Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [45]
FIRST AID FOR THE DISEASE TO PLEASE
So how can you possibly treat the disease to please? Certainly fourteen days of amoxicillin and some cold compresses to the head aren't going to knock out something that's this ingrained.
Probably the single thing that helped me overcome the need to be the most popular girl at work was the realization that it just couldn't be done. Think back to high school for a minute. One of the phrases used about popular kids is, “Everyone loves her.” In other words, back then it seemed that if you tried hard enough, it was within the realm of possibility to enchant each and every kid in your class.
But as people age, they get more complex, develop different needs and lots of emotional baggage. Winning them over is no longer as simple as passing them in the corridor and announcing, “I love your hair like that.” No matter how hard you try, some people just won't like you.
“When someone doesn't like you in your company, it might be because of something you've done, but it could just as easily be due to a factor out of your control,” says Post. “They dislike you simply because you remind them of their mother.”
Besides, even the people who like you one moment may not the next if your career really starts to barrel along and theirs doesn't. Management consultant Kay Peters of New York City has this philosophy: “If you are successful, there will be at least several people in your organization who don't like you simply due to that fact, and if you're also good looking they will hate your guts.”
HOW TO SAY NO—AND REALLY MEAN IT
Even when you change your own mind-set about being the pleaser, it will take other people a while to catch on. Having you in that role may have suited them just fine, especially if it's meant that they could count on you to lake care of some of their business—finish up their projects, tidy up their messes, listen to them rant or rave.
A big part of giving up the pleaser role is learning how to say no.
You can't say no to everything you don't like. It's your boss's right to dump some of the work on you, and in many cases, certain projects that at first glance might seem nasty could help you develop an invaluable expertise or specially or else expose you to key people in the organization. When I was working as a feature writer at Glamour, one of the editors walked over to my desk one day at 4:49, as she was leaving to catch the 5:10 commuter train to Long Island, tossed a manuscript on my desk, and asked me to edit it for her. I mumbled a feeble “okay” and watched in annoyance as the tail of her red coat flicked in the doorway. My job didn't include editing (in fact, I'd never even edited an article) and it was obvious that the only reason I was being given this assignment was that it was due the next day and the editor had other things to take care of.
But as I began to work on the article, I discovered how thrilling it was to edit someone's words, to scratch and rephrase and cut and paste. I also realized that I was holding a ticket in my hands. This was what I could use to launch myself up to another level. Dump all you want, I thought, and she did. Over the next few months I edited many articles, and seven months later I got a job as a senior editor at another magazine because I'd had a crash course in the process of line editing.
What you want to avoid, if possible, are the projects that are tickets to nowhere. Here's the best approach:
• Give yourself the stomach test. When an added responsibility is a real loser, one that will do nothing for your career and only make you rue the day you ever accepted it, you will experience a dull squeezing feeling in your stomach. This is your warning that you must try to get out of it.
• Offer an excuse that's tied to one of your key responsibilities