The Discount Rack

Have you ever felt like you’re on the discount rack?  Like you matter less, whether it’s because of who you are, or what you are?  Whether it was because of your income, sex, a visible minority, or something else, it’s never a pleasant feeling.

Growing up in what I considered an average community in North America, I didn’t feel this often. Yes, as a young girl in a (still) male-dominated society, there were times I was told to “be still” or “be quiet”.  Oddly, though, I attributed that less to my being female, and more to my youth, or simply being “me”.  It wasn’t until I was about thirty that I personally encountered the first incident of what I considered blatant sexism.

We had a family manufacturing business – a small offshoot which had been split from the larger whole to be managed separately.  And while the staff and client base were small, production was significant and consistent, with one large client making up the majority of our work.  As the business manager, I enjoyed a very good relationship with the (male) contacts at the larger manufacturer company who we supplied.  We parried questions and solutions back and forth with ease.

A couple of years into this relationship, though, things changed in the presence of a new purchaser at our primary client.  And while the nature of the requirements, questions, and solutions hadn’t changed, his mindset on this was a little different.  Conveniently, my father had recently increased his involvement with our small branch as a result of some other changes, but spent more of his own time exploring new avenues for the company’s growth.

The new client contact requested a meeting – and as my father was the only senior male at the company, the meeting was requested with him.  There was just one small problem.  While my father was readily able to work out the details of what went on in managing the business, he didn’t do so directly and as such didn’t have this information at his fingertips as I did. 

We attended the meeting together.  It was an interesting picture – a young woman of about thirty, in a boardroom filled with businesslike men in their forties and fifties.  Senior-executive-looking men.  And me.  The new purchaser was roughly as I pictured him:  authoritative, dominant-looking, and very clearly in charge.  Suited-up, of course, as was I.  Except that I was female.  And about thirty.

It was an interesting meeting.  He’d ask my father a question.  My father – bless him – would turn to me, and repeat the question.  I’d answer him without consulting my notes (after all, this was the business I ran, I knew the answers!) and he’d then relay the answer back to the client.  I think this happened about six times before the client finally got the point that I was the person who knew the answers, even though I was young and female.  Eventually, he asked me questions directly and I answered them in kind.

It was a very visual illustration for me, and prepared me well for the time I spent selling home renovations to some very skeptical homeowners.  Some stereotypes haven’t broken down that far yet.

As ever, there are lessons here, and for me the biggest one is that each and every one of us is an individual.  Just like we don’t all fit the preset molds I touched on in Consequence Free, we don’t all vary from this in the same way.  For me, the biggest lesson from this was to simply let people be themselves.  To not prejudge.  Let's not discount the people around us before we get to know them (or after!)  Some days, that’s still harder than others, but I know I’m grateful when people give me that gift.  How about you?