You've Come a Long Way Baby!

I’ve been at my current job for a long time – 20 years and 6 months to be exact. Not because I loooove the job. Not because I'm so dedicated. Certainly not because I haven’t tried to get a position in my field…well, you get the drift. Before my current job, I worked in a large claims office of about 70 employees. I was young, and pretty much at bottom of the food chain in the office but on one level, and one level only, the playing field was even. And that was the break room, or as I like to think of it, the great equalizer. Yep, we were all equal in the breakroom, from the branch manager to the front desk clerk, male and female, young and old.

The break room had a kitchen with a refrigerator, sink, cupboards and microwave. There were tables and chairs. You could use the refrigerator to store your food and beverages during the week, but everything that was not removed by Friday afternoon, was thrown away at the end of the day no matter whom it belonged to. If you made a mess preparing your food, you cleaned it up. You wiped the table when you were done at lunch or break time. There were always enough people around to hold you accountable. But the chief and most fundamental rule of the break room revolved around the coffee pot. It was simple. Whoever took the last cup of coffee from either the regular or decaf pot, made the next pot, thus ensuring there was always coffee available. It did not matter who you were. Those were the rules. Many are the time I saw the branch manager of the whole office making a pot of coffee. It was something you could count on like death and taxes.

So, when I came to my new job at the small insurance agency, I wasn’t fooled. I knew it was still a man’s world and I knew I was still a peon. I expected the man would be honing his macho by bossing me around ensuring his superiority over my female weakness. But nothing prepared me for my first introduction to my new job. My boss, while showing me around the office, walked me over to the coffee pot and said, verbatim: This is the coffee pot and it's your job to keep it full. I laughed - surely he was joking. With a big grin I said, ‘you’re kidding right/” He looked me straight in the eye and confirmed that he was not. The earth moved, but not in a good way. I was reeling and had trouble focusing the rest of the day. It was my first inkling of my new and even lower status.

Keep in mind, I, like most women, especially 20 years ago, had no illusions about what I was up against in this "man's world." At the time, I was a single mother with an ex who did not pay child support - ever. I had a high-school education and about 30 college credits so I knew the score. Yet still, the coffee pot directive came as a shock. Hadn't we advanced in this 20th century? Was not our generation of women the vanguard of feminism, the movement for equal rights, equal pay and dignity for women. Did not our female forbears in this very century garner for us the right to vote? I was apalled - and what's worse...I was stuck. I had already left my other job and didn't have much experience as it was. I was stuck with this dictator who viewed me as the "dumb broad" at the office. Remember the movie, "9 to 5," with Dolly Parton? That song became my theme song in my head for many years, through the $7 per hour pay checks, 10 cent raises, verbal snubs, and endless pots of coffee.

Fast forward 20 years: My kids are grown and gone. I am remarried and have earned a bachelor's and a master's degree. I'm still working at the same job. I won't go into my arduous and continual attempts to procure other employment - that's for another day. I'm not sure what happend. Perhaps I'm being punished by the God that I question so rabidly. Maybe I'm learning a lesson that I didn't quite get in a past life. Maybe my resume sucks...the point is - it's not for lack of trying. But I have learned a few things along the way and I believe my boss, the coffee tyrant, has as well.

My title is "office manager." Pretty much, I do the same things as everyone else with a few small added responsibilities. In years past, one of the other workers who started earlier than me and was lower on the office food chain, always made the coffee. When she left, I noticed my boss actually making coffee now and then. By that time, he wouldn't dream of asking me to do it for fear of my feminist wrath. But one morning, in a fit of magnanimous benevolence, I offered to make the coffee. That was about 4 years ago. I have been making it ever since. If for some reason I don't make it, the coffee tyrant tells one of the other ladies to do it. Don't get me wrong about the coffee tyrant. He is a good man. He's a hard worker and has a kind heart. But in his own words, he is a male chauvinist.

I am as close as it is possible to get to the top of the food chain in this now, 4 peson office and have been for years. I can't go any further - I've hit the ceiling as it were...glass, um plastic - I don't know. I didn't have to claw my way to the "top" either - I've just been here the longest. I've had to fight for every vacation day, most pay raises and priviledges that we have obtained. I have made myself a major thorn in the coffee tyrants side many times for the betterment of myself and the others and for that, I have no regret.

I've come to grips with the coffee debacle. Don't misunderstand - I know making coffee was never really the issue. It was just symbolic of all of the attitudes and perceptions that make up the gender gap and strain relations between all involved. I recently read the statement, "Because we live in a world of dualities, we often need to understand the shadow before we can appreciate the light," (Daily Om). While I still cringe at the menial tasks I perform such as washing the dishes in the office kitchen every third week and plunging the sink while sporting my currently worthless master's degree, I am able to overlook the coffee war. Saying I'm disheartened over my inability to get a position in my field is a broad understatement. I tear up every time I write out my monthly payment to Uncle Sam for the school loans. But I continue to search for the place I want to be. In the meantime, me and the coffee tyrant have come to a mutual respect and understanding now. Plus, we've grown up a bit.

For my part, I've realized the gender gap will not be bridged over a pot of coffee. I make coffee now as a gesture of kindness and willingness to serve my fellow man/coffee tyrant. I remain militant in the face of injustice but I choose my battles so much more carefully. And as for the coffee tyrant, I have seen cracks in the armor of his bravado. He is a bit more compassionate and respectful to women these days. I can't take all the credit for that - he is the father of two strong young women, but I like to believe I had something to do with his enlightenment. It helps to think so.

Heritage

My mother was from Scotland. You might think that would make me part Scottish, but you'd be wrong...according to my mother. Her parents were from Ireland and so, we are Irish. Scotland was just the place where they lived. It's a pretty big deal in my family. Among my cousins, all from Scotland, there is great pride and loyalty in our Irish heritage. Make that the Irish Catholic heritage. I am not excluding myself - I also am very proud and that feeling grows as I age. I picture roots that grow stronger and deeper below the surface of my life as time passes.

I have always been a rebel from as far back as I can remember. It's as natural to me as breathing; something I was born with. I don't know exactly where that comes from. My mother was kind of the black sheep of her family. Maybe it came from her. She was the first and only divorcee in her Irish Catholic family in her generation, prompting her to leave Scotland and immigrate, first to Canada and then to the United States/Detroit. It was in Detroit that she met my dad, the second of three husbands.

The persecution of Catholics was one of the main drivers behind the "troubles" that have plagued Ireland and to a significant extent, the Irish in Scotland, and fueled the fury and fighting that has carried on for decades. In my family, discrimination came in the form of jobs. On job applications, they were required to identify their religious affiliation which up until the last decade or so, could cost them the job if they were Catholic. They were also identified by their names. For example, Meehan was known as a Catholic name. One of my cousins used his mother's maiden name one year to get a job because the name was considered a protestant name. Of course, that didn't go over well with the family as you can imagine. So vitriole and rebellion linger beneath the surface for the Irish in Scotland and in my family. Maybe it came from there.

I was raised in the Catholic church and went to Catholic school. I have fond memories of my early years in the church. My mother took me when I was small and made me go by myself when I got older. I had to bring home a church paper every Sunday as evidence that I attended mass. Since she was divorced, she was denied sacraments so she didn't want to go but felt it was important for me to be there. You don't need me to tell you that a teenager will take note of that kind of behavior and rebel. In Scotland, a popular term of endearment was, :Oh ya cheeky wee bitch." I heard that often as a child, but it was not a bad thing. In fact, it was generally said tongue in cheek and with a smile. But one day, I called my mom a cheeky wee bitch intending that same playful spirit. Apparently, being born in the US diluted my Irish/Scott quotient because my mom walloped me a good one. So, at an early age I learned two things; First - what is ok for mom to say is not necessarily ok for me to say, and second; what is ok for mom NOT to do is not ok for me NOT to do (church). Maybe it came from these experiences.

But here's what I think: I think a bit was inherited from my mother who was a rebel in her own right; A little from my father who was kind of eccentric, a free thinker and an unsuccessful entepreneur; and the rest from my own personality, or the stars I was born under, or my instincts and observations while growing up, or all of the above, or whatever. That's my theory - it is who I am, a part of me, and I've used it for good and maybe just a wee bit of evil too. But these days, there is a sense of maturity to my rebellion. Perhaps those rebel instincts have evolved into confidence in who I am and what I believe, or what I don't believe. In any event, I've come to trust those instincts.