It is one thing to have a job and another thing to be working. You can have a job but not working meaning that you are just occupying a job position but not really adding value to what you do.
Talking of being a bad cop at work place. What do i mean? If you go to work every day and all you do is just do the usual mundane stuff you have been doing for years without new innovations, ideas , creativity, you are not in a career that can catapult you into high success arena so being either a good or a bad cop at work makes no meaning to you. Unless after reading this today, you desire to add fire to your career and be a champ in the career world. The group of working women that got into this court of being good/bad cop at work place are actually fiesty career women who know what it means to build a career and out to make a mark in the field of work they find themselves.
Being a bad cop has a lot to do with women whom lots of people see/percieve as being difficult to work with but if you take a close survey or study such women, they are not difficult. In a career world, women do not find climbing the ladder a tea party and am sure most women including the men we work with understand this pretty well. Honestly, no successful working woman will boast of having it easy building a career. It is difficult for us women in the career world trying to keep our heads afloat as we prove that we can be useful at our various work places.
Years back while i was at the university, i took interest in one intellectual woman in my state who decided to compete with male Governorship candidates then. Being who i am, i volunteered to fly the youth wing of her campaign to support her courage of aspiring to be our Governor. I walked into her campaign office one afternoon to have a meeting with her and met her with sore-red-tear-eyes. The woman have been crying to the extent that she could not control herself before visitors. This is a woman whom we, the young ones saw as very powerful, emotionally strong and had it all in the area of Leadership qualities but, there she was crying in her office after a meeting with some group of men who came out before i walked in. Knowing how men in my state grade/treat women who took the bold step she did, i need no prophet to tell me what happened with her and those men that visited her. Who ever says it is easy for women to be on top of affairs in Africa? Nay..nay..nay…absolutely not easy! If you are a woman and it has been been butter and cream for you all through, i will certainly love to hear your story.
Now, i belong to such women who love to be the bad cop. Oh yea…call me any name you like…i am who i am, that was the way i was wired by my Creator and then my geographic location where HE position me is not an easy terrain so, what do you expect me to do? Sit back and watch others sling mud at me as i live my life? Tolerate crap from people who derive great joy from wickedness and injustice? Swallow Garbbage from ill mannered people filled everywhere in this crazy society? Pamper those who feel women are less human beings and have nothing useful to offer to the world than warming men’s bed, making babies and doing house chores? That is never going to happen…ever in my entire life….you got the wrong woman!!!
Those who have worked with me and reading this will understand my drift. Last two months, a man who happened to be a resource person with one of my Clients in a training Institute came on to me while i was busy typing my articles after my paper presentations during one of our Workshops. Check this out-
MAN: Why are you so hung on your laptop all afternoon…looking so serious..?
ME: I looked up at him and said nothing….(my inside snapped!!)
MAN: What paper did you deliver today?
ME: I decided to tell him thinking he will let me be… CUSTOMER SERVICE &PERSONAL BRANDING IN LEADERSHIP
MAN: Where did you school? Uni this…that..or?? Where are you from?
ME: Whatttttt? Am i under interrogation or what? My blood was hot now and i almost kicked him..verbally….. but somehow i got hold of my self. I continued with my typing and the man seriously disturbed my work that day.
I did not answer his last questions but, sternly warned him to stop distracting me because i was now angry with all his questioning.
ME: Hey, who are you by the way? You never introduced yourself to me and here you are wanting to know who i am….is this how you make friends? I do not like your approach so can you allow me now to work.. as you rightly pointed out..you can see i am very busy…
MAN: Oh..sorry..i am…bla-bla..bla.. from so and so state…..ok…carry on with your work…sorry please!!
Jeeeeeez …was i annoyed…appaulled by this man’s approach?
Couple of weeks later, i met this same man at the same Training Institute but now sitting alone with the owner of the Institute whom i have worked closely for almost ten years now and this same man came up with stories of the way i treated him. The owner of the company knowing me very well immediatley started laughing without even hearing the whole gist. He shook his head and asked ..what did Jackie do to you…i pity you oohhhhh…what happened? I spilled it and at the same time puttting the man in his rightful place by teaching him how to approach women politely if he wanted to make friends. He apologised and thanked me for correcting him saying that has been his usual approach but never knew it was wrong and not meant for every woman he meets. He said most women he came across never mind….the owner of the company cut him short and said…Jackie is not just any woman my friend…now you know women are different and have their levels…you were lucky you never met the BAAAD side of her that day… what were you thinking mr. man? We all laughed about this but that man learnt his lessons!!
As a woman, it does not matter your work/career status, majority of people you work with still see you as a woman…second class….only God understand what people meant when they say—yea,yea…you are good,the best…but your are still a WOMAN! (To be continued next week)
JACLYN IWU
