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Several years ago I was in a meeting with several men who were old enough to be my father and, in some cases, my grandfather. I was the only female and the only one under the age 40.
Instead of feeling intimidated, I felt proud and almost powerful. Here is I was this young fresh faced woman in an important meeting. It was exciting.
As we went through the meeting, I shared a couple thoughts, answered questions when asked, but for the most part, I sat quietly taking it all in. Then, at the end of a particularly deep discussion, one of the guys turned to me and said, “Angela, what do you think?”
I thought for a moment, reflecting on the last ten minutes of conversation, and I said:
“I agree.”
Not surprisingly, the room erupted in laughter.
I quickly tried to recover, giving the reasons why I agreed, practically shouting over the laughter. But, it was too late, they had already concluded that I had nothing to offer but, “I agree.”
These two simple words screamed to everyone the room: I’m young and I don’t really know what I’m talking about so I’ll just go ahead and agree with what all of you older, wiser men have to tell me.
I really did agree with what the decisions being made, but I would have been much better off saying something like, “While I agree with the overall decision, here a few things I’d suggest…”
Additionally, had I been more vocal throughout the meeting they wouldn’t have had to ask — they would have already known my opinion.
I didn’t do everything wrong, though:
- I was confident.
- I was prepared. I was able to intelligently answer questions thrown my way.
- I gave suggestions (although probably not as many as I should have).
- I was focused. I knew exactly what was going on and none of it was out of my league.
As for the men in the meeting who laughed at my two-word answer… Thank You. Thank you for challenging me, for reminding me that my opinion is important no matter my age, and for driving me to never act like a “yes-girl” again.
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Comments
05.27.08
Angela, great post. I feel like this is in line with my own experiences when I first started working.
I know a lot of people won't understand this post. It's hard to explain without someone saying "this is whiny." But your experience is a great lesson for anyone young, introverted, a woman, or a different minority of any kind in the workplace.
05.27.08
Thanks, Monica. It's actually quite a sincere post. I've learned a lot since then... this happened it my first job out of college... but I'm sincerely grateful for the experience. I'm glad you liked (and "got")it!
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