The Penis Premium

The Penis Premium: The Penis Premium is a term used by underpaid women to describe the gender pay gap in a cynical manner.  The Penis Premium is the difference in pay between confident appearing men, who have little experience and successfully push for a pay rise in a six monthly cycle, and whingy women with significantly more experience and higher responsibilities, who professionally lay out their case for a higher salary but are not eligible for a pay rise due to their lack of penises. 

 

I told the leader I am looking

and he took it well.

I am after better money and a job where my actual responsibilities are formalised.  If I am to manage and develop people the way I do I want it to be in my title and want to get compensated for.  There is this internal position that has come up and I am going to apply for it.  I told the leader I would like to find out more about the opportunity.  He got the hint.

He knew straight away what bothers me.  He said he would support me if this opportunity was what I wanted but that he would like to keep me.

My leader is a controlled person.  He has the biggest poker face. But in this case his body language gave him away.  He crumbled.

It made me feel good.  I know he likes my work and cannot change what I want changing.  But I have to do what I have to do.

How to divert from a difficult topic

I respect my leader a lot because I can observe and learn from his behaviour to build my own leadership skills.  He is level headed, objective, emotionally intelligent and more.  In recent months I have brought up the topic of my career progression again and again, just to keep it on his radar and make sure there is no misunderstanding (bad experience I had with a previous bully boss).

So, this week I called him as he was traveling overseas to discuss this and that, including my dissatisfaction with my current situation.  I tell him as it is and then he answers, referring to my comments.  Right after that however, he diverts from the subject - and he always does it in the same way: he says what he is up to for the rest of the day, then next week and the week after, that he will be off work then but that I can always contact him by text message.  He does this on many occasions when he just wants to move away from a subject.  He gets me to move away from a frustrating, yet important for me, subject and makes me feel important and appreciated in the end just by saying I can contact him at any time, even during his holiday.

Only now after several months I can see the pattern.  On the one hand I sometimes feel fooled because he can manage any conversation very skilfully, while on the other hand I admire him for this and almost feel privileged to be able to work with him.

Becoming more aware: body language and EQ

Currently I am working on developing my soft skills, which will be useful for the type of job I am doing.  On a regular basis I need to provide a vision to several people, get them on board for my ideas, have them share their ideas, motivate them and build a mutually trustful relationship.  By nature I would appear to have a high EQ.  I noticed in my early teens that I pick up subtleties others would not, although it took me into my early 20s specify this further and come across high sensitivity and the concept of emotional intelligence.   

So, there was me and my coworker today whose background could not be any more different.  I am European, he is Chinese, none of us has English as their first language.  I tend to be direct and managed to offend people from another background in the past.  Friends have told me they were intimidated by me when we first met, so my focus was on starting today's meeting in a relaxed atmosphere, observe and adjust my voice and words accordingly.  After all this meeting was about him taking on more work and contribute to what I do and I needed him to get on board for this and wanting to work with me.

His body language was tense and he looked as though he wanted to leave this meeting.  I sensed he was worried about being overloaded with work and tried to find a way to put him at ease, say something that would help him, not interfere with my own values and still help to mutually agree our way forward.  After some time I reassured him that it is important to me the people I work with are happy and than I am happy if they can balance work and their 'other life'.  I gave him an idea as to what his focus would be on in the coming months so he got a sense of the expectations by taking on this project.  Maybe 40 minutes into this meeting I saw a sudden shift.  He relaxed in his chair and was even leaning forward.  It was as though a huge weight fell off him and he then said it would be good for him to take on this work as he can learn a lot.  I could not help but smile at this success for both of us.

Divide and conquer with the bully boss

The middle aged female bully boss likes to surround herself with young males in the early or mid 20s.  She loves the attention they give each other, while the junior colleagues cannot reach her the water in terms of achievements and have one thing I do not: a penis.  I mean it.  The bully boss does not like other women, which has become more than obvious.  I am yet to figure out what triggers this, but it is easy to tell how she reacts having other women near her: she throws them under the bus, badmouths them, intimidates them and gives them the cold shoulder.  When with other women the bully boss has to have her way and will do anything to get this.

Today she surrounded herself with four junior colleagues, three males and one female, and started gossiping about the leader. Two of them are her direct reports.  She disclosed information from a meeting with the leader and other line managers, while at the same time discounting what the leader said in that meeting.  The young colleagues all agreed with her and I wish them that one day they will be independent and strong enough to have their own opinion.

Those young people must have felt part of the club chatting about this stuff with a senior person.  What they do not know is that the recent organizational changes have, in fact, meant the demotion of the bully boss and that she has lost credibility amongst other seniors.  She excels as an individual contributor and has brought in a lot of money for the company, but the lacks situational awareness nor does she understand her responsibilities as a manager.  The be friends with her is not something I would aim for, but I may be biased here.

How I feel six weeks into having a leader as boss

The bully still behave as if she was my boss.  The situation has been this:

Every monday the bully boss held a team meeting - this was started long time ago - without an agenda any kind of structure.  Sometimes she would ask me what I am working on, or would want to know some detail of my work rather than providing the big picture, the framework.  Nothing ever came out of these meetings nor did the bully boss remember anything I said.  Quite often she would ask me the same questions repeatedly in different Monday meetings.

Some weeks ago the bully boss had authority removed and the leader (her boss and now also mine) took over the monday meetings.  He would go around and give everyone the chance to speak briefly to address any concerns or burning issues.  If critical the leader would follow up on some items.  Now, sometimes the leader is not here, so he has asked the bully boss to hold these meetings on his behalf.

It is not that the bully boss has learned how to hold a constructive meeting since the leader took over.

As soon as it started she asked me:

Bully boss (BB): So, target, what are you working on at the moment?
Me: Just the usual stuff (I don't report to her after all)
BB: So, have you got your project finished?
Me: Yes, we finished last week.
BB: When does it go live?
Me: In September (how many times I have I said this before???)
BB (trying to find other munition): So, what about your trip to Brazil?
Me: Yes, I'm going to Brazil.
BB: When are you going?
Me: I am going in October.
BB: Who are you meeting?
Me: We are setting up meetings at the moment.
BB: And who are you meeting? Are you getting help from this other lady?
Me: I am working on it with 'this other lady' and the leader.  If you are interested I can share with you the agenda when it is finalised.

BB looked visibly confused not being used to boundary setting.  Instead of focusing on important things that need to be addressed rather urgently, she randomly picks subjects and wants full reporting on them.  It's not that the leader is on annual leave, he is just not in the office but working, and there just is no need for her to try and get detailed reporting from me about an upcoming business trip, especially when the leader, my boss, is available otherwise, just not physically.  This as example my seem trivial on its own, but it was a pattern until not long ago.  It is a way to control other peoples work.  How I know that?  Well, the bully boss has not been constructive in bringing up the subject and her asking.  She has not come up with any ideas or constructive feedback - she just felt she is entitled to be kept in the loop for whatever reason and that I am obliged to answer. Maybe she needed to feel in authority, I don't know, but her asking was not leading a team nor did she represent the leader in his absence.

When I gave here the final answer, she was seeking approval from two junior team members.  You know when one looks at another like 'Are you thinking what I am thinking?'.  She needed them to agree that I am acting in a weird way, apparently, because I did not oblige.