Death to career porn

Where are the struggling self-employed women on TV?

Enjoying Out Of Office? You can buy me a coffee here.

Hello Colleague,

Sorry for the delay to this month’s newsletter - my personal life has been something of a trash fire this month. But it has given me time to watch a lot of TV. And I’ve realised something…

My name is Lizzy, and I am addicted to career porn.

You know the story: wide-eyed young woman gets a job in the Big City. She’s always desperate to prove herself, is often - briefly – overlooked, only to be spotted, marked out as something special by a mentor figure. Cue her swift rise to the top.

It’s an incredibly pervasive story in everything from TV dramas and films to novels or non-fiction books by successful women. Over and again we are told that certain women have ‘it’, while their contemporaries are lacking.

Whatever the medium, the beats are the same. These young (they’re always young) women are told: ‘You are special. You’re not like the other, faceless idiot girls. (God, they make me sick.) You’ve got grit, talent. You want this more than them.’

I never read anything about our lords-and-saviours the Spice Girls without being told that what set them apart from thousands of other wannabes was their pure hunger for fame and success.

But it’s just a princess fairy tale 2.0, or perhaps even a ‘professional rom-com’.

My career has certainly never felt like that. In the films it’s a quick process – our hero has generally made her mark within a month, max. My youthful efforts felt equally frantic, but never yielded much (I once got told to stop trying so hard in a new job - not very ‘professional rom-com’.)

I forget sometimes how much effort I put it. I sent out hundreds of CVs over the years, applying for everything (my documents folder has at least 100 versions of cover letters stored up) and interviewing for roles that were far beneath the salary I needed (and deserved) in the hope of having that ‘lowly assistant –> career dream come true’ trajectory.

I took a pay cut to move laterally to a bigger company where I thought there would be more opportunities. I consistently undervalued my time and energy in the hope of recognition from people in power. I networked relentlessly, and did unpaid work for numerous magazines and websites. I recently found a diary entry from a period when I was getting up early to do (unpaid! Argh!) work for an American publisher before going to my day job, in the hope it would lead to a career in New York magazines. I dreamt of that moment: walking through the shiny doors to a position at a glamorous glossy magazine.

Now, admittedly, these characters generally get what they thought they wanted, only to find out career success isn’t everything… but, I don’t know. Sometimes I think I would like to reach the ‘jaded by my own success’ point of the story.

The brutal truth is that our talents are often overlooked. You could well be the hardest working, most ambitious and most gifted woman in your industry, but it often feels like there’s no one actually looking.

Some of it is a recession issue: people don’t have time to be nurturing managers or talent spotters when their workload has been expanded and their own job security has gone to shit. It feels like a quaintly old-fashioned notion to have an in-house mentor (especially the head of an entire firm, as it generally is in films) give up their time to usher in a bright-eyed twenty-something for a detailed education.

And you don’t need me to tell you that this feeling increases a hundredfold when you are self-employed. The self-employed woman is largely lacking from these fantasy stories altogether (there’s that Jennifer Lawrence film about a woman who invents a vacuum cleaner or something…??) We don’t fit into the ‘company boss as caring saviour’ narrative at all.

Just as we pull apart rom-coms for being problematic, I wonder if it’s time to start doing the same for career porn. Work isn’t the place to fulfil our Cinderella fantasies – that’s Capitalism talking. The idea that putting in more hours, that ‘wanting success more’ than other people makes you special…it’s just a bit shit, isn’t it.

If you are managing to make a living working for yourself in a pandemic-recession-magedon, trust me, you are incredible, even without the designer-clothes-montage.

So, while I am calling for us to take career porn with a hefty pinch of salt, I don’t see any harm in flipping the script, just for a few minutes.

Today, picture me as the boss/mentor you wish you’d had.

The scene opens. A surprisingly beautiful (but doesn’t know it) woman – Lizzy - sits behind an enormous mahogany desk. She looks incredibly youthful to have achieved so much. She’s dressed in a way that somehow simultaneously suggests affluence, natural taste, and a hint of sportiness.

Lizzy: Do sit down.

You sit in the leopard velvet chair in front of her. Something about her perfect smile, makes you feel all warm and fuzzy.

Lizzy: It might seem odd that I’ve called you into Sexy Inc’s head office, when you aren’t actually employed by us.

You: Ur, yeah I had been wondering about that.

Lizzy: God, you’re gorgeous.

You: Oh. Thanks.

Lizzy: My team of talent-seeking hounds have been scouting far and wide, and inform me that you are the most talented, dedicated career woman in the world.

You: Really?

Lizzy: Yup. But, more than that, they report that you’re absolutely bossing it across your whole life. You’re more than just what you do, you’re a stellar human being, and we’re all very lucky you exist. Being self-employed is incredibly challenging, and here you are making it look easy. Here’s one of the hounds now, he has a typed report – don’t you, Mr Fuzzles?

You: Oh, they’re actual hounds then. Gosh.

Lizzy: Please accept this massive pat on the back, and a trophy. And some cash. Whatever. Take a hound too, if you like.

You leave, to the sound of everyone in the world clapping. Hurrah.

• Sorry, not sure quite what happened there. As I say, it’s been a strange month.

• This month’s Zoom accountability group will be on Friday 25th March at 11am. Hit reply if you’d like to come along.