Читать книгу Single. Women. Entrepreneurs. Second Edition - Erin Albert - Страница 68

I think it is actually easier to be a woman business owner today than work in corporate America as woman. The pay/equity issue still exists. Also, the corporate environment is so inflexible on how the work is bundled, even today. It is very restrictive. In corporate America, in order to be on the fast track, a lot of face and travel time are required. Furthermore, people in corporate America make judgments on your gender, your marital status, whether or not you have kids relative to what they think you can do. It is very hard for a corporation to tap into your entire personal talent base because they decide what you can or cannot do, and it is very rigid.

I work just as hard if not harder than I did in corporate America now as a business owner, but I work on my schedule. I work when my kids are asleep, and now I have to be even more productive during my work time. I can schedule work around my family life and not have it negatively impact my work or my family life. I schedule my meetings with people I need to meet with and it is very fluid. I can work on a weekend when the kids are with their father, and it works much better with my life—and no one is judging me based on my parental responsibilities or how I spend my time.

I think this is a big piece of why entrepreneurship works well for women. Women plateau in corporate America at levels not fulfilling for them, because the corporation doesn’t maximize the skills of women with families by providing flexible work arrangements. Also, there are so many politics inside corporate America that you spend more time thinking about having to work through and around the internal system that work isn’t as efficient. As an entrepreneur, I just get things done! I get so much more work done by working at a faster and more productive pace this way—I don’t have to work through the politics.