Working Girl Wednesdays: “A Special Word About Lady Bosses”
Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!
Picking up where we left off last time, here’s her perspective on “lady bosses”:
A special word about lady bosses and other lady executives around the place. They’re supposed to be a pretty horrible bunch—putting burning matches under the fingernails of little female underlings and all that. I never worked with or for such a lady but I’ve met some of them at luncheons. Usually the women are over forty-five, and the reason they act the way they do is because it was harder to succeed when they succeeded. Men in the office were very mean to them. Most lady bosses under forty are as nice as anybody. If you happen to have drawn a female Tartar, young or old, I’d suggest you learn everything you can from her—some of them are pretty smart. Work as hard for her as you would for a dreamboat, and when you’ve had all you can take, move on to the next job.
Next week: Helen Gurley Brown dispenses advice on your workplace wardrobe!
what you really need to read is "I'm Wild Again," by Good ol' HGB (what we called her when I worked at Cosmo, years after she'd left). It's full of deliciously wacky advice and rambling confessions about how she likes to chew on her toenails (seriously).
Posted by: former cosmogirl | May 29, 2008 at 06:13 PM
Oh, god, I can only imagine the advice got wackier as she got older. Thanks for the recommendation--I will definitely look for that.
Posted by: Glossed Over | May 29, 2008 at 11:03 PM