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Mrs. Pessimist is going through a mid-life crisis as she has finally retired from gainful employment and is trying to figure out what she wants to do with the rest of her life. I have encouraged her to become a mentor for women who want to follow in her path. She thought about it and decided that would be a worthwhile goal. She approached a local organization named Dress For Success to give away all of her corporate clothes and see if they had an opportunity for mentoring young women seeking a role in corporate America.
Mrs. Pessimist is extremely humble. When I overheard her side of the telephone conversation she had with whomever finally called her back, I was appalled at how much she avoided telling the interviewer how much she had to offer. She started out by saying that she had been an operating room nurse but had moved into management. I think the interviewer only heard "operating room nurse". She didn't know that Mrs. Pessimist was one of the most highly acclaimed and successful former operating room nurses on the planet. The interviewer didn't know, because Mrs. Pessimist was reluctant to tell her, that she was the most successful graduate of Palm Beach Junior College of Nursing in the history of that school, even long after it became Palm Beach State College. She didn't tell them that she could give a lecture on what to expect when you testify before Congress about the problems of our healthcare system and how to dress for that occasion. She didn't tell them that as she moved up in the world of corporate medicine she would start to recruit her replacement the first day she was hired, and did everything she could to make sure her replacement was going to do a better job than she because the replacement had her as a valued mentor. She didn't tell them that she had written books on management and was working on her memoir titled, How to be a Really Bad Boss.
Despite Mrs. Pessimist's humility, I think those ladies at Dress For Success are going to find out they hit a home run when she volunteers.
Discussion (12)
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Sounds a bit like my wife.
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I said that my wife gave away all of her corporate clothes when she retired, but she did keep two suits. One for weddings and one for funerals. On a zoom conference today she wore the top half of the wedding suit as she sat in front of her computer and answered questions about her career. I doubt if she will describe that technique in her latest book on management but who knows she might.
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What an amazing woman!
I married one too, by the way . . .
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When her book comes out, I already know to whom I will give a copy.
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So she came home this afternoon after a full day of orientation on mentorship. She was very fired up but she did confess that there were a few potential mentees that she dreaded having to mentor. One was a young woman whose cellphone constantly rang and she could not figure out how to turn it off. Her description of some of the clients sounded like a really bad Progressive car insurance ad.
It will be interesting.
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