Pearls To Share - Day 6

One of the most valuable lessons I have learned in my working life (and outside of work too, no doubt) is the one I shall be sharing with you today. Stay with me as we reveal Pearls To Share - Day 6.

Women Can Be Tough Task Masters (aka Bosses)

This is the truth I tell ya! My worst bosses, without a doubt, have been women! (Sorry ladies, this is my experience we are talking about here).

I am not sure whether this is industry specific (advertising, publishing, recruitment and exhibitions - yeah, lousy female bosses in all four industries) or female specific. What I can say with certainty however is that I made a conscious decision to never become like one of them. I decided to rather not climb the corporate ladder than become a hard-nosed, tough and cynical female manager.

My experience showed me that female bosses were the toughest when it came to being a Mum and needing time out of the office for my daughter. As a result, I missed many sporting and cultural occasions which I sorely regret. Now my daughter is 21 years old, I will never have those times back again - they are gone ... forever!

I even had others standing in for me at the hospital whilst my daughter was ill. This was on the back of working remotely from the bedside of my ill child and being screamed at over the phone because I was not working from the office.

Of course, we all know that employees have legal rights, fighting that good fight is a job in itself and often does not end well for the employee.

Can you see why building my own successful online business became such a huge attraction?

There Was One Exception

I am very happy to report that I had one female manager who taught me the pearl I am about to share with you today.

She was a truly strong lady, both strong and a lady. You never saw her lose her cool, no matter how much pressure she received from the top (just incidentally, the MD was a woman, one of the worst kind I encountered in the business world).

My manager was a woman, who was strong and was a lady - all rolled into one. She was always immaculately turned out, she never raised her voice or participated in the insidious office politics that can be rampant.

She really was one in a million. I am grateful for the truly amazing lessons she taught me. The biggest lesson being "Life Won't Sparkle Unless You Do".

She had a penchant for sparkly things - jewelry, make up, shoes, hand bags, clothes, stationery ... you name it, she loved anything that sparkled!

An Onsite Birthday Story

This particularly role was in the exhibition industry. We had an out-of-town show coming up and anyone who has worked in the expo industry will tell you, once onsite, there is little time for anything other than the show!

Our manager's birthday fell on one of the build-up days for the show. Being a conscientious team we decided to celebrate the week before. We all chipped in together and bought the gifts, lovely goodies to eat and non-alcoholic beverages (the MD would have seriously frowned on any alcohol during office hours - heaven forbid a glass of champagne and orange!).

We surprised our manager and she loved it. We really did spoil her rotten!

Birthday day rolled around, we met at 6am for our quick breakfast in the hotel and had a little happy birthday sing-song before heading off to site.

Thankfully the day ran smoothly, and though we all worked extremely hard - we each walked an average of 10km per day we were onsite and our onsite hours were 7am until 11pm or there about - the team was in good spirits.

At 4pm our manager walked into the organisers' office with bottles of champagne and beautiful glasses! She announced that we would be celebrating her birthday onsite, as GM, she had the authority to make that decision. Aside from which, "what happens on site ... stays on site!" (Yeah, a lot like Vegas - to all the Super Affiliates - we know how this works, lol!).
So there we were, all sweaty and dressed in our construction gear ... that's right, safety gear, steel cap shoes, dusty and all ... drinking sparkling bubbles onsite with our much loved GM who really did teach us how to sparkle no matter what.

Pearls To Share - Day 6

So there you have it, Pearls To Share - Day 6. Life Won't Sparkle Unless You Do.

I have this quote on my desk top to remind me every single day that it all starts with us. What do you do to ensure that your life sparkles?

Love & blessings always