Last night, fellow personal finance blogger and Babble contributor, Kathleen, from the blog Frugal Portland, posted a video on her Facebook page. It's called Not Sorry, and I think it's really great.
A while back I wrote a post called, Stop Apologizing For Your Existence – Why Saying I'm Sorry Undermines You. The video above perfectly articulates what I was talking about it that post.
I think it's so important to talk about these “little issues” that come up with women, and especially any issues that can impact women in the workplace. This is definitely one of those things.
The other day, a friend of mine told me that at her job she was instructed to “be nicer”, and another friend said that during a performance evaluation she was told she needed to “smile more”. I was shocked to hear that such feedback was given (they don't work in the hospitality industry where I could see comments like those being somewhat warranted). I wonder what the correlation is with women being so “sorry” about so many unnecessary things, and also being expected to be so nice and smiley is? Are women just are supposed to be robotically cheerful and constantly apologetic in the workplace? I don't think so, and I don't like it one bit.
Let's be on our own side and stop saying “sorry” so much. It might seem like a little thing to do but we can start making a shift with how we are seen, especially in the workplace, with every unnecessary “sorry” that doesn't get said. Try saying, “excuse me” if you need a transitional phrase. I've found that it's pretty easy to swap them out once you become aware.
Do you find yourself saying “Sorry” when you don't really need to? Have you ever been told to be “sweeter”, “nicer”, or to “smile more” in the workplace? I'd love to hear about your experience with this issue.
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