Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [75]
Good girls are terrible at taking because they believe that anything highly desirable must actually belong to someone else or they assume there is some reason why they aren't supposed to have it—and they will get their wrist slapped if they make a raid on it.
The first great lesson I learned in taking was when I won the Glamour contest. Part of the prize was having our photographs taken for the August issue of the magazine. All the winners would appear in fashion spreads and one lucky girl would be chosen for the cover.
Now, I wanted to be on the cover in the worst possible way. As a gawky, dateless teenager I'd read Jean Shrimpton's book The Truth About Modeling, and fantasized about being a cover girl one day. This was my one shot at fulfilling my old fantasy.
So when it came time for us to select the clothes we would wear from a giant rack of fall fashions, I did something that seemed to me perfectly malevolent. As all the other girls chose shirts and sweaters in the muted earth tones that were popular that year, I made a beeline for the bright yellow sweater that had “cover look” stamped all over it (even though I never wore yellow myself). As I saw one girl after another pick a dull-as-dishwater sage cardigan or burnt sienna pullover, I wondered guiltily if I should point out to them that magazine covers were traditionally bold and colorful—but I kept my lips zipped. Even now when I come across that old cover and see my face smiling up at me in the yellow turtleneck, all I can think is, You little conniver.
No guy would think that way. Men are the masters of taking what's there for the taking—and they never, ever feel apologetic about it. When I was at Working Woman I hired this fabulous male senior editor, the only male editor on the staff, who was brilliant at taking. About five months after he joined the staff, our company hit some tough financial times and we were forced to leave our halfway decent office space and move to recently vacated space in another building. It was the pits. The walls were filthy, the carpet looked as if it hadn't been cleaned since 1957, and the space was so tight that four senior editors, including Mr. X, were going to have to share a large rectangular room that was once the library—and oh, their assistants were going to have to sit in there, too. These, by the way, were all editors who had had their own offices at our previous address.
The day of the move was chaotic, with workmen not only moving in our stuff but removing lots of old furniture that had been abandoned by the previous tenants. The managing editor stopped by my office periodically to fill me in on all the moaning and groaning the editors were doing about their fate. Around midday she raced in and announced that I had to come down and see what Mr. X had pulled off.
As his female colleagues had unhappily unpacked their boxes, he had been busy getting the lay of the land and greasing the palms of workmen. He had managed to secure a freestanding bookcase that he used to wall in his end of the room, as well as a clubby little couch. By the end of the day he had created a comfy office all to himself. It almost appeared as if he were the boss and the female editors were the typing pool.
Never assume that just because no one has grabbed something that it's not yours for the taking. If there's an empty seat next to the big cheese at a meeting and no one is sitting there, go ahead, help yourself.
CHAPTER NINE
Strategy #7: A Gutsy Girl Faces Trouble Head-On
The first time anyone tried to sabotage me at work was a chilling experience, in part because it seemed to come out of nowhere—and from a person I liked.
I had hired this woman myself, for a special project, and because I was overloaded with work, I gave her plenty of autonomy. I did, however, pop into her office periodically to see how things were progressing. She was pleasant and smart and we got along well. Eventually the project came to an end and my boss and I decided that we would absorb her into the main operation, where