Damn! You can write your ass off!! Ha! How’s that for poignant feedback. You not only have a lovely way with words, you’ve captured the nuance of human relationships very well. We are animals after all… the pecking orders and dominance plays are always operating beneath the surface. Particularly in work environments.
PS. Your AI narrator voice is male. I don’t know if that was intentional, but it was kind of a fun reversal. I started off thinking the character was one gender, only to learn it was another. Makes you consider the unconscious biases we bring to that dynamic.
"She looked important, and I was still young enough to confuse looking important with being important." WHAT A LINE. I enjoyed this start to finish---I can't wait to read more of your work.
I was new, I was an admin, and I was absolutely on the chopping block. But this was the early nineties, when companies still at least pretended to feel bad about ruining your life.
was young, pretty, naïve, and completely unaware of all of it. She was forty and divorced and still beautiful, but she was not twenty. I do not say that with judgment now. I say it with the strange, uncomfortable clarity of being an older woman myself and finally understanding how rooms like that worked.
Sometimes the job is being young, agreeable, harmless, pretty enough to send into rooms full of powerful men, and naïve enough not to know what that means.
I was old enough to be sent into those rooms, but not old enough to understand why I had been chosen.
The line about sometimes the job is not the job really made me think about how innocence and beauty can be used by the powerful. Sadly, though it may be better hidden now, I believe this still exists. Great writing and very insightful piece. 🙏
I smiled reading this because we’re about the same age, and it took me right back there. I love the nostalgia woven through your writing, but even more, I love your hindsight. There’s something poignant about realizing you were standing at the threshold of your own beauty and had absolutely no idea. We spend so much of our youth trying to prove we belong, while everyone else in the room is seeing things about us that we can’t yet see ourselves. It takes decades to understand what was really happening. This was beautifully honest.
This is what we were talking about with Emmett on Disaster Lounge. I wish I would have kept a journal my whole life so I could look back with more clarity. In some ways I have more clarity from the experience and see it a different way, but at the same time all the actual details are so fuzzy. And we are different people. I want to be able to read my thoughts from back then and write from both perspectives when I'm writing about my past. But I only have the now me.
I know what you mean, I so wish I started writing sooner. you can remember how you felt but not really what exactly you were thinking. except I remember very clearly that I wanted a cigarette more than lunch with the old people! 😄 🤣
The last 3 paragraphs of the article really summed it all up. You were old enough to be sent into those rooms. But beautifully young enough to be naive and be the yes girl. A powerful but true piece.
It's strange when you work in those type of office environments how in later years you can see so much more clearly patterns and behaviours that you never did in those early years of first starting out. Great writing.
It's amazing what you pick up years later that you never noticed at the time. Enjoyed the read.
This was such a powerful and beautifully written piece.
Damn! You can write your ass off!! Ha! How’s that for poignant feedback. You not only have a lovely way with words, you’ve captured the nuance of human relationships very well. We are animals after all… the pecking orders and dominance plays are always operating beneath the surface. Particularly in work environments.
Thank you so much. This one felt strange to write because I didn’t fully understand it until decades later, so this means a lot. 😃
PS. Your AI narrator voice is male. I don’t know if that was intentional, but it was kind of a fun reversal. I started off thinking the character was one gender, only to learn it was another. Makes you consider the unconscious biases we bring to that dynamic.
it's funny I just liked the male narrator voice better! glad it worked!
Here’s a work related piece I wrote recently that seems to be getting some buzz 🐝 If you’ve got time, check it out https://wendygolden2.substack.com/p/you-cant-go-home-again?r=3jyto&utm_medium=ios
I'll definitely read, saved!!
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
The way you describe Boss Kate and the layers of jealousy and observation is brilliant. It feels like a mini-novel.
Love it! Kept me reading and wanting more 🫶
that makes me so happy! thank you for reading!
"She looked important, and I was still young enough to confuse looking important with being important." WHAT A LINE. I enjoyed this start to finish---I can't wait to read more of your work.
That's an important memory ❤️😂
That's really a reflective article
Thanks for sharing your job experience
Just highlighting this part
I was new, I was an admin, and I was absolutely on the chopping block. But this was the early nineties, when companies still at least pretended to feel bad about ruining your life.
was young, pretty, naïve, and completely unaware of all of it. She was forty and divorced and still beautiful, but she was not twenty. I do not say that with judgment now. I say it with the strange, uncomfortable clarity of being an older woman myself and finally understanding how rooms like that worked.
Sometimes the job is being young, agreeable, harmless, pretty enough to send into rooms full of powerful men, and naïve enough not to know what that means.
I was old enough to be sent into those rooms, but not old enough to understand why I had been chosen.
Keep writing 💫
The line about sometimes the job is not the job really made me think about how innocence and beauty can be used by the powerful. Sadly, though it may be better hidden now, I believe this still exists. Great writing and very insightful piece. 🙏
I smiled reading this because we’re about the same age, and it took me right back there. I love the nostalgia woven through your writing, but even more, I love your hindsight. There’s something poignant about realizing you were standing at the threshold of your own beauty and had absolutely no idea. We spend so much of our youth trying to prove we belong, while everyone else in the room is seeing things about us that we can’t yet see ourselves. It takes decades to understand what was really happening. This was beautifully honest.
This is what we were talking about with Emmett on Disaster Lounge. I wish I would have kept a journal my whole life so I could look back with more clarity. In some ways I have more clarity from the experience and see it a different way, but at the same time all the actual details are so fuzzy. And we are different people. I want to be able to read my thoughts from back then and write from both perspectives when I'm writing about my past. But I only have the now me.
I know what you mean, I so wish I started writing sooner. you can remember how you felt but not really what exactly you were thinking. except I remember very clearly that I wanted a cigarette more than lunch with the old people! 😄 🤣
I thought I replied to this! That was obviously a very important memory 😂
The last 3 paragraphs of the article really summed it all up. You were old enough to be sent into those rooms. But beautifully young enough to be naive and be the yes girl. A powerful but true piece.
It's strange when you work in those type of office environments how in later years you can see so much more clearly patterns and behaviours that you never did in those early years of first starting out. Great writing.
Engaging story, Kate. The sharp hindsight on youth, office power games, and how inexperience can muddle perceptions is so well observed. 💚
I've never worked in such a setting. I'm unsure what I would do if I did.