Sunday, February 16, 2014

Worker Bees

I wrote a recommendation for a young friend several years ago and she got the job she was applying for. As she went off to toil in the fields of administration I told her, "move on from this; don't look up when you're 30 and find yourself in the same place doing this same job."

She recently turned 30, looked up, and found herself in the same place doing the same job. She has learned, grown, developed some mad skills in these last five or six  years. She has never been afraid of work, that girl. She is a doer, she gets things done.  She's like me in that respect.  I've never been what they call a "process person" in bullshit corporate-speak.  I've always been results oriented; I like to get shit done.  I like to do my work right and do it well, but I would much prefer to actually accomplish something than to sit around talking about it.

For reasons I've never been able to fathom, those of us who actually get the work done never seem to rise through the ranks. For some mad reason, getting shit done doesn't earn the respect or rewards one would think.  Bullshit rises.  And so it goes.

My young friend is just beginning to run up against that wall. She's smart, skilled, hard-working, dedicated, but it doesn't get her very far. Women like her should be running the world; the world would be a better place for it.

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