“The Best Career Advice I Ever Got”

Oh this is so good!! I’ve been the “baby shower planner,” the “homemade cookie baker” … and several other things that I was ok doing once, maybe twice, but not as my side gig at work. It makes me sad that women are more often put into these roles, and meanwhile their male peers get to go about their work instead of splitting their time in planning baby showers, engagement showers, Secret Santas, etc etc.

I’m sorry you’ve had this experience, Alicia. You’re not alone, as you already know. Many of my female friends and associates have had the most awful female bosses both in Nigeria and abroad, which makes me more grateful than ever that throughout my career, my female bosses have been fair, kind, wonderful and encouraging people. In a plot twist, one of my big sisters works in international economic development and throughout her own career, her female subordinates have tried to sabotage her while her male subordinates haven’t. In another plot twist, my younger sister is very good friends with her former boss – let’s call her V – who happens to be a woman. V went out of her way to create a healthy, friendly work environment for women because she’d since vowed to do better than a nasty female boss of hers back in the day. The problem has its roots in our childhood when ‘society’ (that vague word that really means ‘all of us’) begins to teach girls to see other girls as their number one competitors and enemies. It can be hard to unlearn such a high level of social conditioning, and I hope we get there in my lifetime and yours. And yes, we can be powerful and still be kind. Thank you for these words.

Taking the seat right next to the Executive in charge, has proven to be worthwhile as well.

Love this. Thank you!!

They really withdrew the offer? That’s so wild. I wonder how common that is. You would think they would just reiterate that the salary offered is the highest they can go and let you decide from there. That scares me that trying to negotiate can mean losing the opportunity altogether.

Also true for most state government jobs!

Yes, this. I’m a public school teacher, and salaries are fixed. It’s a big bummer, but the job has other perks.

When I was considering working at an ed tech startup instead, I extrapolated my current salary (180 six-and-a-half-hour work days) into a full year. I had that HUGE number in mind when I went in for talks. We never got that far, but it was interesting to imagine myself asking for that gigantic sum.

Yes! I’m a nurse and unfortunately all the extra hard work I put in (heading committees, extra certifications, etc) means nothing! I get paid based on years of experience. End of story. I’m in school to become a nurse practitioner right now and hopeful that I’ll be more successful at negotiating when I graduate.

That’s terrible advice. I was bullied by a boss who had turned over our team (in whole, except for me) three times in four years. At the end, I would burst into tears when I saw my building each morning.

She had cut this swath of destruction at previous companies and was protected in our company because of her age and sex. When the tables did turn and she negotiated a huge severance package, I was asked to speak about her management “style” and was told that I would get retro raises that had been denied me under her tenure. None of that materialized.

What I learned—you need to protect yourself and cut your losses.

I have to say, I agree with Andrea. I had what I thought was a dream job last year, and had the most horrendous boss and was miserable for 7 months, before I finally made the decision to leave. I’m so glad I did, and to me, a good boss is equally, if not more important, than the job itself. The job I had before that wasn’t necessarily the most prestigious or glamorous sounding, but I had the most amazing and supportive bosses who trusted me and gave me responsibility and let me flourish, and I am incredibly grateful to them for that.

I’ve taken the “see the big picture” approach, and it was the right decision. I have a job I really like, but a previous boss was a pretty miserable human being. She’s long gone, and now I have a wonderful boss (also female), and I’m glad I stuck it out. I think the key is to look at your individual circumstances and decide what you can and can’t tolerate. In my case, Karen’s strategy worked.

My dad gave me the same advice as Karen’s. And it’s worked for me. However, I work at a huge multinational corporation where things really do change all the time. (The the point where new hires need to be warned that they have to be able to go with the flow and not expect anything to stay the same). If you are truly unhappy with your boss at my company, odds are you or your boss will be asked to move to a new position at some point in the near future, or you can speed it up by applying for a different job internally. (The company hires from within for most jobs, and it’s viewed as a good thing to move around internally). Lastly, I’m going out on a limb here, but I also wonder how crazy bosses at large companies with a strong culture and large HR department can really go. So I think it depends on the place of employment and of course how bad the situation at hand is.

I agree with others that this is terrible advice, but I do think it works in reverse… that a great boss can make a bad job worthwhile. Having someone who supports you and advocates for you is huge and can go a long way towards making a bad job great. But if your boss is not supportive or is bad at managing a team, it will make even the best job miserable.

Unless the bad boss is the owner of the company and you report to him directly …

Bad boss is relative. Someone grumpy who has unrealistic expectations can be waited out, but I had a horrible manager who to my face told me she disliked my personality and that it was all wrong for the company, but she didn’t have the juice to fire me so she started taking me off all her accounts, reducing what I was contributing to nearly nothing and making me a prime target for firing. I tried to repair it and told her that I could do more and that I had been happy on those accounts and she goes, “well I think I’ve been pretty clear about the fact that I don’t want to work with you. We’ll just see who wants to pick you up but it’ll be boring while they try to find teams who want to work with you. Who knows? Maybe you’ll prefer not having to work and decide to leave. Being bored might be good for you” Whaaaaaaa? I gave myself ten minutes to pace and cool off in the park around the corner because most senior staff were at a conference and I didn’t know who to tell. After those ten minutes were up I marched into the CEOs office and relayed the whole conversation. My manager was forced to apologize to me and they had new accounts for me the next day and I think it damaged her reputation a bit, but I started looking for a new job that weekend and was gone within 6 weeks. She is still there.