Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

I think…therefore I’m dangerous.

Against the Odds? Whose Odds?

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Some more about perceived gender inequalities.

Readers who know me well know a few things about me that apply in this post:

  • I have succeeded in three “male dominated” careers: accounting and finance, technical (computer) writing, and (helicopter) aviation.
  • I have zero tolerance for women who use gender as an excuse not to succeed at something they set out to do.
  • I have zero tolerance for anyone who gives different or preferential treatment to an individual in the workplace because of gender.

I am sick and tired of fielding questions from women who seem to think that their gender may prevent them from pursuing a career. I thought I’d take a moment to review two recent ones that crossed my path, along with my responses and some comments from a like-minded woman I know.

Girly Girls

The other day, the following comment was added to a blog post I’d written here about becoming a helicopter pilot:

Can you tell me more about how gender matters in this industry? Wouldn’t they want to hire more women since it is so obviously a boys club? Or are ‘they’ quite happy to keep it that way?

I’m a 20 year old Canadian woman thinking about making this a career. I’ve done ground school previously for fixed wing aircrafts and got top of the class and surprised everybody when I did (to look at me one thinks “she’s pretty so she must be stupid. Girly, flirtatious, naive, pushover” – although the way I am constantly misjudged has never and will never stop me from doing what I love.) What challenges are ahead of me in regards to my being a woman?

The answer is simple: gender matters if you make it matter. Are you being girly, flirtatious, naive, or a pushover? If so, why? Do you know any successful male pilots who have these traits? None of these traits make for a professional pilot — and isn’t that what you want to be?

I’ll admit that I’m royally pissed off when I see a woman pilot wearing inappropriate clothes: low cut blouses, short or tight skirts, high heels, oversized jewelry. Do men dress that way? I understand that you want to be feminine, but if you go that route, how can you expect to be treated the same as men? You can’t expect to be treated the same when you’re obviously going out of your way to be different.

My advice to this person was simple, too: Act like a professional and you’ll be treated as one. On the job, there is no gender — or at least there shouldn’t be. Be “one of the guys” and you’ll be treated like one of the guys.

Don’t want that? Want to be treated like a “lady”? Expect guys to do the dirty work for you because you don’t want to get your clothes dirty or break a nail? Then you’re in the wrong profession.

Facing Reality

This Facebook update appeared in the Women Helicopter Pilots Forum on Facebook:

Seems like the only realistic way for us ladies who recently finished flight school at commercial level is to slave by being an instructor first to ever build over 1000 hours to be employed by any company. I understand you learn a lot but I have no patience to teach, hence I didn’t sign up to be a helicopter instructor. What’s left to do?

This update blew me away. Seriously. In fact, I included it in a blog post titled “Helicopter Pilot Reality Check” in May which covered, for the most part, how future pilots expect to walk into high-paying jobs without “paying dues.”

What bothered me about this update was the author’s insinuation that the 1000-hour experience requirement was different for women than men. It’s not. Why did she assume it was? Could it be because she’s heard so many other women whining and complaining about career hurdles? Could it be that she assumed the experience requirement was yet another hurdle that only women had to jump?

Who gives women these ideas?

Other women.

Do Women’s Organizations Really Help Women?

There are a lot of women’s organizations. Maybe too many.

The Organization I Joined

I did join one women’s organization: Whirly-Girls. Whirly-Girls was founded in 1955 as “an organization where female [helicopter] pilots could share information and camaraderie.” Sounds good to me.

I was a member exactly one year. What turned me off: I attended Heli-Expo, a huge professional helicopter conference sponsored by HAI (Helicopter Association International). This is where helicopter vendors and operators get together to show off their best stuff and learn what they can about each other. Imagine a huge conference hall stuffed to the gills with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of helicopters and helicopter equipment. I visited the Whirly-Girls booth and was absolutely shocked to see that it existed primarily to sell clothes, Christmas tree ornaments, and jewelry.

Yes, while other members of our profession were displaying and providing information about their products, services, and organizations, the organization I belonged to was selling baby clothes.

To say I was embarrassed to be a member is an understatement.

I’ve attended meetings of various women’s organizations with the idea that I might want to join them. In every single case I was so turned off by the whining and excuse-making by the members that I left without joining — and didn’t go back.

You see, most of these organizations seem to exist primarily as a place for women to share examples of how they struggle — mostly unsuccessfully — to get ahead in their careers. It’s so hard for them, you see, when they’re trying to be wives and mothers while holding down a job. They don’t understand why the men get the promotions when it’s pretty obvious — at least to me — that an employer would prefer to promote a worker who gets the job done than the person who misses work every time a kid at home sneezes or another kid needs to be picked up early from soccer practice. They’d rather employ a person who does the job without making waves than the woman who screams “sexual harassment” when a male worker complements her on her dress or shoes. They’d rather employ the professional who has some level of dedication to a career than the woman punching a clock until she decides it’s time to start a family. The women who belong to these organizations complain that the men get ahead and make more money than they do and that it’s simply not fair. And that’s the underlying theme in all their meetings, in all their literature, in all their members’ attitudes.

So these organizations become a place for women to continue spreading inequality myths of their own creation that, in many cases, have become self-fulfilling prophecies — because of their own attitudes and expectations. They don’t help women understand that the only differences between women and men in the workplace are the differences they make.

Against the Odds

Earlier today, I was corresponding via email with my friend Martha, a blogger who lives in New Hampshire. We’re starting discussions about working together on a project and I was very worried that she might have the “gender excuse” attitude I’ve discussed here. I could not be part of a project that either promoted or allowed such attitudes.

Her response to me was spot on (emphasis added):

I’m with you on the wife/mother whining and the excuses for not pursuing goals. The corporate world taught me that the only differences between men and women are the ones women perceive and propagate. Succeeding against the odds just means you focused on the “odds” to begin.

And that’s really what it’s all about these days. A woman thinks the odds are stacked against her because she’s been told they are. She does nothing to prove that they’re not. Instead, she walks around acting or dressing like a woman — instead of like the professional she wants to be. And she magnifies every single example of how she’s treated differently, using it as proof that the odds are stacked against her.

Self-fulfilling prophecy, often magnified by women’s organizations.

Focus on the odds and you’ll never beat them. Focus on the job at hand and you’ll succeed.

What Do You Think?

I know my views on this topic are not popular with most women. I think it’s because they don’t want to hear the truth. I think they like being “disadvantaged,” I think they like having the gender crutch to lean on when they don’t succeed and need an excuse.

(Harsh words? Yep. But that’s the way I am. No bullshit out of me.)

Still, I invite readers to share their thoughts about this. I just want to make two final points before I let you loose on that comment link or form:

  • I wrote this in the United States in 2013 — a land of “equal opportunity” where we have laws to help ensure that women are treated equally in the workplace. I’m not writing this in Saudi Arabia, where women aren’t even allowed to drive, or in 1910, when women weren’t even allowed to vote. If you want to bring up other nations and ancient history, that’s fine. Just don’t expect me to apply it to what I’ve written or even to comment on it. I only know what I’ve experienced.
  • Before commenting about how wrong I am and offering up your excuse for why you (or your friend or your mother or your daughter) did not succeed in a career, take a moment to analyze that excuse. What’s the whole story? To succeed in a career as well as a man, you need to be able to perform as well as a man. If you can’t do the job, you can’t complain about not succeeding. It’s as simple as that.
June 30, 2014 Update
I’ve finally gotten around to writing up the site comment policy on a regular page (rather than post) on this site. You can find it here: Comment Policy.

Remember the site comment policy, too. If you can’t be civil, don’t waste your time commenting.

And finally, I’d like very much to hear from other women who agree with Martha and me about this — especially female bloggers or other writers who think they have something to share with other women about their own success. Comment here with a link to your blog or other writing.

What Matters Most

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A life lesson in a video.

Yesterday was my birthday. It was a bittersweet day for me — a year ago on my birthday was the day my husband called and told me he wanted a divorce.

What kind of sick bastard asks his wife for a divorce on her birthday? After living with her for 29 years? The kind of bastard I was stupid enough to marry.

Anyway, my bank — yes, my bank — emailed me a birthday message with a link to a video. The message said:

Just a friendly little birthday wish from us to you. We can’t send you a double-tiered chocolate cake (it won’t fit through the mail slot — we tried), but hopefully this little video will help brighten your big day.

Have an awesome b-day filled with fun, happiness and, of course, saving.

Enjoy many more, Saver.

Normally, I’d trash it as spam, thinking it was some kind of marketing ploy. If so, it would be pretty tacky. But INGDirect (now CapitalOne 360) is not your average bank. So I clicked the link.

Here’s the video:

I cried when I watched it, of course. I already understood the message — what happiness is really all about. In fact, I blogged about it earlier this month. What made me cry is that it clearly showed the difference in philosophy between me and my ex-husband.

You see, I understand that happiness is making life what you want it to be so you can look around yourself and be happy about what you see. I do work I like to do in a place I like to do it. I have what I need and not much more. I’m not interested in impressing anyone with showy possessions. I’d rather spend time and money and energy seeing and learning new things to make me a more rounded person than to piss it away on crap. I save for my future and avoid unnecessary debt. This enables me to keep my time flexible and to really enjoy life. That’s what it’s all about.

My ex-husband, however, apparently believes that happiness is about keeping up with the Joneses, working at an unfulfilling job to pay for an empty lifestyle that revolves around eating out with the same four or five people, watching television, and buying showy things like a costly second home, airplane he never flies, and Mercedes to show off to friends. He made his obsession with financial wealth pretty clear to me when he went after my business assets and money in the divorce, refusing to settle unless I gave him my half of our our paid-for house plus $50,000 in cash and paid off his debt in the home equity line of credit. His greed would have left me nothing to reboot my life and keep my business afloat — but he didn’t seem to give a damn about that. He forced me to spend tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees to defend what was rightfully mine. (We’ll see how that worked out for him soon.)

I cried mostly because he wasn’t always that way — at least I didn’t think he was — and I pitied him, as I so often do these days, for wasting his life away. For missing the point.

My friends have been telling me lately how glad they are to see me so happy after such a difficult time. I’m glad, too. I’m happy and will stay happy — because I know what matters most: spending your time doing things you like to do with the people you like to be with.

Courage

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I never thought I’d quote Oprah, but here it is.

I was wasting time yesterday, surfing the web for interesting things, when I came upon an NPR piece about one-liners. In it was a one-liner from Oprah Winfrey:

Having the courage to stand up and pursue your dreams will give you life’s greatest reward and life’s greatest adventure.

And I truly believe this. To me, life is continuous quest to do and learn and see new things. To pursue my dreams.

The Status Quo Trap

It’s easy to sit back and settle in for the long haul in a comfortable home with a comfortable job, doing the same things every day with the same people around you. You know what every day will bring; there are no surprises. Easy, no?

But maybe you dream of doing other things. Maybe you’ve dreamed about some of these things for your entire life, things like starting a business based on one of your hobbies or interests, patenting the inventions of your creativity and imagination, or even just learning a new but difficult skill. Everyone has dreams.

But pursuing these dreams takes courage — the courage to work hard and smart, the courage to face difficult challenges, the courage to accept that the only alternative to success is failure.

So you sit back and relax in your comfy status quo, letting your life slip away with every day, month, and year, letting your dreams slip away with them.

That’s the way a lot of people think. I know — I was married to one of them.

Step Out of Your Comfort Zone and Live

But I don’t think that way.

To me, there’s nothing to life without challenges. There’s always something new to do, something new to learn, something new to see. I’m smart enough to understand that I can’t make these things part of my life without leaving my comfort zone to go after them. And I’m brave enough to do it.

The past year has been a challenge for me — one I did not choose and did not want to face. But I faced it and I got through it. And I’ve emerged on the other side, a better, stronger, and freer person with more self esteem and better health.

And now I face new challenges — some a result of my husband’s betrayal and others of my own choosing. I have the courage to face them. I have the strength to persevere.

As for the events of the past year, well, I look at them as a setback. I expect to be back on track for the semi-retired life with fun and travel that I’d planned (that was well within reach last summer) within a few years. Best of all, I won’t have to drag around the dead weight that was holding me back in recent years.

Oprah is right. I know from experience that pursuing and achieving my dreams is life’s greatest reward. And my life will be an adventure until the end.

How about yours?

In Defense of Text Messaging

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It does serve a real purpose.

The other day, one of my Twitter/Facebook friends linked to an article in the New York Times titled “How Not to Be Alone.” In his words, it was “highly recommended.” So I read it.

The piece started out with a story about seeing a 15-year-old girl crying into a cell phone during a discussion with her mother. The story went on for four paragraphs, with the author, Jonathan Safran Foer, using his fifth paragraph to discuss his moral dilemma: talk to this stranger to try to comfort her or “respect the boundaries” between them. He never does say what he chose to do.

From there, the article launches into a discussion of how modern day methods of communication are dividing us, weakening our relationships, reducing our ability to articulately communicate, and making it easier to “avoid the emotional work of being present” to communicate. He argues that by diminishing our communication with others, we diminish ourselves.

He says:

We often use technology to save time, but increasingly, it either takes the saved time along with it, or makes the saved time less present, intimate and rich. I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts. It’s not an either/or — being “anti-technology” is perhaps the only thing more foolish than being unquestioningly “pro-technology” — but a question of balance that our lives hang upon.

I read through the article twice without coming away with a one-line summary of what he was trying to say. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one having trouble with it because another Twitter friend replied to me and someone else with the simple — thank you, Twitter! — summary:

Don’t write when you can call. Don’t call when you can visit.

Simple enough. And I can certainly agree.

But it got me thinking about text messaging and the way it seemed to be painted, in the Times piece, as something that’s destroying society. And that bugged me.

Because I just don’t think it’s true.

Text Messaging for Work

You see, I use text messaging extensively for work. It gives me the ability to communicate instantly with clients and colleagues about things that they might want to know about right now. The key word there is might. If they must know about it now, I call their cell phone. But why bother them with a call when they might or might not be interested with the information I have to share? Or if I need an answer to a question but I don’t need it immediately — and know I will likely forget to ask if I do make a call later?

Here’s an example. My summer work requires me to be on call to fly over cherry orchards after it rains. The other day, there was rain in the area. I watched it move through on radar on my iPad. I saw it approaching an area where one of my clients has an orchard. I know he doesn’t live near there. I wanted to make sure he knew I was monitoring the weather and had some concerns about his orchard. So I texted:

Do you have someone at Malaga?

That was at 4:30 PM. His response came at 5:34 PM, after the weather had moved through:

Yeah. We made it through another close afternoon.

Communication accomplished. I didn’t have to call him to pester him with my question. He’s been growing cherries a lot longer than I’ve been drying them with a helicopter. I’m sure he had a handle on it. But by sending that quick text message, I communicated that I was aware of the situation and would be ready if he needed me. The fact that he didn’t respond for over an hour was okay with me. For all I know, he might not have even looked at his phone for an hour. He might have been busy watching the weather.

Do I communicate by text with all of my clients? No. Only the ones who have shown that they use text messaging to communicate by texting me first. When a client texts me, he’s telling me that texting is an acceptable or maybe even preferred means of communication. I’m okay with that.

I’m Not Alone

The title of the piece suggests that modern communication is making us more alone. I disagree wholeheartedly. If anything, text messaging has brought me closer to friends.

This morning, for example, while I was still in bed at 4:15 AM, I texted a friend on the east coast — where it was 7:15 — with a question. If he saw it immediately, great. If not, that was okay, too. He’d eventually see it and respond. But he was there at his desk and we had a text “conversation” about a bunch of things.

You might argue that when I realized he was available I should have picked up the phone and called him. But my friend works from home and uses his phone extensively for work. Chances are, our conversation would have been interrupted one or more times by incoming phone calls. Was our texted conversation important enough to disrupt his work day? No.

Although texting suggests a sort of immediacy to the conversation, it also makes it possible to put down and resume a conversation over time. Indeed, I’ve had texted “conversations” with people that have gone on for hours or days or even weeks. Could I accomplish this with phone calls? No — not without becoming a nuisance.

I can’t tell you how many friendships — including very old friendships — I have been able to maintain via text messaging and email. Sometimes it’s the best option.

The Trouble with Phone Calls

The problem with using the phone is that when you call someone, you’re saying, in effect, that it’s okay for you to bother him/her when it’s convenient for you. After all, you don’t usually call someone when it isn’t convenient for you, do you?

Of course, you can always schedule a phone call. Some of my publishing contacts do that. It makes sense. Take a meeting, on the phone.

But calling out of the blue? When someone might be busy? Just to chat?

I guess it depends on the kind of relationship you have with that person. I have plenty of friends who I feel comfortable calling to chat — at certain times of the day or evening. But if I don’t know a person very well, I think it’s rude to bother him/her with a phone call just to say hello.

Is that making me more alone? Not when I can fire off a quick text that might lead to a phone call when it’s convenient for both of us. Indeed, sometimes I’ll send a text message that says,

Are you around? Okay if I call?

Even if I don’t get a response, I get an answer to those questions: No.

Of course, this is assuming the person I want to reach lives with his/her cellphone at arm’s length all day every day. But that’s the kind of people I’m most likely to text anyway.

I’m not texting my mother or sister or a friend who keeps his cell phone packed away in a little backpack he uses as a manly man purse. (You know who you are!) I’m just texting the same people who text me.

In Person Meetings

When I was a kid, I’d go to my Aunt’s house in a nearby town. It aways amazed me how we’d be sitting around in the kitchen — the focal point for any Italian-American household — and one of her neighbors would walk right in. Often without even knocking on the door!

I’d love to live somewhere with all my friends nearby and be able to keep my doors unlocked at all times so they could walk right in and visit me. But that’s not my reality these days. Is it yours?

My world is bigger — my friends can be found all over the globe. They’ve chosen to live where they live just as I’ve chosen to live where I live. That doesn’t mean I won’t have super friendly neighbors when I finally build my new home. But I don’t really expect anyone to just “drop in” like we did in the old days.

Does that make me alone? I don’t think so. It makes me more likely to get out and about to get the social interaction I need with a wider variety of people in a wider variety of places.

So rather than sit around the kitchen table and wait for the same handful of visitors my Aunt’s family got, I’m getting out and expanding my world.

In Defense of Text Messaging

I’m not a kid. I’m in my 50s.

When I was a kid, we had three options for communication: face to face, telephone (which could be expensive if calling out of your immediate area), and mail (which took 2-3 days each way).

Today, we still have all of these things. Telephone use has become cheaper, mail has become more expensive. But we also have several free (or arguably low-cost) means of communication: fax (which is now, thankfully, almost dead), email, text messaging, and video conferencing. (And don’t get me started on self-publishing options — like social networking, blogging, print on demand, and ebooks — that make communication to the masses amazingly easy and cost effective.)

I can now communicate instantly for next to nothing with my friends and colleagues all over the world. I couldn’t do that when I was a kid.

I don’t understand how someone can argue that having and using more methods of communication — especially instantaneous, real-time methods — makes us more alone. If anything, it helps us connect better.

And text messaging is just one tool for doing that.

Your thoughts? Put ’em in comments so we can discuss.

On Leaders, Followers, and Goals

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Some thoughts on how we reach goals and whose goals we reach.

One of my Facebook friends who, like me, is going through a breakup of his marriage, posted the following quote on his timeline recently:

Following someone else’s trail, simply because it was a trail would take me to their goal, not necessarily mine.

– Tom Trimbath, from “Walking, Thinking, Drinking Across Scotland”

I immediately thought of my soon-to-be ex-husband and one of the complaints he used to justify his infidelity: According to him, I had “prevented him from achieving his goals.”

I realized that one of the reasons he hadn’t achieved his goals was hinted at in the quote above. With that in mind, I commented on Facebook:

Yes, this is very true. Some people are leaders and always will be. Other people are followers and always will be. A follower can’t help but get to someone else’s goal. That’s the difference between leaders and followers: a leader is driven to her own goal; a follower is not.

And that pretty much sums up the difference between me and my husband when it comes to achieving goals. I was — and still am — driven. He apparently was not.

Jungle Path
It’s a lot easier to follow a trail than to blaze one. (I followed this path in Florida last winter.)

Let’s face it: it’s easier to follow someone else down a trail than to blaze your own: literally or figuratively. Imagine walking through a dense patch of woods with lots of undergrowth. If you’re leading the way without a trail to follow, it’ll be tough to move forward. Tough, but not impossible. If you want to get through badly enough, you’ll do it. Now imagine that a path through the woods already exists. It sure is easier to follow that path.

But what if the path leads to a different place than you want to go?

That’s the point of the quote above. When you follow someone else, you reach that person’s goals.

I am a driven person — that can’t be denied. I’m never satisfied with the status quo; I’m always moving, preferably forward, finding new things to try, new projects to explore, new goals to achieve.

Two months ago, for example, I bought a kayak and began paddling in local lakes. Before I began, I’d only been kayaking once and didn’t really enjoy it much. But with the right kayak, I discovered that it’s a great way to get outdoors, enjoy nature, and build some upper body strength.

Last month, I began learning about beekeeping. Since then, I bought my first hive and am preparing to set it up with bees. The short-term goal: to produce comb honey for sale in local wineries and farm stands. Long term? Pollination services, queen production, nuc production, pollen production. (This could turn out to be an excellent retirement career.)

These are just two recent examples. My whole life is full of them. That’s the way I am. That’s the way I like to be.

Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to follow someone else. I would have loved to follow my husband. The problem is, no one is leading in a direction I’m interested in going. My husband certainly wasn’t.

My husband wasn’t leading anyone anywhere. He followed me as I learned to ride motorcycles, as I took up horseback riding, as I began to fly. He was right behind me — not ahead of me — as I achieved some of my goals. My goals became his and they enriched his life. It was nice to have a partner for all of these things.

But his own goals? The few he shared with me were never reached.

He claimed he wanted to become a solar/wind consultant and wasted about six months floundering around at home, trying (and failing) to build a client base. I helped by starting a website for him and designing business cards. But I couldn’t lead him because it wasn’t my goal and I had no interest in making it my goal.

He claimed he wanted to open and operate a bicycle repair shop. I thought that was a great idea. When coupled with rentals, it would make a great summer business along the 11-mile bike trail in Wenatchee, near where I worked each summer. I was even ready to invest by obtaining a handful of Segways for guided tours. I could help him on sunny days when I didn’t have to fly; he could help me on rainy days when no one wanted to ride bikes. What could be better? But he never did anything to make this goal a reality. And I couldn’t lead him because I already had my hands full trying to build my summer flying business.

He claimed he wanted to enter retirement as a certified flight instructor (CFI) for airplanes, doing some training and conducting biennial flight reviews for pilots. I thought that was a great idea. I pointed out, on more than one occasion, that to achieve that goal, he needed to build more experience as a pilot. He needed to fly more often than the 20 to 30 hours a year he flew. He needed to get his commercial pilot certificate and his CFI certificate. I never stopped him from doing any of these things — indeed, I encouraged him every time the topic came up. But he did nothing to achieve any of these things. I couldn’t lead him because I was not an airplane pilot and didn’t want to be one. I’d already built my career as a helicopter pilot.

It hurt me when he accused me of preventing him from achieving his goals. He was blaming me for his failures.

I wonder sometimes how much his girlfriend/mommy will help him achieve these goals. Or whether he’ll simply start following her as she goes about her business — whatever that business might be. It’s far more likely that he’ll dig down deeper in the rut he’s in, comfortable with an older, less ambitious woman to hold his hand while they enter their “golden years” in front of the television, with occasional forays into the the world on week-long budget package tours to Europe and Hawaii.

Whatever.

As I’ve said before in this blog and I’ll likely say again, I feel so sorry for him. I thought he was a better man, a stronger man. I thought he could be a leader. I wish he could have been a leader for me, at least for a few goals.

Leading is hard work and it can be tiring. It would be nice to be a follower once in a while. The trick is to follow someone who’s going the way you want to go.

I’m looking for that leader now.