skirt! Rules for the Workplace (2 of 2 free samples)

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COPYRIGHT
skirt! Rules for the Workplace by Kelly Love Johnson. Copyright 2008 by Kelly Love Johnson.
All Rights Reserved. Sharing not permitted.

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INTRODUCTION (CONT'D)

In the days that followed the workshop, I discussed my frustration at not being able to do anything constructive to help these young women and others like them with several people, including the center's director and my boss and founder and publisher of skirt! magazine, Nikki Hardin. After patiently listening to my various complaints about how colleges don't prepare young women for success, about how society devalues the work of women, about how some employers assume women's work is worth less than the work of men, both women told me the same thing: "You should write a book."

So I did. And here it is.

In the months I spent working on skirt! Rules for the Workplace, I asked myself the following question hundreds of times: Who am I to be giving advice to young women about climbing the corporate ladder? I'm the Queen of Mistakes, guilty of violating my own rules so many times I shouldn't be allowed to have rules at all. I've dated coworkers, gotten drunk at office parties, cried in my boss's office, not asked for the higher salary because I wasn't sure my work was worth it, and once (just once!), I even baked for the office.

I've also been fired, forced to resign, underappreciated, over appreciated, a slacker, a workaholic, put my job before my family, and had temper tantrums at work. So who am I to tell other people how they can give themselves a hand up and make more money? The book was almost finished before it dawned on me that hey, actually, I might be exactly the perfect person to do it!

I've never been afraid of taking risks, therefore I've made mistakes. I was once twenty-three-years-old, therefore I've made mistakes. I've been in the right job at the wrong time, and the wrong job at the right time, therefore I've made mistakes. And I can honestly say that I have learned from all of them. I've thought about those mistakes a lot--particularly while remembering and writing about them--and the conclusion I finally reached is this: If one more person can learn from my mistakes, she won't make the same ones. And maybe I won't cringe so much when I remember them. I hope you're that one person.

The corporate world is all about survival of the fittest, but it doesn't have to be a war, or even a daily battle. At best, it can be a series of minor skirmishes, each one either a win or a lesson, not a loss. It's not about us against them or the men against the women (or even the women against corporate America). All men are not to blame for the fact that many women still earn less money than they do. The problem is a lot larger than a "Good Old Boys" club deciding to keep women down. But broken down on an individual level, the problem is not as insurmountable as it seems. My goal with this book is to give you the tools that you need to close the wage gap--not by marching in the streets or forming a union, but by taking the small, manageable steps that will get you from where you are now to where you should be just by closing your own wage gap.

Whether you're entering the workforce for the first time right out of college or sitting behind a desk in an entry-level job wondering why you're not getting promoted, don't let anyone tell you that you can't, that you shouldn't, or that it's too hard. Your career is about you; no one else should have the power to discourage you. Keep a firm grasp and a strong foothold on the rungs of the corporate ladder, and don't look down. But once you're up there, don't forget to reach back and offer a hand up to the woman who's next in line. If we all do this, one woman at a time, it might not take thirty years to reach our goal of gender equality in the workplace.

~ Kelly Love Johnson


FOREWORD
http://www.dailylit.com/books/skirt-rules-for-the-workplace/foreword

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