so on. She didn’t expect me to do anything that she couldn’t do herself; she was the one who repaired the closet doors, cut the grass, dug in the trees and ran the household, including the financial end of things. She painted both the inside and outside of the house and after a couple of memorable attempts at wallpapering with Dad decided it was easier to use one of the kids as her helper! Talking with her girlfriends and sisters they all agreed “never wallpaper with a husband, it is a disaster in arguments”.

I took 3 years of working before I decided to go to university. In those years I learned to stand up for myself in a quiet sort of way. When I was unhappy in one of my jobs I quietly looked for another job and politely gave 2 weeks’ notice which seemed the correct thing to do. But the cows who I worked with (7 of them) decided to dump all the crap work on me for those 2 weeks; I called on the first Friday and told the lead woman “I am not coming in again”.  She said “but you gave 2 weeks’ notice” and I said “I am sorry but I am not going to be misused”.  She replied “you are a very unusual girl”. I said “good bye”.

When I left my job at Boss Industries I tried to avoid telling my boss the truth because I felt it was important for him to know that I was leaving because I was not being given a salary commensurate with the volume of work I was doing. He offered me a huge raise but I said “but it’s too late now, we will have bad feelings”. He was a lovely man and said “Susanne, there is something more going on here.” So I told him that I had decided to go to university because I felt I could do better in the long run with more education. So we ended on a friendly and happy note.

When did I start getting tough, you wonder? When I was 27 and left another lovely boss to work for a senior lawyer (in the same firm) because I would get almost $300 more a month by making the jump. He said “you are dumping me like a sack of potatoes” and I said “Jamie, I like you but it’s all about the money. I don’t work for the fun of it!” He was shocked that I would say something like that to anyone but for heaven’s sake, isn’t that why we go to work? The money?

From that time onwards I was very hardnosed when it came to my job. I worked hard but I almost always left after 2 years to get more money across the street. I learned quickly that the best raise was the one you got when you hired on at a new job. Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate. I am proud to say that in three areas of endeavor (law, engineering and oil and gas) I have a reputation as “the best” and have been head-hunted countless times. Calgary downtown is a small community and when you gain a reputation as a professional work horse you are Golden. Added to that are qualities of team player, approachability and never saying no to colleagues. I was an excellent mentor to younger folks coming up and I can proudly say that my work patterns are still used in most of the places I have left.

And how many people can say that?