Lady You're Not a Man: The Adventures of a Woman at Work

by Apurva Purohit

As we celebrate our success and our achievement, we must count ourselves blessed for being in the situation we are in today. Life has given us countless opportunities that millions of women don’t have and will not get, at least in this lifetime.

CORPORATE MANTRA OF THE DAY A majority of the women in the world don’t get the opportunity of an education and a chance to earn that many of us today take for granted. Let us remember always how lucky we are to be born in an era and in a milieu that has allowed us this freedom, and let us be cognizant and appreciative of that opportunity.

grouses

CORPORATE MANTRA OF THE DAY One of the not-so-nice things about being part of a couple is that your partner is always given the primary status, however successful you may be. It is important to deal with this stereotyping and make sure that people recognize you as a separate and equally important entity.

CORPORATE MANTRA OF THE DAY Women start preparing for marriage and motherhood far earlier than they need to. In the process, the period when they step back from their careers lasts much longer than required, compromising their professional growth. Good organizations typically don’t discriminate against their female employees. Don’t blame the organization for the choices you made along the way.

Special projects are the organization’s way of checking whether you are ready for the next role—never say no to them!

CORPORATE MANTRA OF THE DAY Male and female subordinates have different buttons and need to be handled differently. While women can be told directly or instructed since they won’t make it an ego issue, men have to be managed more artfully, by allowing them to believe that they are in full control of their destinies.

sotto voce.

CORPORATE MANTRA OF THE DAY If you are out there—alone and bravely running your life exactly as you have chosen to—and sometimes get frustrated and lonely, remember we are all right here, egging you on, admiring you, standing up for you.

CORPORATE MANTRA OF THE DAY While women have taken giant strides, both in thinking and in deed, many men are still living in the Stone Age. There is no point in letting their comments bother us.

CORPORATE MANTRA OF THE DAY There is a lot of debate around reservations and the necessity of using them to help women overcome their current state of backwardness. Mostly, reservation is just tokenism and, in my opinion, will end up harming the cause of women in the long run. Solving basic problems, especially in the area of infrastructural support and safety for women, will be far more useful than reservations to ensure their advancement in the workplace.

CORPORATE MANTRA OF THE DAY An important responsibility of being a woman achiever is mentoring the next generation of men so that they grow up to respect and treat women as equals. How you behave as a mother and a sister will impact a whole generation of men and, by association, the women they deal with.

Therefore, the only way to behave is to treat every moment of our lives as preciously as possible. Each day at work, we need to conduct ourselves with as much diligence and sincerity as possible. Every moment has to matter to us and make a difference, big or small, to the environment around us.

CORPORATE MANTRA OF THE DAY In our quest to build an impressive CV, we sometimes forget that what is more important is our reputation. A good reputation cannot be created in a day or rewritten on paper, unlike a CV. It is built over millions of moments of being diligent, sincere, hardworking and ethical.

CORPORATE MANTRA OF THE DAY Certainly praise your team and always remember to thank the people who supported you, because that’s what good managers do; but also take a few minutes to articulate the good things you yourself did, without being brash. Saying good things about yourself becomes easier if you think of yourself as another member in the team who also needs to be complimented.