Being a young female professional, disappointments and dealing with ‘men’.

I think it is human to have some expectations, and when that is cut short, disappointment sets in. And that is okay until you begin to let the pain of the disappointment eat you thin.

One interesting disappointment I encountered was sometime in August, 2014… thankfully all through this year I learned how to manage issues a lot better.  How? I trained my mind to focus on the blessings in disguise from such situations.  It works.  It is positive.

In that time in 2014, I had recently added a fourth feather to my cap and received a referral to speak to a decision maker of an automobile company to deliver a workshop to their sales team on customer services engagement.

The meeting went very well, but it seemed this decision maker had developed some feelings for me in the course of our 2-hour conversation with him. Initially, I was unaware.  We were later re-assured by our referee that we would get to deliver the workshop because the report reaching him was that we nailed it!  I already knew that by the way; training, teaching and delivering workshops is part of our forte.  We do it for a living.

But things went real sour when the decision maker began to become an informal ominous interloper and had placed non-verbally, an unsettling condition of approval on our proposal. Things wouldn’t work, as I wouldn’t bend.  So, the proposal fell under the carpet.  I lost close to N3 million in ‘opportunity not converted.’

This is easily somebody else’s story, perhaps a female banker, but she ended up not being very strong morally to stand her ground to refuse to date or sleep with the rich client who will only open an account through her with the bank unless she does his biddings… especially when her promotion, demotion or further continuation in the workplace is tied to the yielding to such clients.  I hear these things.

This is also easily the story of a female entrepreneur dealing with some decision makers who have refused to help your business or pay you further attention because you will not mix business with such indulgences. 

I hear it can be harsh being a young female entrepreneur or career person.  I would love to know:

How often is your moral fibre challenged in this manner in your business dealings or at work?  And how do you deal with such situations? I would love to hear your stories.

These are real issues.

Feel free to be anonymous.  I would not judge your response.