Bullies, bylines, and that other B word

Photo via Unsplash.

By Melissa Nightingale

In hushed tones my stepdaughter asks me if a word that she’s heard at school is a bad word.

I don’t believe in bad words. I assess the merit of individual words based on whether that word does a good or bad job of communicating what someone is trying to convey. I disagree with her fundamental premise that language is binary, that words fall squarely into two camps, either good or bad.

She’s six. This is a chewy response for a six year old so I don’t tell her this.

Instead I say, well, the word you’re asking about is a word that bullies use when they want to be mean to someone. So no, it’s not a very nice word and used in the way you’re describing, it’s likely to hurt someone’s feelings.

I sidestep the entire inherently good v bad dilemma. Perhaps a conversation for when she’s seven.

. . .

I love language. I spend more cycles than the average human on word nerdery. I love the challenge of finding exactly the right words to communicate a concept or express an idea.

For all my love of words, I also value precision. My professional reputation around editing is much more machete than scalpel. Looking back at past writing, I cringe where I’m unnecessarily wordy, rewriting whole passages in my head as I read. This emphasis on precision is sometimes misinterpreted.

I’m 14. I pick up the phone at my grandma’s house. One of her friends is calling. I take a message and say I’ll let my grandma know she called. The friend later tells my grandma that I am “curt.”

(This is a pretty deep burn from an octogenarian to a teenager.)

Some variation of this feedback has followed me for basically my whole life.

So I work at it. I work at softening and smoothing the rough edges. I read over my professional emails before they go out. I read and then reread the grumpy emails to make sure I’ve captured what I want to say before hitting send.

The entire early part of my career was spent steeped in this stuff. Which message for which audiences, why those over other words, etc. Years of deliberate practice has made me better at it. I don’t get it right every time but it’s been a long time since anyone accused me of being curt.

When I get to Canada, I go to meetings and at the end, invariably, the person I’m meeting with says, “wow, thanks for such a direct conversation.” I come home excited, thinking the meeting has gone well. My Canadian husband has to explain the cultural subtext, that people are gently teasing me.

. . .

It’s spring. My younger daughter is happily babbling next to me and I’m talking to a former employee who is ostensibly over to visit the baby but as we start to catch up, it’s clear there’s something else on her mind.

She’s been out of school a few years and is thinking about the next step in her career. She’s in her element as an individual contributor. She likes the self reliance of this type of work but as her skills have grown, she’s increasingly interacting with other teams, the managers of other teams, and she’s trying to navigate how to get what she needs without having direct authority over her colleagues. They don’t report to her. She is younger and less experienced than many of them.

Ah. This is why she’s here.

And so I explore the space a bit. I ask questions without jumping to a solution. Or a conclusion.

“What would it feel like to count on your coworkers? What would it look like to have to call them out if you weren’t getting what you needed? How might you design the hand-off points to hold each other accountable without direct reporting authority? And what about this is scary?”

“I,” she pauses. “I don’t want them to call me a bitch.” She whispers the last word.

I stop. I know that feeling. I have spent years in this exact space. Maybe my whole life.

“What if,” I ask. “What if they already have?”

She stops.

I continue. “This is one of the things that sucks for women in leadership. There is an inverse relationship between seniority and likability. The higher you go, the less likeable your coworkers will find you.”

“What if the thing between you and the next phase of your career is on the other side of that? What if you haven’t found your boss voice because you want to be liked? What would it look like to know that’s a possibility and press ahead anyway?”

The baby kicks her feet wildly against her bouncy chair. The sun is moving across the backyard and soon it will be time to get her ready for bed.

. . .

When you work in PR, you’re mostly trained to be behind the camera or, in the event that you find yourself in front of it, to be a neutral mouthpiece for the organization or company you represent. You are the person asking everyone else to put “my views are my own” at the end of their Twitter bio, lest that cat gif be confused for an official statement.

I spent years crafting messages for other people, getting bylines placed with other peoples’ names on them, and watching people on TV with my words in their mouths. I’m finally at a point where I can start to share my own words, my own story, with my own name attached.

But it’s scary.

Writing for other peoples’ bylines is a form of protection. It’s a way to share ideas without having to endure the worst insecurities of posting on the Internet with a female name.

I get ready to hit publish on my next post. My mouse hovers over the publish button.

“What if they call me a bitch?” I wonder.

A quiet knowing voice responds, “Don’t worry, they already have.”