When women rule the office

“If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.”
-Dave Barry

Recently I’ve been working closely with a hair products company. Today I presented the conclusions of the qualitative research that I have been laboring over for the last month. The conclusions were very strong, and I think the whole audience believed. Thus it was successful.

However, once again I left the client’s office pondering about more than just hairbrushes and headbands. Of the 10 people in our meeting, 7 were female. As I currently work in a male-dominated office (and often business), I’m totally intrigued by the notion of working with a bunch of women, especially women around my age.

They are all dressed so cute and seem to be such good friends. For example, when one of the girls asked the group, “So what’s been going on since I got back from my trip to China?” (Meaning at work), someone replied, “Well, Ashlee Simpson is pregnant and engaged. And did you hear that Beyonce and Jay-Z got married.” I’m not especially a gossipmonger, especially about celeb news, but to be able to talk about that sort of stuff with your colleagues—that’s foreign to me.

And the girls, they dress so cute. I currently have no motivation to dress up super-cute at work. Everyone else is wearing the button-down and khakis that they wore last week. Therefore my wardrobe is definitely lacking. This week, in particular, I had to “dress up” three days for meetings, etc., and I don’t have many more cute clothes in my office. I need the inspiration, and I need the advice that these women could give me.

Rob has complained recently about women crying at his office. I have to admit I have shed a tear or two, but I’m sure it was a well-deserved tear. I also don’t have much patience with whiny, bitchy girls who get their feelings hurt all of the time. Somehow though, I imagine that female-dominated businesses run a lot differently than the male-oriented jobs that Rob and I are currently in. Maybe that’s idealistic of me, but someday I would like to find out for myself.