I saw my younger self onscreen today. My best friend and I saw "The Devil Wears Prada" and it was a bittersweet reminder of what it takes to be a powerful woman in the corporate world. Actually, it could be a metaphor for what most young women in with dreams of wealth, power and success endure.
The trauma often begins with the stress of the first professional job search. Rejection letters, unreturned calls, useless networking meetings and unacknowledged resumes are rites of passage, so when the moment of truth arrives and that first job offer is extended, most of us are ready to walk through fire because we are so grateful to even make it to that point. By the time I got my first professional job, I was willing to do almost anything, as long as I could hold my head up and proclaim that I did something.
I spent nearly 18 months in a desparate post law-school job search. I was intially told that I needed to pass the bar exam, so I studied like my life depended on it, drove everyone crazy because I was determined to pass on the first try. After taking the exam, I continued to send out resumes, but was only able to secure work as a glorified baby-sitter/tour guide for a bunch of high school students for two months. When the good news arrived, I just knew that a "real" job was right around the corner.
To make a little extra money for all of the lawyer clothes I would need, I got a job working at the mall selling high end soap for a little more than the cost of pantyhose. I dutifully continued to send out resumes, and I ate lunch with every single person that someone recommended who might be able to get me a job. This went on for months, and I continued to sell soap for the sister of one of my closest friends in law school. To add insult to injury, one of my classmates from high school, someone whom I knew to be not so swift, came into my store and essentially treated me like a stupid salesgirl. And if that was not enough, my student loan payments became due, and I barely made enough to even make the interest.
Eventually I ditched that dead-end job and flirted with the idea of becoming a solo practitioner. I was inspired by another temporary job I held as a data entry assistant for another lawyer. The big guy heard that I was a licensed attorney, so he sent me over to the courthouse to handle an uncontested divorce. It was exciting, but it was a one shot deal, and my subsequent attempts to recapture that moment were never quite as thrilling (or as successful).
The following year, I was so exhausted from being poor and so demoralized by my lack of business acumen that I took matters into my own hands. On the coldest winter day, I walked the halls of power and personally handed out resumes to every politician who had advertised for vacancies. And my plan B was to repeat the personal service routine until every judge, government agency, and public interest organization in the city had a copy of my resume. Lucky for me, it didn't come to that.
Fast forward to my first week on the job. I got chewed out for answering the phone "incorrectly." Then I got chewed out for writing down notes with a pencil (even though I had just loaned her my only pen). Then she chewed me out for asking her to hold on while I searched for an answer to a question she had just asked. Then she told me that she hoped I had been a better lawyer to my clients than I was to her, because at that moment, I was an impossible incompetent.
Yup, all of this during the first week on the job.
Later, our relationship stabilized to the point where I could speak to her without genuflecting, but those moments were rare. Then one day after a particularly rough week of enduring her demands, I snapped and got so bold as to argue with her in public. In that instant it became clear that I had crossed a line with her that would never be forgotten. She would never fire me, but she would put me in my place by working me harder than everyone else in the office and by paying me less than every other person in the office. For the next six months she tethered me to her like a dog, and berated me incessantly. But because I had developed thicker skin (and a bit of a backbone), I resolved to anticipate her ridiculous demands and act accordingly.
Of course, this relationship has been the single most important professional experience of my career. People generally are impressed that I survived a year with her (actually it was 50 weeks). And while I would never go so far as to call her a mentor, I would say that she gave me more career guidance than the counselors that were paid to do so at my law school.
She taught me that life is about choices. The choice to become a powerful, successful, woman is one that requires more than just the sacrifice of a quiet, tranquil life. It requires everything--your mind, body and soul. You must think about your work all of the time; you must physically be at work all of the time; and you must possess the fanatacism of a religious zealot to keep you on the top of the game. Success is not for the woman who wants to settle into a "normal" life. Success is not for the woman who wants to have time to herself. Success is not for those of us who want to find someone to share it with.
Success is a solitary pursuit. That is why there is only one queen in a bee hive. She is the ace-zero-no-higher. It is her world, and we are just lucky to be in it.
So as I watched this movie and thought back to my own Miranda Priestly, a St. John's suit-wearer, I realize that I am here because I made the choice not to be like her. I wanted to have a husband who would actually like being married to me. I wanted to have a flexible work schedule so that I could do more than just work and sleep day and day out. I wanted to continue to help people, but I wanted to be able to say no when things got too overwhelming. I also wanted to pursue some of my interests, such as dance and writing.
I wouldn't be able to do any of those things if I had followed in the footsteps of my old boss. I wanted to live my life on my own terms, and in the end, if I can accomplish some measure of happiness, then that is all the success I need.
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