There is some stuff I really must get off my chest. A pot that had been slowly simmering for a number of months has finally boiled over. After the initial scorching burn faded, I was left with the unmistakable feeling of a numbing chill. The chill of, for lack of a better word, betrayal. It was deception, whether intended or not, it does not matter. I made a promise several months back that I wouldn't talk about certain things. A remedy is in order, now, and while it doesn't truly matter who the specific people are, the story is overdue for telling.
A promise of work was made. Freelance employment that would pay and provide amazing opportunities for growth, experience, networking, and the ultimate: real work at the end. It would be challenging and absorbing, and it certainly was those things, but the original five criteria were not quite fulfilled the way I was led to believe. At first, all seemed to go well. I did work that was fun and exciting and it led to a victory and the assurance of further work. In fact, I was so persuaded that I turned down a very good opportunity with a growing company in order to pursue this. Placed on the central strategic team, I expected further work in communications, both written and graphic. I was even given a title: Director of Visual Communication. It was fabulous.
Some of you might recall that I was enthralled with the notion of working on a team made up of several highly talented, articulate, progressive-thinking people, roughly the same age as myself, where I really felt that my opinions mattered and my skills would be used to their best advantage. A communications team was created, a pool of talent with many different work experiences, and I was at its core. Somewhere along the way, someone decided that two people would specifically be responsible for the writing and I would create the 'look' to match the content. That I wasn't going to be directly involved with the text did not matter, I was being handed an entire complicated project to design for. Meetings were discussed, to pin-point the structure of the project.
I was supposed to be there. It was an oversight that I was not informed of the date, time, or location. It wouldn't happen again.
It happened again.
Still lacking any text, from which to get a feel for the design work I believed I was charged with, I began to get a bit uncomfortable. Not exactly nervous, only slightly anxious, really, I picked up the phone and explained my concerns to the two people who should have solved the problem - the people heading this whole project up. Assured that my concerns would be looked after with further promises that this would not happen again, I returned to waiting for the text. When another week had passed and I had not heard anything, I got in touch with the guy who suddenly seemed to be running the communications team. What had begun as a committee of five or six now seemed to be a threesome with a boss. I called him up. "Hey, where's the copy? It would be really useful for me to read it, get a feel for it, since I'm supposed to be laying it out." New assurances were made - it's coming, we're just touching some stuff up, give us a week.
I waited.
You can imagine my surprise when I discovered at a general group meeting that the whole communication plan had changed. And I had not been informed. It was at about this time that it dawned on me that I was the only woman still on the team. The others had been entirely removed. I didn't let that bother me, though, since these were progressive young people who spoke out for equity, equality and the rights of women. Add to this the fact that I was informed that money for work previously completed would be slow to come because of buget problems, and could I wait a little while longer for it?...
More time passed and timelines were becoming tighter, solid, no longer loose suggestions of a vague future. It was summer and I suddenly found that I had been totally cut out of the communication loop. The communications team seemed to have stopped communicating. I discussed this with another who had been involved and he did not understand why I was being left out. I discussed it with those who were supposed to be on top of all this. I was told that certain things had been taken in hand by he who was now in charge of the team and I would have my work filtered to me from him as needed. My first official unranking. I was demoted. I was irritated.
To assuage my ire, I was given a new task to fill time until my design skills would be called to task. Being game, and let us not forget, utterly devoted, I accepted this. "It won't take too long, some letters need writing is all..." I discovered that I was now suddenly clerical staff and these 'some' letters were being written on a letterhead that I had definitely not designed. It was a hint that I ignored. Then a pamphlet was created with text I had not seen and imagery and lay-out that I had never conceived, or even vetted. And there were a
lot of letters, not just some, and they certainly showed no sign of ending.
My response to this was abrupt. I went away for a week to my cottage. I had to clear my head. When I returned, it became clear that the communications team now consisted of two, and neither of these guys were me. And what was worse was that none of the men who could have kept this from happening seemed to see any problem. I saw a problem, though, and spoke up about it. Once more I was placated, this time with a new promise of an office management position. I accepted it. Despite tight purses, there would maybe be money in it, and regardless, it was still a lot of responsibility and would look swell on my resume. Office Manager.
Now it is September. Having recovered some pride with my new job, I set about organising the office in the manner that I saw fit. "It's your baby," I was told, "Set it up the way you think it should be." Great ! In the meantime, I was still working on those letters. They had progressed from some, to lots, to hundreds. I was diligent. I wrote them. After all, I was devoted to the cause. I believed.
Note now that September saw things come apart on a personal level. I told Rick that I needed a break, in part because I simply couldn't handle my life, the work I was doing, and a relationship. So I thought. I knew it would suffer, at any rate, as I began to spend more and more time in the office. You see, I am at heart a selfish person. I'm a good person, kind and generous, caring and compassionate, but ultimately selfish. Where normally I was devoted to myself, offering some of this to Rick and other friends, I was now putting most of my energy into a new vessel. Let's call that vessel Politics. I let my personal life slide; housework stopped, personal projects stopped, socialising ceased, and this also meant my time with Rick. I needed time to think. But I had not time.
Robert died, ushering in the Autumn season. I left everthing and went to New York for the funeral and to look after his father, my mother's very close friend. "Take as much time as you need," I was told. "What you're doing in New York is more important than anything we have going on here." Thank you, I thought. Support came when I needed it. I promised to return for the big fundraiser, I wouldn't miss that, it was too important, I said. So I returned in time and once again fell back into work. I helped prepare the event, completing last-minute tasks and running necessary errands. It went off beautifully.
Returning to the office, immediately settling back into the work I had left off (that had not been carried on in my absence). There was a new face in the office. I spent a day working with her without actually knowing her name. It seemed she owned the place. Things were in different places than where I had put them. Well, offices are not static places and I had been gone a week. As I was working, I overheard an introduction that stood my hair on end: "Hey, have you met so-and-so? She's our new Office Manager. How great is that?!" These words were spoken by the very same man that told me the office was mine - My Baby.
Keeping silent this time, I carried on. I was devoted. The larger picture was what mattered. The end results were what counted. Not the fact that I had been demoted again. I began to look around me, to assess the roles of others, to determine where they had begun on this road and where they had ended up. It seemed I was not the only one who had been left at an inn along the way. No, indeed not. I and every other woman that had begun as a core team member had been utterly marginalised. We began to compare notes.
They were all strikingly similar. And every one of us had begun with extremely important tasks set before us and every one of us was now stuck in an administrative role with little real content. We also noticed something else. Things were beginning to tear at the seams. As momentum was building, the end in sight, our ship was being pulled apart under stress and none of the men who had usurped us noticed. They were much too busy building up each other's egos. It was awful to watch. So, from the sidelines, four women, including myself, made a desperate attempt to pull our ship together. Duct tape wasn't going to be strong enough.
Crazy glue was though, and we knew that what we were about to do was verging on the insane. With two weeks to go until the end and no one at the helm (I'm rather enjoying this naval metaphor). Schedules were not being adhered to, important events were being skipped, bad decisions were endangering the cause to which we had all devoted. We had no choice. We had to take over, but in a way that would not cause a mutiny, to implement a
coup d'etat with gloves so soft as to be imperceptable.
One took over the running of the office. One became the shedule co-ordinator, not just of one man, but of everyone. One became the den mother, literally keeping the boys happy and encouraging them as only a mother can so that they would not notice what was going on. I became... I became the Handler. I made sure that things were not missed or skipped and did so simply by always being there to remind, to chauffeur, to escort, and in some cases, to calm down. I became an additional voice at public events, a familiar face, an assisting pair of hands. It was bloody brilliant. It was so bloody brilliant that no one noticed. Except us, because we were responsible.
Behind every great man stands a great woman, it is said. In this case it was four great women. Victory had a man's name, but we knew that we'd won it every bit as much.
The story does not end here. If you are still with me, I am not only impressed, but very appreciative. We now come to the point where I have to remind these same men of my existence, of my skills and talents, to remind them of promises that had been made and forgotten. There was a frank discussion about staffing concerns in the New Role post victory and opportunities within the new team make-up. Part-time work (with benefits) was suggested as the full-time positions were to be filled by, thankfully, very excellent people and generally to be divided equally by men and women. The better route might be to look for openings in other offices where I might fit, something I was not opposed to at all.
Money, finally.
Yes, I thought, this is good !
Yesterday, I discovered a different truth. Somewhere between a positive discussion and a phonecall a bit more than a week later, everything had changed. "Come check out the new digs," I was invited, "You can pick up some of the money I owe you, too." Half of it. Half of a very small fraction of what is owed me, in fact. Then I was put on the phone with another. Wait. That other wasn't supposed to be at the office, he had not been on the list, this very same person who initiated my utter severance from the communications team. I was stunned. Wait, what about the woman? Nope, she's not on the team. What about the other woman?! Working for another office, replaced by a man.
I was hit by a tonne of bricks. Poor Carrie, with whom I was at the time of this phonecall, had to bear witness to my wrath. No women?! NONE? No, I did not think I would come by the office today, actually. But, my overwhelming need to make rent reared its head and a tiny fraction of money received was better than no money, so I gave in and we set out. Carrie did a wonderful job of calming me and I put on a brave face in the new digs. Despite feeling like a poor relation, as one hundred dollars were folded into my hand, I was up-beat. I was not; however, going to miss out on the occasion to find out if there was any new about work.
"I don't think there's any part-time work, really, we have to be careful with how we're seen to spend our budget." Well, that sounded familiar. "It will probably be a situation for contract work." Right, like all the contract work I had previously done and was still waiting to be paid for, or the following contract work that went to someone else altogether. The heat began to rise in my cheeks once more and decided it was time to leave. I spared everyone of my fury because I did not want to make a scene. A scene is what they needed, but men have the uncanny ability that allows the words of angry women to simply bounce away unheeded.
I fumed. There have been few occasions in my recent lifetime when I have so truly fumed as I did on Monday. Not only was I not going to get work, or even solid proof that I was at all valued, not only had they revoked every responsibility I'd had up to that point throughout the previous months and strangled my ego, not only had they fallen short of every promise made and allowed me to be degraded, but to have NO women on the staff...
It would have been enough for us ! And it certainly was enough for me.
The shock and anger has been as palpable from the other women that had been on the initial team, the same women who came together at the end to save the sorry necks of men who would not give us gratitude, not look after us, not even thank us properly... The optics of it are appalling. Even the least progressive leaders can bring themselves to hire a woman, if only as a token gesture. I learned a valuable lesson, a hard fact that I had never would have believed would hold true in this day and age. My mother, THEIR mothers, faught hard for equity and equality, and still I was not allowed in to the club. The Old Boys' Club.
Perhaps I overstate the broken promises, the betrayal. I got amazing opportunities for growth, experience, networking, and the ultimate: real work at the end. I grew in that manner that people like to call 'character building'. I had the experience of a lifetime devoting myself to a cause I believed in, seeing it through to the end, and getting screwed the entire time. I networked. Oh yes, I have built a network of at least three other very strong women who once again are banding together, this time to help each other to fulfill the ultimate. Real work at the end.
Oh, and the pay? I'm still waiting.
