It's a Man's World

A few weeks ago I got an email telling me to sign up for this thing that looked mildly interesting. So I put my name on the Google Doc and forgot it about it.

This week, I got an email and panicked. I had just signed up to personally meet with the higher-ups of marketing from top eCommerce companies like Google, Microsoft, and eBay and have the opportunity to ask them questions. We were split up into groups of five and were paired with one executive. I was paired with the directory of industry markets from Adobe. Of the people in my group, 3 of them were MBA students and everyone except me was MALE.

AW CRAP. What on earth did I just get myself into?!?

I frantically googled Adobe and tried to find out as much as I could about the company. I'm not very far along into my major yet, so I'm not totally sure what marketing entails anyway. So I called up a friend from one of my classes and he told me some good questions to ask. But I eventually decided the best strategy would be to just stay quiet and ask follow up questions.

When we get there, our executive tells us we are going to go around in a circle and ask questions. I was second to ask a question. Yeah, I had no idea what to do. My first question was absolutely stupid, something about what kinds of people Adobe markets to. Then it was the MBA students turn to ask questions. I know they were speaking English, but I had no clue what they were talking about!

When we had all asked 2 questions, our executive kind of told us that we had ALL asked stupid questions. He basically said the best question that had been asked was my second question, "What got you into marketing?" He basically said we should treat him as a individual at a job, not as a representative of a huge company like Adobe. We should have asked him what his day-to-day responsibilities are and what he likes about his job. We needed to ask him questions about why we would want to pursue marketing as a career.

So then I chimed in and said, "Well, will you please answer your own questions? Like why do you love your job, what do you do day-to-day?" He got really excited and told us what he was working on. My eyes lit up and I got really excited about my major again.

Wow, what a learning experience! What a reminder to always treat someone as an individual and not as a representative of a larger entity!

Today I found out a lady in my ward is an executive at a hospital company. She reminded me that yes, business is predominantly male, but women end up finishing the loose ends that men leave behind. But we can't become hard and tough, we must be firm but gentle. "Don't let the position change you, you change your position."

Nothing is impossible with the right attitude.