Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [10]
As I left the publisher's office, there was one immediate thought flashing through my mind: Well, I guess I'm not going to get to see any puffins or polar bears this year. But once the news sank in, I was exhilarated, and I felt a burning passion to put my stamp on the magazine during my stint as acting editor. I also realized that I really, really wanted the job. The publisher had told me that like all the other candidates, I had to submit a long-term proposal for the magazine to the top people in the company. I vowed that when the big guys were done reading mine they'd have to collect their socks from across the room.
Over the next weeks—and what turned out to be months—I threw myself into the job, doing everything possible to make the magazine snazzy and get it to the plant on time each week. The publisher had asked that I send him memos on upcoming cover stories, but other than that he left me to my own devices. I didn't make any attempt to contact him, figuring it was best to leave well enough alone. My proposal for the magazine was completed in two weeks and I sent it by interoffice mail to top management, keeping my fingers crossed.
There were a few hairy moments, mainly with the staff: morale got very low because it was taking management so long to make a decision, but I was as pleasant as could be, bending over backwards to get people to like me. My biggest headache was with the senior editor, who called me into her office one day, told me to shut the door, and announced that she had the publisher wrapped around her finger and could make or break my chances for the job. I suggested we have dinner and talk over the situation.
Finally, after three long months, the publisher phoned and asked me to join him the next day for lunch at the Palm, a famous New York steak house favored by middle-aged salesmen with arteries, as hard as curtain rods. I knew I was about to learn my fate, and something told me that the news wasn't good: the job was probably going to someone else and I was about to get surf-and-turf as a consolation prize.
Twenty minutes after we sat down, the publisher still hadn't mentioned my job, though he'd twice called me “Princess,” which I took as a sign that a power position probably wasn't in my immediate future. The biggest omen occurred when I returned from the ladies’ room. Not wanting to seem like a sissy, I'd asked him to order me a glass of red wine while I was gone. “Bad news,” he announced as I sat down again. “They won't bring your wine until they see a picture ID.”
Over coffee I learned that indeed I wasn't going to be editor-in-chief. The guy they'd hired was about twelve years older than I, with “lots of experience.” They gave me a title change and a raise and I got some consolation from the fact that my proposal was supposedly the best of the lot. What I told myself through my disappointment was that I'd lost out because I was too young. I believed that my day would come and that years later I would look back and realize that everything had worked out for the best.
It's only now, over ten years later, while writing this book, that the truth has finally hit me: I failed to get the job of editor-in-chief not because I was too young at the time but because I'd been a good girl. I'd retreated into the woodwork, rationalizing that a low profile would help my case. I'd tried so hard to make the staff like me that they viewed me as desperate and thus, powerless. And I'd never taken any steps to demonstrate to top management that I had a burning passion for the position.
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