I must admit that being a young and half presentable female in a male dominated industry occasionally opens doors for me. Unfortunately the other side of the coin is you do attract unwanted attention and half offensive remarks from time to time.
To illustrate my point, I need to take you back to last Friday....
I was kicking and having a few drinks with my colleagues at Collins Quarter after work and ran into a few old clients of ours. I had previously met them few months ago and a few of them had sent me texts asking me to "catch up and review their share portfolios" outside of office hours. One of them even sent me a text at 10:30pm. Talk about being inappropriate...
Even though I was still new to the business back then, I wasn't retarded enough to take their "initiatives" seriously. I knew I wasn't going to write a ticket off these people. And I probably wouldn't want to even if I could - that's not how I do business. But I didn't want to offend them so I just laughed them off and acted nonchalant.
Then we ran into them again last Friday and after a couple of drinks, the older guy blurted, "A, when are you going to look at our portfolios?"
I held my champagne flute close to my face (desperately trying to stop myself from pouring it all over the gang of douchebags) and said "when you guys learn to call during business hours!"
All of a sudden, the room fell to an awkward silence. The fund manager standing next to me burst out laughing and said, "that was the funniest thing I've heard all night!"
Oops, roses have thorns.
You just messed with the wrong girl.
i feel you missy... i am a broker myself too... i have to say one of the biggest challenges over the years have not come from clients but from my male collegues... i took a longer time and a tougher attitude before i was taken seriously...cheer on!
ReplyDeleteGood for you! It's definitely a bit more challenging in a so-called "male dominated" world. But once we prove ourselves, it's a cake walk.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, the cosmetics industry is predominantly male as well, despite it catering more towards women.
Catalyst81: I never had any issues with my colleagues. I'm the youngest there so they ve always been very protective and nurturing. Oh well, I suppose you can't win them all :)
ReplyDeleteAngie: I'm surprised! I d think the cosmetics industry was dominated by females!