Confessions of a Former Berry Picker: One Woman's Career Transformation

Back in grade school we used to watch these eight milimeter educational films depicting prehistoric life (I wonder if the "cavemen" got SAG credit?) From very early on I learned that women instinctively gathered berries and sorted through the dead things that men brought back from the hunt--the often less exciting, but equally important, tasks. Even then I thought women got the short end of the stick; but, I rationalized, at least the girls had time to kvetch. I didn't realize, even in adulthood, how I would perpetuate the sterotype of "women's work" and continue to pick berries, even while claiming I was just as qualified as men to hunt.

The catharsis occurred on a Monday morning at a previous job. I remember sitting at my desk, working on a particularly hairy assignment. The project involved complicated, almost tactile work, but it wasn't brain surgery. I had been working on the project for weeks, without any dramatic shift in scope. It was business as usual; so why, then, did I feel like I was about to cry?

My project was finishing a book that the firm had been developing for months; I was now slogging through the production details with the publisher. I had agreed to take on some of the editorial functions behind the project, which made perfect sense, as I had worked for years in the publishing world and had more experience than anyone else. I figured I would help with some topline editing, basically acting as a liaison between the publisher and the firm in the "periphery" of my time--over lunch, during lulls in the day.

Four drafts and three months later, my primary responsibilities had been put on hold to make way for my new job project managing this book. Every few minutes new pages would be faxed to me by co-writers; pages with scribbled changes, some legible, some not, last-minute additions, word amendments, items that seemed small but required repagination and re-working. With each seemingly final iteration I ended up staring at a screen for days, re-doing all of the work I had done with each previous draft.

The first few drafts I chocked up the gross underestimation of project scope as unavoidable inconvenience. But by the fourth iteration of the book some crust was forming on my usual can-do attitude. Each page that came out of the fax machine was like personal affront, a chop into my foundation; I was teetering on the brink of something--I imagined it was some dark place where I prayed I'd never have to go to while at work.

There was something about those freaking faxes; as they were collected by co-workers and plopped onto my desk they seemed to mock me. Though I had left publishing years ago, words were always finding ways of re-establishing contact with me. I had managed to make a career of processing others' words--offering helpful bits of advice but mostly just cleaning up copy and dealing with the technical aspects of making it viewable to others, a verbal mortician, if you will. Even while doing this editorial/janitorial work I read the words and evaluated them, often thinking I could have written it better but shushing myself and getting back to the task at hand. After all, I wasn't an EXPERT; I was doomed to know how to write well and manipulate others' copy without having anything substantive to write about.

The writer who was sending me faxes didn't like to make his changes electronically and had almost illegible handwriting (he was aware of this and often scheduled phone meetings to make sure I could make sense of his scribblings); every page was black with crossouts, arrows, and chicken scratch. I was annoyed that he wouldn't take the time to insert his changes electronically; I still had to insert every single one of his hundreds of edits to the electronic file myself.

As I started to work through the copy, I heard a persistent voice of protest: "Why are you doing this?" it said. I'd heard this intuitive voice before; she was getting rather uppity these days. An internal debate ensued:

"This work is perfectly meaningful! The consultants appreciate it." I told her.

"Oh, absolutely!" she replied. "I was just being weird. Forget the thought. I'll just shut up now."

I went back to the chicken scratch: ... replace "and" with "of"...put that illustration here and re-number all of those following it...check that man's title and see if it's still valid...change the tense throughout this chapter...

But something was still wrong. My intuitive self--that passive-aggressive bitch--was continuing to create a stink, despite my more rational self's pleas to cut it out. She wanted to be heard. She was trying to embarrass me.

"God, Jory, not now, not now!" I said to myself, looking up at the fluorescent lights, hoping the tears that were forming would be absorbed back into my head. I always figured if I ever lost it at the office it would be for something truly tragic, like somebody dying, not because of a stupid fax. I'd seen women at previous jobs silently retreating to the ladies' room holding their breath, then returning to their desks, eyes red and faces puffy. I'd look over at them empathetically while thinking, "Lord, let me never be one of those girls ... "
 
I made the silent pilgrimmage to the ladies room and paced back and forth maybe fifty times, trying to think rational thoughts, sterile visions not unlike business stock photography--full of professional machismo and devoid of emotional charge. Then I took a good long look in the mirror; I knew something needed to change, I needed to speak with my boss, but this calm, dry face looking back at me would prevail.

I practiced my approach: I didn't want to insinuate I couldn't handle what was currently being asked of me; I would suggest that the next time we wrote a book, we should hire someone for the job, as it was taking up valuable time I needed to perform my other tasks. I said it a few times in my head perfecting the pitch so that it didn't sound like I was being demanding.

I knocked on my boss's door and poked my head in, "Gotta minute?" I said, in my usual cheery voice.

"Yep, sure, c'mon in."

I stepped in, closed the door behind me and sat down.

"I would like to talk about something," I said. That's as far as I got.

My Intuitive Self, Drama Queen, had been waiting for her moment. The tears came, and this time, no amount of light-watching would disguise them. I stopped talking and stared at the ceiling for a good ten seconds, waiting for this moment of insanity to pass. Maybe my boss would forget this ever happened, maybe I could pass this little episode off as deep thinking, paired with a horrible cold. I looked back down, at him, and tried to continue, but all that came out were sobs.

He remained calm, though one can only wonder what was going on in his head. He hardly dealt with this sort of thing on a daily basis. He thought I'd been out there happily picking berries.

"Would you like a tissue?" he said.

I could only shake my head no. I wiped my face on my sleeve.

We sat in silence until I was capable of speaking. This is where it got even stranger. Something came out of my mouth I could hardly recognize--anger, followed by clear, unmitigated truth.

"I can't do this any longer," I said. "I've made a mistake. I've accepted a position that I would have done years ago, but not now." From that point on, the tears were gone. I spoke openly about how I felt undervalued, how my experience as a magazine writer and book editor had been bastardized to the point of order-taking; how I felt there was little respect for my time, or my background. As the words came out my logical self stared incredulously, mouth agape.

My boss listened carefully, nodding in agreement. "OK," he said. "Let's do something about it."

That was a watershed day. While recounting it is embarassing in the textbook sense--no self-respecting how-to author of women's business books would condone sobbing as a means of "winning"--I'd never felt so much personal power. My Intuitive Self had been wanting to come out for years and had been offering warning signals--illness, sleeplessness, headaches, drowsiness from boredom, even self-sabotage--and all I'd done is scold myself for not performing better. I understood that the emotion I had been keeping under lock and key, from myself as well as my colleagues, was not the dragon I had feared it would be. It was clear, honest, forgiving. I didn't feel humiliated by myself; I felt exorcised.

I've reflected back on that day, wondering if what I did was prudent, even if I couldn't have prevented it. In her book, The Naked Truth, Margaret Heffernan discusses female traits that are typically not appreciated in the office--emotionality being at the top of the list. While we don't want to rely on being emotional to be heard, we do carry an inherent ability to use our emotions as signals. If we learn to listen to our emotions, and not simply react to them, we have the power to clean the slate--cop to our growing sense of unease and make things right.

I've spent hours on projects and campaigns that I knew--that I FELT--were fundamentally flawed. My assumption was, if I had no logical basis for explaining why something couldn't work, via numbers or validation by someone senior, then I was to proceed as planned. I had no OBLIGATION to raise a red flag based on something as fluffy as a hunch. I've also spent a silly amount of time bemoaning how I could have told a manager what he would inevitably learn the hard way, via pissing off the client. For the first time, I see that I am equally to blame for not honoring what I knew to be true and for not speaking up.

We're taught as children that work is a solemn, emotionally vacuous place, and only the most unaffected will succeed. For years I'd shut off my connection to my emotions, thinking that they were potentially career damaging. But if used properly they are a woman's access to her True North. By nature, this compass of ours is more accurate than a man's.

Other areas that Heffernan cites where women excel but often misuse their talents:

• Passive aggression: We're brilliant at calming people down and conveying a sense of ease, but oftentimes we push for the deceptively happy ending and fool ourselves in the process. I think of the book project and the first few dozen faxed pages that were plopped on my desk. I seethed as they arrived and wondered how I would find the time to fit everything in; yet when the writer called to see if I'd received them and if I was capable of handling them, I said (insert smiley, happy voice here) "Got em! I'm on it!"

My eventual decision to speak up, while necessary and effective, could just have easily been perceived as schizophrenic. Before that morning, I'd fooled everyone into thinking I loved my job.

• Gossip: Gotta praise our conversational skills. Men love to have a woman around because, well, we loosen people up. During that tense negotiation we'll ask the client if his son's team won the little league tournament. We give our best regards to his wife, whom we met last summer at an offsite. But sometimes we can be too loose. We sense the underlying dynamics in an office--the boss likes to close his door every day at 2pm and the admin has been coming in late for the past few mornings, seeming upset. This is useful information for determining the best times to approach the boss, or the best way to approach the admin, but that's all this is--information, not group discussions or conspiracies.

There are residual effects from infusing work with unnecessary drama,

" ... as women, we are more inclined to take things personally, creating all kinds of stories around situations that impair our ability to see the facts. By making it personal, we can wind up having a lot more drama in our lives than is productive," says former Microsoft executive, Linda Stone, who contributes advice in Bill Jensen's upcoming book, What is Your Life's Work, (HarperBusiness, 2005) a collection of wisdom from people who have contemplated the meaning behind their work lives.

By adding this personal, often misguided element to our perception, we lose our power to be seen as strong, trusted resources.

• Taskmastering: I asked a mentor, a seasoned management consultant who was used to working primarily with men, where she thought women fell short in the workplace. "We're almost too capable," she said. "We're so used to doing everything on our plate and on everyone else's that people come to expect this level of service. And as we get higher up the ladder we maintain this tendency to do everything ourselves without delegating."

I had made the mistake of taking on everything that was asked of me in order to be perceived as capable. Yet, judging by the brainless tasks I was being asked to do I saw that yessing everyone actually resulted in the opposite perception: I was only seen as capable of doing unchallenging, uninspiring work.

"Engage in activities that show self-respect," Linda Stone says. "Take care of yourself with sleep, exercise, nutrition, schedule. If you don’t, no one else will. If you’re willing to work around the clock, your peers and superiors will always expect that of you, and you’ll find yourself in a pattern that’s challenging to shift."

Once I became aware of my tendency of being my own worst advocate, my life began to shift. I was forced to take responsibility for myself, ask for projects I wanted, and say I couldn't take on projects that were only going to frustrate me and that weren't the best use of my time.

Amazingly women still do the lion's share of the berry picking, but things are different now; no one is thrusting a basket in our hands, we've simply taken it as our lot and then grumble about getting our hands sticky. If anything, I respect women's work now more than ever for the simple reason that, for me, it is now a conscious choice, one I can do well, as I am often good at detail work, but one that I can refuse if I choose.

Comments

[Jen]

Ah, you've told this story well. I like the berry picking analogy. It made me think that I've sat there and thought I'm capable of more than this, yet I'm stuck doing something I consider meaningless.
Food for thought. Thanks.

[Joy DJ]

I definitely associate with this. One thing I've never done well is deligate...causing those much needed "pacing" moments in the washroom...or elsewhere. Faking it long-term is difficult at best and the inevitable "crying melt-down" has to happen....At least it was a cathartic awakening for you...it isn't for everyone.
Wonderful piece.

[proginitor]

I think it was 16mm film, not 8. The projector was a Bell & Howell Film-o-sound. My mastery of this equipment allowed me to "carry a clipboard" throughout my military career. As an aside, an acquaintance of mine,(read former sailing buddy) runs a company called BHP. When he bought it, it was Bell & Howell Professional division. what makes the story interesting is that one of the assets my friend purchased was an Oscar. A technical Oscar, to be sure,(it had to do with the reason we have square holes in film strips and not round). But it is fun to note in these days of castigating Michael Dell, that square sprocket holes rated an Academy Award.