NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR CAREER: Why Failure is Good, the Great Ones Play Hurt, and Other Hard Truths : EXCERPT

Erika Ayers Badan is a self-described career “nerd” who loves to work, and it shows. Badan was called a “token CEO” in the media—in reality, she is anything but: after marketing jobs at blue-chip companies like Microsoft and AOL, she became the first CEO of Barstool Sports, transforming a rough-and-tumble sports-and-betting brand and turning it into a $550 million juggernaut, with more than 5 billion monthly views and 225 million followers. In NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR CAREER: Why Failure is Good, The Great Ones Play Hurt, and Other Hard Truths (St. Martin’s Press), Badan harnesses the lessons she has learned and explains how work really works: how to be effective at it, how to get noticed, how to crush it, how to figure out what you love and do it as a job. Badan says it’s all about participating instead of hanging back, being all in but not bringing your whole self to work (some of you is better left at home). Winning at work is about beating your own insecurity and using your unique skillset to do the job you want to do. It’s about being yourself and being successful. You’re not perfect. Work isn’t perfect, either. But you can both be great.

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Excerpted from NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR CAREER: Why Failure is Good, the Great Ones Play Hurt, and Other Hard Truths by Erika Ayers Badan. Copyright © 2024 by the author and reprinted with permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Order here.

More women between the ages of 25 and 40 are in the workplace than ever before. This is great! Work is filled with men, women, and as many genders that exist by the time you are reading this. Humans are weird, unpredictable, and mostly they are fallible and make really amazing and really terrible things happen at work. Most of the inappropriate shit that really goes wrong at work, has nothing to do with work (it happens in a lot of places), what’s scary about work is that it happens insidiously and behind closed doors. Like it or not, Women have to be extra careful about this and be vigilant. Yes, there is sexual harassment training. Yes, #MeToo kind of changed everything and yes, firing for cause is happening way more than it ever did before, but chances are you are going to find yourself at some point or another in an awkward, murky and unclear situation at work that leaves you in a place where you can be vulnerable and taken advantage of. This is not going to be covered in a women’s movement or by your HR team, it has to be covered by you.

The easiest way to get out of something that’s unclear, is to be clear about what you’re getting into and how you can get out of it. I call this navigating the gray.

Navigating the gray is about assessing and constantly reassessing things that may be opaque or may have multiple meanings or interpretations. Work is about constantly assessing and re-assessing your situation. The gray is no different. It’s about being mindful and aware of your situation. Navigating the gray is about innuendo and context and understanding and responding to persistent suggestion.

In figuring out what I wanted to include in this chapter, I thought lot about sexual harassment and where women potentially fall into traps that they can’t get out of, or from where they may be judged. What it essentially comes down to is that as women at work, we have to be able to understand and navigate uneasy, sexually charged, or tense situations where things hang in the balance, all while getting the work done.

Why does this matter? It matters because it’s very unlikely that some guy senior to you who holds the key to your promotion or the next raise or the next title you want is going to walk up to you in the hallway or shoot you a text that says, “Nice Tits.” Men are not that dumb (okay fine, most men are not that dumb). Instead, what’s going to happen is that guy is going to ask you to a coffee to talk about work and the coffee is going to turn to drinks with a bunch of people but end up being drinks just you two. This is the gray. You’re going to jump at the coffee and the drinks because you want the raise/the promotion/the recognition or maybe you like the danger or the proximity to power, or the guy. My point is this is happening all around you and it is going to happen to you and so when it does happen, what’s important is to be able to recognize it and to then decide what you want to do about it. The gray is amorphous (bear with me on this) in the fact that it’s a space where both ambiguity and possibility exist. The gray is when a person tries to create ambiguity with you—it could be a client, co-worker, boss, partner. It puts you in a position of being tested (will she take the bait?) and where you have to decide if you take it or not, and how. It’s also a place where you may really want to jump for something because you want to move ahead, or you want the raise and promotion, or you want to be great and the opportunity to be recognized. Please know you don’t have to take the bait and there will be other great non-gray opportunities in line for you. Promise.

So while people likely aren’t going to aggressively or overtly cross the line and sexually harass each other (there’s too much liability and risk for that nowadays), what they are going to do is create an environment where things can be interpreted in multiple ways, allowing for a moment that can get out of hand. When someone from work DMs you on Instagram and comments on your picture, that’s gray. When someone asks you to switch from Messenger to Signal, that’s gray. Be aware of the subtleties and the signals small nuances suggest. They are opportunities to engage in a way that’s professional and above board and they offer the same opportunity to turn flirty or sexual. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or the most hyper-aware creature alive all you need to be aware of is that you’re being tested and to be confident in your ability to say no, or you fully appreciate the consequence of saying yes.

We need to learn to recognize the gray. And we need to have a response and a plan in place ahead of time so that we can respond in a fully realized way. Know what your plan is and what you are going to do to keep yourself safe. Ignore. Make up a dumb excuse. Refuse the advance. Or if you do engage, know the line that you don’t want to cross and stick to it.

Part of the reason why so many women, myself included, haven’t come forward after someone crosses the line or when things go too far is that they are ashamed because they knew they were in the gray, they participated and engaged in it or thought they could handle it, but they got in over their heads. When you’re in too deep you can start to feel lost and then it’s hard to know how to turn back and which way to go. This can leave you very vulnerable.

If it does happen, don’t just ignore it, sweep it under the rug, rationalize it or run away from it (which I’ve done). Talk about it. Immediately. Find someone you trust and spell it all out. Don’t let the shame or doubt creep in. You can and will get yourself out of the gray and you will be okay.

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Currently the CEO of Food52, Erika Ayers Badan was the first CEO of Barstool Sports, one of the most influential sports, lifestyle, and entertainment media brands on the internet. From 2016 to 2024, Ayers Badan led the company from a regional blog with 12 employees to a national powerhouse with over 300 employees. She has been named one of Forbes’ Most Powerful Women in the U.S. in Sports. Badan also held leading roles at Microsoft, AOL, Demand Media, and Yahoo. She currently hosts a daily 1:1 series on social media answering work related questions, and recently launched a monthly series of dynamic conversations about women and work called the Food52 Nobody Cares Speaker Series, taking place at the Food52 headquarters, featuring Badan and engaging female industry talent. Badan is the author of NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR CAREER (St. Martin’s Press), which Kirkus Reviews called “A refreshingly foul-mouthed, smart guide to making it in the business world.” She has been interviewed in national media outlets including CNN, MNBC, Forbes, Vanity Fair, and top podcasts.  She currently serves as a board member on Malaria No More, a nonprofit organization that seeks to eradicate malaria. For additional information, please visit her website.

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing