Very little in my professional life has turned out as I expected. If I could travel back in time and describe my current resume to my childhood, teenage, or twenty-something self, my past incarnations would have reacted with skepticism. Perhaps I would have even sensed a little disillusionment; nothing on my LinkedIn profile screams of adventure or altruism. I didn’t go into the Peace Corps or move permanently oversees or devote decades of service to a nonprofit.
Nor have I, strictly speaking, shattered any glass ceilings, cut a swath across corporate org charts, or learned to exude effortless charm. If office politics is a game, consider me solidly in the JV league. I felt secretly relieved that Covid put office happy hours on hold indefinitely. I am a reluctant networker.
In fact, few things feel as out of my comfort zone as walking into a roomful of strangers being expected to make scintillating small talk. Yet on a Saturday morning a few weeks ago, that is exactly what I found myself doing.
I entered the room carrying a fair amount of trepidation. Sure, my introverted tendencies were firing urgent signals that I could be spending my perfectly good Saturday doing something less taxing than attending a full-day leadership workshop. And it wasn’t only my introversion sounding the alarm. The very fact of my presence seemed like a tacit recognition that I needed to be using my leisure hours for something other than leisure.I wondered if the other women in the room felt the same. Had they been indoctrinated in the same way I had? Were we all sitting here having acquiesced to what I consider one of the most exhausting aspects of American work culture, the constant insinuation that you’re not quite enough? The message that whatever it is that you’re doing, you could be – should be – doing more of something. Growing your network, your portfolio, your skillset.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and nibbled a banana muffin. I did not want to be doing any of those things. I especially did not want to be doing them on a drizzly Saturday morning.
Something in the cosmos was merciful, because I didn’t have to.
What I did do was talk. We all did. The words came slowly at first: a few comments, a long pause, another comment, another question. Then more hands raised. More voices. Heads nodding.
To my surprise, the hours passed quickly. I never saw a single resume from the other women in the room, but I heard their stories.
There were women between jobs, women returning to the workforce, women changing careers. These women had fought burnout. They’d navigated difficult workplaces. There was the career coach with a passion for mental health advocacy. The twentysomething deciding not to soft-pedal her ambitions. A woman nearing retirement age feeling deadlocked at the institution where she’d spent decades of her career. A woman in her 70s fresh out of an AI bootcamp and about to start her internship.
I heard the strength in them. I heard frustration and hope and tenacity. What bounced around that room weren’t proclamations of achievement – we weren’t rivals – but statements of presence. We were not here to get something; we hadn’t shown up because we believed we needed to better ourselves. We had come together that day to give, even if we didn’t know it.
I’d registered for the workshop expecting to be informed. I came away inspired. It was the best instance of unmet expectations I could recall. I was filled to the brim and humbled by the talent, energy, and intention I’d seen.
No one, to my knowledge, swapped any business cards. But I’m confident we’ve made connections.