No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. - Eleanor Roosevelt

It takes time and life experience to realize how valuable our doings really are.

Today I'm going to tell you the story about a young lady and her personal Independence Day - the day she learned to esteem her own value and to set boundaries to those who don't.

Here's to the importance of self-esteem and appreciation of manpower in business and life!

Independence Day

It was the 29th of June and her employment contract was supposed to expire the next day.

Due to a mistake of the Human Ressources Department the contract hat a validity period of only six months. Actually their collaboration was supposed to be established for years, but now a little administrational error would change everything.

As always her boss was quite busy. Still she was surprised that he hadn't even mentioned the deadline so far. Probably he didn't even realize that she wasn't planning to sign a prolongation without a renegotiation of her salary. During these six months she had been working like crazy and now the pay day had literally come.

Obviously he thought it was a safe bet. In other words: he had no idea what was going to happen.

On the 30th of June in the evening he finally asked:

Oh by the way didn't you want to talk about your new contract?

She sat down in front of his desk and knew that this was going to be 'her moment'. During the past weeks working with him had become a nightmare. Theoretical she had left the company a couple of times already. If she didn't love her job that much, she would have quit earlier.

The other day he started to yell at her since he didn't like the breakfast she had brought him to the office - even though it was exactly what he had ordered an hour before.

It was time to leave, but before closing the door she wanted to play a bit. She knew that her work was worth a lot more than he was willing to pay her. Also she knew that she deserved to be treated with respect.

Now that she was sitting there enjoying his full attention, she wanted to find out how far she could go. To play back the ball and let him open the match, she asked him what he was able to offer. When he explained that there was no offer and that the new contract was supposed to be exactly like the old one, she told him that she couldn't sign it then.

At that point of time her overtime account had reached the incredible amount of 220 unpaid hours. In only six months she had been literally working five weeks for free. This was an incredibly smart argument.

The re-negotiation of her new employment contract took three whole working days. Probably they weren't fighting for money anymore. They wanted to find out who showed the greater persistence.

Guess who won in the end!

On the 3rd of July in the evening he finally accepted her request. She wanted him to double her salary and he agreed. The negotiation with him was pretty hard and there were several moments when she felt that she was going to lose the game.

During the past months she had learned a lot, especially how valuable her own work was - not only for this company but also in general. With time and experience her self-esteem had grown incredibly strong.

For a few days the hierarchy between them had magically disappeared.

She wasn't just his Assistant anymore, she had become a respectable negotiating partner at eye level.

The day after their agreement was the 4th of July.

He was traveling and she somehow tried to handle the incredible amount of work. During the past weeks it had become almost impossible to get her things done in a regular business day. There were few days without hours of overtime.

At 6pm he called her.

One of his friends was arriving at the airport and he wanted his driver to pick him up. She informed him that the driver had already left the building since his working day ended at 5pm.

He completely freaked out.

His following statement became the famous straw that broke the camel's back as well as their collaboration.

Who the fuck shit into your brain? If I'm right there are currently a thousand people working in my company, so don't tell me that there is no one who can drive to the airport now!

She paused for a second, took a deep breath and then told him that he didn't need to worry about it anymore and that she was taking care of everything.

It was one of these moments she knew damn right what she had to do.

She hung up the phone, grinned, looked at the two colleagues that were sitting close to her and said: 'It was a pleasure working with you guys. Today was my last day at this company.'

Then she took her bag and left the building.

It took her a couple of weeks to realize what had actually happened during these days. It had been quite intense. She definitely learned for life - and especially that her work was worth a lot.

From that day on she knew that nobody would ever be allowed to treat her in such way again.

Remember: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Know your value!

Best,
Marly -

Thanks for your valuable time!
This blog was launched at the end of July 2016
aiming to provide stories for open-minded
people who enjoy living on the edge of their lives,
stepping out of comfort zones, going on adventure,
doing extreme sports and embracing the new.
Welcome to the too-much-energy-blog!

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