I am somewhat fascinated about how we, as women, often shoot ourselves in the foot with our careers.

In some ways, I think I’ve been mercifully screened from it. I spent a lot of years as the only woman on a crew and I was always fairly sure I picked up a ton of bad social habits from all the men I worked with.

Reading Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office by Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D., confirmed a lot of that for me, because the book is broken down into 101 things women often do wrong and how to fix it. I was pretty excited because an awful lot of them don’t apply to me.

I have zero confidence issues at work. I speak up. And I generally do not allow men to steam roll me. As a matter of fact, when we were hiring the Ring Crew Chief at my last job, the Production Supervisor and I had a whole discussion about how whoever we picked would have to be able to stand up to both of us because we both have pretty tough personalities.

I definitely think rules are more guidelines than hard and fast requirements. Office politics make sense to me.

Even as I checked off page after page, feeling like I was nailing it, I realized that there was still definitely room for improvement. I mean, at that same last job, I was in a pretty high position. Whenever there was a manager’s meeting at my level, I was often the only woman in the room other than the assistant who took our meeting notes and I knew that I was the lowest paid in the group.

So – there’s still got to be some things missing, right?

As I worked through the book, I realized that I was guilty of several things:

• Denying the Importance of Money
• Offering a Limp Handshake (But I think I’m going to have to write that one off as just never happening – maybe when I’m boss of all things I can institute greeting high fives?)
• Waiting To Be Noticed
• Speaking Softly
• Refusing Perks
• Taking Notes, Getting Coffee, and Making Copies
• Exhibiting Too Much Patience
• Permitting Others’ Mistakes To Inconvenience You
• Being The Last to Speak
• Putting Work Ahead of Your Personal Life
• Making Miracles
• Helping

As I read the sections on each of these things, they kind of blew my mind. I think a few of them were particularly eye-opening to me because, to an extent, they are things you have to do as a stage manager:

• Taking Notes
• Getting Coffee
• Making Copies
• Being Patient
• Fixing Peoples Mistakes
• Helping

I mean, WTF.

But helping can be a funny thing, can’t it? I mean, how often as a stage manager, especially on a show on my own, has someone asked for something, I ran off to get it, and I missed an important conversation or show change? I mean, that’s part of the hierarchy of a good stage management team. As PSM, you hang out and listen so you can lead. As ASM, you’re pretty much the main helper. Or, on a big show, the ASM even hangs out to listen and lead the deck while the PA then becomes the main helper.

Because the book is right, if someone needs an answer to a problem while you’re off getting a package of Magic Markers, it’s likely someone will step in to help with that issue and that someone is now leading instead of you. Send someone else for the Magic Markers whenever you can. I totally struggle with that because I love helping. And honestly, sometimes it’s such a nice brain break to go – oh, a tangible issue to solve, why yes, let me go get you some markers.

There were also some tips that I found wouldn’t work for me. There was a section reminding women not to bring in baked goods or make their office too homey and I was like, psshhht. I have intense resting bitch face and I don’t always come off as approachable. Baked goods are totally my “here, have a cookie, I’m not a monster” tool and they work.

That being said, ladies, I do recommend reading this book. At times, it reads like 1950s Home Ec-style book to me and I occasionally felt a little talked down to, but I did walk away with a few actionable gems. For me, that made the time investment worth it.

I also really liked that in a few of the sections, the author suggested additional books you could read that focus entirely on that issue.

It’s a pretty eye opening read and does a good job of pointing out some stupid things we do to shoot ourselves in the foot, so I’d say read it with a grain of salt.

You can pick up a copy of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office here.

OR

I’m giving away the copy I read below and a $5 Starbucks gift card. I bought it used and now it’s used a little more (the book that is, not the Starbucks card). Enter below. The drawing will be held on March 31^st.

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