Of Course I Want to Eat the Cake

I was 33 years old and a respected researcher with experience at two school boards under my belt.

I had been recruited from a coterminous board. I was asked to interview. And I was offered the job.

And that’s what the Director said to me during salary negotiations.

I was leaving a full-time, permanent position. They were offering me a one-year contract.

I was already making a decent salary. They offered me almost $20,000 less than I was earning.

When they told me they couldn’t increase the salary or guarantee that the position would continue beyond a year, I proposed something I thought was reasonable: I would work four days a week instead of five.

The Director mocked me.

I think about that meeting often.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have handled that conversation very differently.

I would have clearly explained why my offer was fair.

I would have reminded her that my existing relationships, network, and previous experience would save them considerable time and allow me to get the new position off the ground much more quickly.

And, as someone who was privy to their school climate data, I might even have pointed out that some of the concerns employees had expressed about the organization’s culture could be connected to conversations exactly like the one we were having.

Conversations where people left feeling disrespected, unappreciated, and shamed simply for advocating for themselves.

But I didn’t say any of that.

I sat there in shock.

I politely declined the offer, picked my jaw up off the floor, and walked to my car.

I think about this interaction often because I still see these power imbalances show up in the organizations where I work.

We tell people to speak up, advocate for themselves, have difficult conversations, negotiate, and to challenge ideas.

But then we put them in rooms with people who hold significantly more power and experience, and we’re surprised when they don’t know how to navigate those conversations.

Or worse, we punish them when they try.

That’s why practice matters.

It’s why learning how to have difficult conversations matters, and it’s why setting intentions before entering those conversations matters.

And it’s also a reminder that organizational culture doesn’t live in a strategic plan or a list of values hanging on a wall or on a website or even in pretty-sounding speeches.

It lives in moments like this.

In how leaders respond when someone disagrees, advocates for themselves, and in whether someone can ask for something without being mocked or shamed for asking.

How people are treated at the top eventually finds its way through an organization. And when those interactions repeatedly leave people feeling small, dismissed, or afraid to speak, culture begins to corrode from the inside.

The work I do today reflects, in part, my commitment to helping other people have the conversations I couldn’t have that day.

To help people practice and find their voice.

And to help them stand up for themselves respectfully, but firmly, in a way that, back then, I couldn’t.

And by the way…

After I declined the position, they hired someone who did not have a research background.

They paid that person what I had been asking for.

Except they worked 10 months of the year.

I would have worked 12.

And then, they hired me on contract to do the work that they couldn’t do.

Turns out, what I had asked for wasn’t so unreasonable after all.

Sometimes an important conversation doesn’t lead you where you thought you wanted to go.

Sometimes it shows you exactly where you are not meant to be.