One of my friends Catherine used to say she loved my voice when I was recovering from a bout of bronchitis because the tone became a bit deeper and throatier. Having stubbed out my last fag over five years ago, that deeper register is a permanent Turneresque (Kathleen, not Ted) souvenir of a misspent youth.
Perhaps that explains my absolute loathing of these high pitched, squealing, girlie voices I hear all day long from a number of co-workers.
I am the consummate professional. I do not drone on about the latest in fashion with the girls (that’s what you lot are for.)
I accept personal calls from my husband under duress, and my responses are usually in clipped tones.
The water cooler banter exists only as long as it takes me to fill up my 1/2 gallon pitcher, three times a day.
I will email or physically walk over to someone if I need to have a conversation. I do not yell over the open tops of cubicles to those residing one over and two down.
And I don’t laugh as if every second sentence was HI-larious.
Thus explains my frustration of being surrounded by loud, laughing, hand clapping, singing, whistling, “Geez, Marie,” plant well polished nail in dimple and twist ,”what do you think I should do?” idiotgirls.
What’s worse, is the perpetrators are not college co-eds. They’re women; 30 something WOMEN.
Why? There’s been a backlash against the back slapping, golf playing, dirty joke telling boys club and many women are now attempting to counter. But the girlie giggles and saccharine Marilyn vocals, with tremolo courtesy of wobbling precariously on spiked heels, isn’t what it takes.
It’s not cute or cool. It’s flipping annoying!! If the males of the species respond, trust me, it’s because they’re brain (at times located in their pants) is thinking about how to get into yours. And although they might like how pretty it looks in the office, would you give control of a multinational to a sex kitten or the tigress with mad hunting skills?
If you think, mistakenly, that being a lash batting, effervescent pouty-lipped giggler, swathed in pastels is your image, GROW UP! That’s not image! Well, at least it’s not YOUR image. It’s corrupting an iconic albeit stereo-typical figure, because you don’t have strength or belief that you can be an icon.
Ellie Mae may have been pretty, blond and friendly to animals, but Miss Jane Hathaway was the one with the access and ability, to siphon funds, set up offshore accounts and establish residency in country without an extradition treaty with the US.
And Jethro though he had the gigantic brain.
I wasn’t born this secure, hell knows I’ve got the scars to prove it but not being handicapped by devastating good looks did teach me that in Corporate America as in life, professionalism, work ethic, loyalty and results impress. Yup, that’s still true in a world where as Warhol predicted, everyone gets 15 minutes.
That thigh baring skirt and all the giggles (and jiggles) at the bosses jokes may get you in the door, but it won’t save you. And if you’ve seen the great unwashed that make up the work force, chances are the females in your office are probably sick of your Barbie behavior, especially if it threatens to re-enforce that glass ceiling we’ve been trying to shatter. Until women are being truly compensated in every field at the same rate as men, you’re doing a disservice to yourself and to us.
And some of us don’t take too kindly to that, M’aam.
So if you don’t start shutting up, buckling down and working like the rest of us, we don’t need a lynchin’ tree for justice. There are enough of us to easily string one side of your fashion accessory beads through the overhead florescent light, and the fall from being knocked off those Stuart Weitzman heels, oughta just do the trick.