The Wordz We Wear: How to show up with confidence and create your best life

By Vera Milan Gervais

Women are more capable than confident. It's time to change that balance.

Many women have untapped skills and gifts. How would their lives change if they weren't limited by what they thought

• Language: English
• Publisher: Soul Seed Legacy House
• Release date: Nov 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781998754458

Book preview

PART 1:

How did we become who we are?

WHAT I DO ISN’T WHO I AM, AND WHO I AM ISN’T WHAT I DO. WE NEED TO SEPARATE THE TWO. –RENÉE WARREN

Not the reception I expected.

I sat at my desk, tears dripping on the stack of invoices trembling in my hands. It hadn’t even been two weeks. I’d lost everything in less than two weeks.

When I joined an oil and gas company in the ’70s, I was the only female accountant in the office. I was young and idealistic and saw my hiring as a huge win for women. I thought I’d be congratulated for breaking a barrier.

Boy, did I have a lot to learn.

The office manager gave me documents to sign and guided me through a round of introductions. Finishing in the kitchen, she pointed to a schedule. My name appeared all five days the following week.

It was the coffee and reception-relief rotation. I didn’t drink coffee, and I’d never been trained on handling reception duties. I was confused. I scanned the list. None of the other accountants were on it.

Apparently, I wasn’t an accountant for this agenda. I was female. My skills and training didn’t matter. My gender established my place in the world of kitchen duty—a stereotype enforced by the women in the office. What was I supposed to say? I didn’t want to alienate anyone on my first day.

Monday morning started with a chorus of complaints about the coffee. It wasn’t like I’d tried to make it taste bad. I didn’t know how much coffee to add to the carafe, so the first batch was a tepid tea color. The second one could have tarred a driveway. The office manager glared accusingly at me as she grabbed a red marker and wrote detailed instructions for me to follow the next day.

But the best was to come on Wednesday.

The company had a phone system that was old-fashioned, even for the ’70s. Think of old movies where the operator is connected to a switchboard with a headset. The board itself was a jumble of cords hanging from numbered slots. The cords had to be moved around to allow callers to reach various extensions . . . I guess that’s why it was called a switchboard.

Wednesday was someone’s birthday and the women were going for a girls’ lunch to celebrate, leaving me, a twenty-year-old accountant, to handle reception. Apparently, five minutes of training made me an expert.

As the women were putting on their coats, one of them mentioned that the president was expecting a call from the board of directors. Then they walked out the door.

On cue, the phone rang. The board was calling for Mr. W.

Certainly, let me patch you through.

Open the line . . . tell Mr. W. the call was connecting . . . tell the board I was connecting them to Mr. W. . . . plug the cords in . . . done.

Oops, I could hear people talking. I’d forgotten to disconnect myself. Unplug.

A lot of cursing preceded the president as he came charging down the hall. I hadn’t disconnected myself; I had unplugged the board of directors.

I cringed under his tirade and promised to not mess up again.

The phone rang. The board was calling—again.

Certainly, I’m sorry I cut you off. Let me patch you through.

Carefully now: Open the line . . . tell Mr. W. the call was coming through . . . tell the board I was connecting them . . . plug the cords in . . . check the lines . . . disconnect myself . . . done.

With a long exhale, I pushed back from the desk . . . catching the arm of my chair on a cord.

Mr. W. came screaming down the hall again, just as one of the women returned to get a forgotten birthday gift. Pointing at her, he yelled, Get me the board of directors, immediately. And you, he said, turning to me, You’re fired. I never want to see you on the switchboard again.

I ran back to my desk shaking, knowing the entire office would learn how angry I’d made the president. Crying, too embarrassed to leave the shelter of my cubby, I picked up a pile of invoices and started entering them in a spreadsheet.

Hours later the office manager came to an abrupt stop beside me.

What are you doing here?

My job.

I thought Mr. W. fired you.

I stared at the spreadsheet I’d just completed, angry at the injustice. I was a crappy receptionist, but I was a good accountant. That’s what I’d been hired for. Whether they had intended to or not, the other women in the company had set me up to fail. They’d succeeded in crushing my dreams in under two weeks.

Except . . . except, damn it . . . I looked at the work I’d done and knew the report was in better shape than it had been before I was hired. If I was going to be judged, I wanted it to be for the right reasons.

I sat up straight and looked this woman in the eyes.

"He fired me from reception, not from the accounting