Is a Culinary Degree Worth It?

Today’s post was inspired by Chelsea Fagan’s article 3 thoughts I've been having about money. She writes about her uncomfortableness with the personal finance community and middle-class privilege, but the line "why the f*** is a woman in as prosperous a country as America six figures in debt for a Bachelor’s degree in the first place?" resonated with me. She goes on to write:

And what can we do, politically and personally, to ensure that more people do not end up in the same situation, rather than simply explaining the best and most efficient ways to crawl out of it?

I immediately decided to write about Alyssa, a line chef working at Huertas in NYC, who I learned about in my latest read Generation Chef: Risking It All for a New American Dreamwritten by Karen Stabiner.* Alyssa owed close to $80,000 in student loan debt incurred while she attended CIA in Hyde Park, New York. She paid for her entire bachelor’s degree with student loans; at the time she thought the degree was essential because she hadn’t gone to college. She was well-paid for a line cook at $13 an hour – most New York City line cooks earned an hourly rate of between $8 and $12. Making ends meet after her loan repayment’s temporary reduction expired became impossible.

She ended up moving back to her childhood home in Southern California to live with her mom. Her first food job had been at a restaurant on the Disneyland property in Anaheim. She hoped to return to one of the Disneyland restaurants. They paid well and offered sizable benefits. She figured with no rent and no food costs she would be able to make a sizable dent in her debt in two to three years.

Other annual salaries mentioned in Generation Chef:

Sous Chef $36,000-$38,000

Jonah (restaurant owner) $50,000.


Is a culinary degree worth it?

The chefs featured in the article Chefs Weigh In; Is Culinary School Worth It? say it is not. Jonah, Huertas’ owner, describes culinary school as a “parochial” experience and is wary of graduates, although he feels hiring Alyssa was an exception.

Then there are articles like this one: Surprising jobs with $100K salaries -- after only a two-year degree. The #1 career on the list is pastry chef.  I was touting the earning potential of pastry chefs, to a friend when she brought me back to reality. Her niece made $11 an hour as a pastry chef only because she worked for another family member. After that restaurant closed, the niece moved to Denver where she now works at a popular restaurant earning $9 an hour frosting cakes and cupcakes.

Then there is the 14-year old daughter of an acquaintance who dreams of going to culinary school and becoming a pastry chef. Her father’s advice: become a software engineer, work in Silicon Valley earning $200,000 a year for 20 years, then retire and open a bakery as your second career.

*In Generation Chef: Risking It All for a New American Dream, Stabiner follows Jonah for a little more than a year as he fulfills his childhood dream of opening a restaurant. His journey isn’t for the faint of heart; despite all his planning and positive reviews, he faced staffing shortages, $700,000 of debt, failed liquor license approvals and not enough customers. If you have dreams of someday owning your own restaurant I recommend reading Generation Chef for a reality check.


What do you think: is a Culinary Degree worth It? 

Please Note, I am an Amazon Affiliate

Born for This by Chris Guillebeau

Motivation for Reading:

I'd been following Chris Guillebeau's blog for a few years, but hadn’t read any of his books. I even signed up to attend one of his events held in Milwaukee, but didn’t attend due to his flight being delayed. When I saw his book Born for This: How to Find the Work You Were Meant to Dowas available for review on Blogging for Books I decided to give it a try.

What is Born for This: How to Find the Work You Were Meant to Do about?

It is basically a career guide to help readers find the work they are meant to do.

My Thoughts:

Before attending the first seminar of my working life, a colleague told me if I take one thing away from the seminar it was worth my time. I finished reading Born for This several weeks ago and I can’t stop thinking about the 24-hour project. The project is exactly what the title suggests:

Call it your personal “hackathon,” a type of event popular in tech circles where small teams compete to launch start-ups or solve a specific problem in a limited period of time, typically fueled by caffeine and the occasional break to play ping-pong. You too can use this model to make a quick-and dirty product in a short period of time. All you need is 24 hours and, to be fair, a bit of advance preparation so you know what you’re getting into.” (Pg. 167)

Perhaps this is how I finally get my eBook written.

So for me, reading Born for This was not a waste of my time. Overall, I thought Guillibeau’s writing was engaging and I enjoyed the career stories he included to reinforce his ideas. As to the career suggestions themselves: identify what we really want, make better decisions and to take more risks. There really isn’t anything new. The benefit of Born for This is Guillibeau’s ability to motivate. His own story – setting a goal to visit every country in the world and actually achieving it is motivating in itself.

Bottom Line: 
If you are looking for a book with engaging stories to motivate you to make a career change you may enjoy this book. If you are looking for a step-by-step guide to make that change you will probably be disappointed with Born for This: How to Find the Work You Were Meant to Do..
Have you read this book?  If so what were your thoughts?

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

Note, some of the links included in this post are affiliate links.

Why I Need To Be More Optimistic

I admit it I prefer cynicism and a good negative rant over Pollyannaism any day. My rejection of the happiness movement began when I attended a positivity lecture with a friend at her church while in my twenties. The minister proclaimed acquiring a positive attitude along with donating money to his church would attract good things to our lives. If we believed we would become a millionaire we would become one. If we believed we would find true love we would find it. I remained skeptical while my friend got out her checkbook. Reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America probably did not help my pessimistic tendencies.

Last year while traveling with a co-worker I mentioned I had never read and didn’t believe in the premise of Rhonda Byrne's book The Secret. She spent the next two hours trying to persuade me I was wrong insisting changing her attitude had changed her life. The day after she had decided to become a more positive person an unexpected check arrived in her mailbox. I was not convinced.  

It took Jenn Aubert and her book Women Entrepreneur Revolution: Ready! Set! Launch!: 100+ Successful Women Entrepreneurs Share Their Best Tips on What Works, What Doesn't (and Why) ... a Business and Designing a Life You Loveto help me understand the deeper benefits of a positive attitude. She writes:

One of the main traits seen time and again in powerful leaders at all levels is positive framing. It should be no surprise that to manage the roller coaster that is running your own business, you have to keep an outlook that looks for the silver lining in situations. But it goes beyond just having a rose-colored perspective. It is also about seeing things for the way they are and taking the facts as facts rather than spinning stories that are not true or – for that matter – useful. (Pg. 47)

People who frame things in a positive light don’t let negative feelings paint their reality in a negative way. They see things for what they are and learn from them. They understand that they’re in control of their future and can influence future outcomes, learn and grow. (Pg. 48)

During the 2002 recession the company where I work was hit incredibly hard. The owner had been on leave caring for his sick wife and had left the management of his company with his two inexperienced sons. After our company’s bank refused to renew our contract he returned to save his company. Over the next month he contracted a new bank to provide a line of credit and to take over our existing loans all at more favorable interest rates than we had previously. He negotiated long-term notes with five of our major vendors to pay off outstanding payable balances over the next two years. He downsized and cut costs in every area possible. Ultimately he saved his company. I am not sure if any of this could have been achieved if he were not an optimist. A more negative person would have just sold the company’s assets to the highest bidder.

During the great recession my company was again hit hard. Our owners again down sized and cut costs. They mentioned several times how they never would have made in through the great recession if they hadn’t experienced almost losing their company in 2002. They are convinced the changes they made in 2002 had made the company stronger and better able to withstand future financial set-backs. Talk about a silver-lining.

While Jenn Aubert was interviewing Stella Grizont the founder of WOOPAAH she learned:

Maintaining a positive attitude is deeper than just being optimistic and looking on the bright side. According to Stella what is most important is a belief in your vision and seeing ways to maneuver difficult situations and challenges. While a leader within the Ladies Who Launch organization she worked with thousands of women helping them maintain a positive frame by seeing the possibilities, taking the next step and taking account of one’s previous successes. This valuable tool of reframing situations, challenges and obstacles is a skill that can take you far. (Pg. 48)

I had been missing the true benefit of optimism. I had realized people prefer spending time with positive people and those with a positive attitude were more likely to be hired, make friends and find a mate. But I also thought those who believed in the happiness movement had been brain-washed into thinking all they had to do was be positive and good things would miraculously appear into their life. In reality ridding yourself of negative, trapped and I hate myself thoughts frees up your mind to come up with real solutions.

Perhaps it is time I let go of my own negative attitudes and work towards becoming a more optimistic person.

If you would like to learn more about Jenn Aubert and her book Women Entrepreneur Revolution please see my interview with Jenn Aubert.

Have you embraced the happiness movement?  Why or why not?

 

I am an Amazon Affiliate

Interview with Jenn Aubert author of Women Entrepreneur Revolution

One of my goals for this blog is to read and recommend career books for women. I’ve found a few good ones over the years, but honestly have to say Jenn Aubert’s book Women Entrepreneur Revolution: Ready! Set! Launch!: 100+ Successful Women Entrepreneurs Share Their Best Tips on What Works, What Doesn't (and Why) ... a Business and Designing a Life You Love is one of the best entrepreneurship books for women I have read to date. In addition to providing small business and entrepreneurial advice it includes real-life examples from 100 different entrepreneurial women. I’ve never encountered this in a book before. Almost all of the books I've read have been written by men and were about men's businesses. A few years ago I read a blog comment written by a female commercial lender stating all women business ideas were lame – every single one of them. Obviously this commenter needs to read this book.

I will be writing additional posts in the next few weeks based on the lessons I’ve learned from Women Entrepreneur Revolution: Ready!.  Today I am delighted to share my interview with the book’s author Jenn Aubert:

What motivated you to write “Women Entrepreneur Revolution: Ready! Set! Launch?
Many small moments led to the writing of Women Entrepreneur Revolution: Ready! Set! Launch!. The final 'ah ha' moment happened in the Fall of 2012 after having noticed my book shelf filled with books on business all having been written by men. It was simply an observation. Out of curiosity I went to an online forum of women business owners I belong to and asked them who they were reading, who they were following and learning from, and who are their role models. What surprised me was how few women had noted female leaders and entrepreneurs as role models - other than Oprah. Oprah is fantastic but she can't possibly be the only role model for every woman starting a business. I knew I had to figure out what was going on so. That’s when I decided to take a year and ask 100 women who inspired them and how they've created success for themselves.

Who are your female role models?
I have so many now I feel like I need a board on my wall to remember them all. Each inspires me in a different way. One of my role models is a woman I used to work with when I was in the corporate world. Before she became an executive recruiter she was a co-founder of a biotechnology company and was previous a bench scientist involved in cancer research. She is one of the coolest, most generous, loving people I’ve ever known. I admire her grace under pressure and her ability to lead in a more feminine style.

Others that are newer to my stable of role models is Alexis Maybank of Gilt and Jessica Herrin of Stella & Dot. They both have created significant empires in areas where people thought they were nuts. Alexis is a strong leader in the technology community while remaining approachable. Jessica has created a company that helps women create a flexible living for themselves. Both are also moms.

What is your why and why is that important?
My why is that I want to help women build a sustainable business that will enable them to fulfill every passion and desire they have. My why has been around for years but only recently have I discovered the how to do this. The book is a start. My next venture, LearnSavvy, is the next phase.

What was your biggest surprise or lesson learned from interviewing over 100 women?
I was surprised how willing busy successful women were to take the time to speak to me. They were incredibly kind in giving their time, sharing their wisdom and helping a fellow woman pursue her dreams.

In terms of lessons, many women gave the advice of asking for what you want and need. I realized that I have been terrible at that in my professional and personal life. Over the course of the year and having that piece of sage advice reiterated over and over, I’ve become more brave in my own life in terms of asking for what I need.

Is it possible to attain a work/life balance?
While I was interviewing the women for the book I was franticly trying to find my own balance. I was managing my business and a toddler while interviewing, researching, and writing the book. Trust me, I was asking how other’s were doing it because I felt like I was drowning.

What I found was there is no one answer to the question, “How do you balance family and work?”. Everyone has their unique ways to integrate the two, knowing that true balance will never happen. That’s the one relief that came out of talking to over a hundred women. That no one really has the answer - the magic solution - to “having it all.” And quite frankly, it’s ok.

The key is to honestly do the best you can, ruthlessly prioritize what you most value and let go of things that just aren’t that important. There are only so many hours each day so honor that time and focus on what is most important to you.

What do you know now that you did not know when you were 18?
I think at 18 I was more focused on what I should do and be. I planned on majoring in International Relations thinking that I wanted some high paying corporate job traveling the world. I realize now that you can create the income you want in such a variety of unique ways while living a life that really fits you. You don’t have to have an MBA, wear a suit and sit in the corner office to make a really fabulous life for yourself. But that’s all part of life. It takes doing a lot of what doesn’t fit to figure out what does. It’s like dating, you have to go out with a lot of guys to find just the right one.

Is there anything else we should know about you or your book?
I’ve been surprised to hear from women who are not business owners, that they have gotten so much out of the book. I’ve heard stories of women being inspired to take more risks in their corporate roles and of women taking more bold steps in their philanthropic work. It truly warms my heart that this book is helping women everywhere become the best versions of themselves.

Thank you Jenn.  I am already looking forward to your next project - LearnSavvy.

Who are your female role models?  Please share in the comments below.

Disclosure: I was given a copy of this book prior to this interview.

I am an Amazon Affiliate

Lean Back and Thrive

In Arianna Huffington’s book Thrive she describes a new definition of success, one that focuses not only on career advancement, but on the equally important goals of health and wellbeing, personal fulfillment, giving back and living a life of purpose and meaning.

She writes:

Our current notion of success, one in which we drive ourselves into the ground, if not the grave – in which working to the point of exhaustion and burnout is considered a badge of honor – was put in place by men, in a workplace culture dominated by men.

And:

Women are paying an even higher price than men for their participation in a work culture fueled by stress, sleep deprivation, and burnout. 

Instead of focusing on the two traditional metrics of success, she recommends adding a third metric. This third metric includes our well-being, our ability to draw on our intuition and inner wisdom, our sense of wonder and our capacity for compassion and giving.

I find it interesting how as I've gotten older my goals and aspirations are leaning more towards the third metric.  My twenties were all about making money and working as many hours as possible.  In my thirties I returned to college, passed the CPA exam, found a new job and again worked long hours.  In my forties, I began burning out and dreamed of vacations and early retirement.  I started exercising and taking better care of myself to help combat chronic insomnia. Now that I'm over fifty I dream of mentoring and giving back. Instead of leaning-in to my career I long to lean back and have a more well-rounded life.

Finding the time to add this third metric - meditation, yoga, getting enough sleep, renewing ourselves and giving back - to my life can be challenging especially while working full-time and attempting to maintain this blog. (By the way I consider this blog part of my third metric). For me, the only way I can make this all work is to schedule everything. Cleaning my house, cooking, shopping, blogging, exercising, work meetings and deadlines, spending time with my family and friends – everything is scheduled. I am also someone who doesn’t work well under tight deadlines, so anything that upsets my schedule also upsets this third metric.  

Another thing I’ve noticed as I’ve become more involved with social media I’ve been staying up later and sleeping less.  I’ve even been known to bring my electronic devices to the dinner table much to my husband’s displeasure. The problem with social media is I’m never finished. I could always write one more comment or schedule one more tweet.  It’s time I take a step back.  I need to cut-back on my social media participation.  My social media activity is now scheduled from 8:00 pm to 9:30 pm allowing me a half hour downtime before falling asleep.

This past week I read three blog posts from three different women about how their career goals have changed as they got older.  All three wanted to lean back rather than lean into their career.  One wanted to spend more time with her family, one wanted a different career from the one she's been working towards since she was sixteen, and the third wanted to spend more time giving back.

Have your career goals changed over time?  Do you dream of leaning-back?

This post was inspired by Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington who encourages everyone to sleep their way to the top. Join From Left to Write on May 1 we discuss Thrive. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

48 Days To The Work You Love

What is Dan Miller's book 48 Days To The Work You Loveabout?
Dan Miller, a life coach, has written a book not about finding a new job, but about discovering what you are going to “be.” According to Miller, failing to make that fundamental discovery is why so many people find themselves in jobs they hate. His book is to help lead you to the vocation you will love.

Motivation for reading:
This book has been included on several must-read career book lists, but it wasn’t until Sarah Ingle mentioned it in her post things I wish I'd been told in college that I decided to read this book. She wrote:

I wish someone had made me read 48 Days To The Work You Love.  I know I talk about this book all the time, but it was the first thing I ever read that actually helped point me in a direction. I think every college freshman or sophomore should be REQUIRED to read something like this before they waste thousands of dollars on classes that are useless and have no direction. 

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed I’ve been feeling trapped in my career as an accounting manager for some time now. I’ve worked in accounting for 25 years and would like to do something more fulfilling in the next stage of my life. I was hoping this book would provide some insight.

My thoughts:
This book is not a step-by-step how-to-guide to finding a new career in 48 days; instead it is a book filled with anecdotes and stories from Miller’s coaching practice, the bible and quotations from other books. Each chapter does end with a list of questions designed to get you thinking about your own life and its purpose. Overall, I thought the book was a bit repetitive. I would have preferred a more logically organized step-by-step book, but reading it was not an entire waste I came away with several invaluable insights. Here is a sampling:

Not only know yourself, but know what is changeless about you:
The power of knowing yourself acts as a compass through change. Popular writer Steven Covey says the only way we can handle change is to know what is changeless about ourselves. You need that changeless core, knowing how God has uniquely gifted you and what you value. With that knowledge you can forge through change with clear direction and unshakeable purpose. (Pg. 31)

On having action plans and setting goals:
A plan of action will separate you from 97% of the people you meet. Everyone has dreams, but very few ever turn those into goals. The difference between a dream and a goal is that a goal is a dream with a timeframe of action attached. (Pg. 48)

Only 8% of the general population can identify goals and only about 3% ever actually write them down. (Pg. 56)

Goals are not written in concrete terms but certainly give you a starting point and a destination. The important thing is you are working on your goals; your life has meaning only when you are working towards goals through with your achieve meaning. After all, success is the progressive realization of worthwhile goals. (Pg. 57)

Indecision is the greatest thief of opportunity:
A recent Harvard Business School Study asked, “What are the top characteristics of high achievers?” At the very top of the list, one characteristic stood out: speed of implementation – having the ability to act quickly. Eighty percent of decisions should be made immediately. (Pg. 55)

When confronted with a decision Dan and his wife allow a 2-week maximum for arriving at a decision. Here is their approach to the process:

1. State the problem
2. Get the advice and opinions of others
3. List alternatives
4. Choose the best alternative
5. Act

Look for what you love first:
Looking for the best opportunities in career and jobs often leads to disillusionment and frustration. Look for what you love first. Then you will have the confidence and enthusiasm to find success in places others overlook. (Pg. 188)

I enjoyed the chapter on entrepreneurship. It contained one of the best “Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur questionnaire” I’ve seen. It is extensive – at 18 questions and does not include your typical are you a risk taker type question.

The chapter on interviewing pointed out how important it is to appear energetic and enthusiastic during the interview process.

Bottom line:
I may not have determined what my next career will be, but I did gain valuable insights from reading this book. I recommend it to anyone just starting out or searching for a new vocation with this caveat - Miller writes this book from a Christian point of view. If this will bother you, you may want to skip this book.

What is the best career book you’ve ever read?

Please Note, I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Professional Woman’s Guide to Managing Men Book Review and Giveaway

I first became acquainted with Anna Runyan, when she included my post 50 Books Every Young Woman Should Read in a Monday motivation roundup on her website ClassyCareerGirl.com. Since then I’ve participated in her networking challenge and watched her evolve into a successful leadership coach and now an author. It is only fitting that I would become part of the launch team for her new book The Professional Woman's Guide to Managing Men.

What is this book about?
Anna Runyan spent seven years working with and managing men as a consultant for the U.S. Navy.

She writes:

“I have managed men who were shocked to have a woman in charge, which wasn’t always easy. It took me a while to figure out how to best work with and manage men. There were many times that I had no idea what to do and tried many different things to see what worked. I treated men I managed in the same way I thought a man would treat them. That didn’t work. Then, I treated them how I treated other women. That didn’t work either. It wasn’t until I started to just be myself and lean on my own female leadership strengths that I began to successfully start gaining trust and respect from the men I managed.”

The Professional Woman's Guide to Managing Men is a compilation of what Anna has learned about managing men. It is written as a “how-to” guidebook and includes specific action steps you can take while reading.

The book is divided into five chapters:

Focus on you first
How to be a confident female manager
How to help the men on your team thrive
What not to do when managing men
Handling common management situations

Each chapter concludes with a self-evaluation.

My thoughts:
Anna Runyan has written a comprehensive, useful, well-written guide to working with and managing men. I’ve worked with men in male-dominated industries for over 20+ years. Many of the lessons Anna includes in this book I learned the hard way. In addition, I acquired several new insights and techniques from the book. For example, who knew having a sense of humor is an important factor in managing men. I even discovered a couple of new strategies to better manage my female staff. 

Bottom line:
I recommend reading this book if you are already in a career managing men, preparing yourself to work with men or work in a male-dominated industry. This book which warrants further discussion is a strong contender for a future Savvy Reader Book Club selection. 

Want to read it?
I have one eBook copy to give away. Simply share on Facebook, Twitter, G+ or Instagram and then post here on the blog that you did so. Feel free in include your biggest gripe of problem managing or working with men. Each share and comment gets you an entry. I’ll draw the name of the winner one week from today!

Please Note, I am an Amazon Affiliate

Why Women Opt-Out of Their Careers?

This month, The Savvy Reader Book Club, is discussing Debora L. Spar’s book Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection. In an earlier post, I revealed a perfume commercial from the 70's was responsible for shaping my life’s vision. Last week, we had an interesting discussion on whether greater sexual freedom meant a loss of power for women. 

Today I am sharing the reasons Spar feels career women continue to crash in to ceilings.

Spar begins by siting Management Women and the New Facts of Life, an article Felice Schwartz wrote for the Harvard Business Review in 1989:

The article argued that if corporations wanted to hire their best and brightest female employees, they needed to create a more flexible and family friendly workforce, one that offered young mothers a variety of ways to structure their working hours and their careers. High potential career women, Schwartz suggested fell naturally into two camps. In the first were “career primary women,” women who essentially behaved like men at work and were willing to undertake the same set of trade-offs. These women were almost certain to remain single or at least childless, Schwartz predicted, and to demand only that their employers “recognize them early, accept them, and clear artificial barriers from their path to the top.” In the second camp were career and family women,” women who wanted children and a career, and who, unlike both men and “career primary women,” were willing to trade some of the demands of promotion for the freedom to spend more time with their children. (Pg. 182)

Schwartz’s piece went viral and the term mommy-track was coined. Unfortunately, the mommy-track did not work out in practice:

Few organizations have found ways to carve their most important positions into anything other than full-time chunks. Today for example, more than twenty years after Schwartz published her article, there are still only eight scientists working part time at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Only 13 percent of women lawyers work part time, as do 2 percent of the female financial managers. It doesn’t seem that the human resource departments of any of these organizations are consciously choosing against part-time positions. But when it comes to putting actual bodies in actual jobs, full-timers simply tend to dominate. As a result, while the number of women who work part time is statistically quite high (roughly a quarter of all female workers), the vast majority of these part-timers are clustered at the lower end of the economic spectrum, working as cashiers, waitresses and sales assistants. (Pg. 183)

I found this to be interesting, since just last week I asked our CFO if I could hire a part-time person for our department. His answer – I would prefer everyone work a few hours of overtime each week rather than add an additional staff person.

I was also reminded of the seminar I had attended on hiring discrimination. The seminar was given by the HR Director of a major corporation in my area. I learned many managers continue to “profile” and discriminate when making hiring decisions. They prefer not to hire married women for IT consulting positions that involve travel – she recommended ladies take off their wedding rings before going on those types of interviews. Also, they tend not to hire or promote women who are in their child bearing years.

Then there are the women who opt-out. I have several friends and co-workers whose experiences mirrored the following:

Many women who have left the full-time workforce, of course, predict that their hiatuses will be brief. As Sylvia Ann Hewlett found in a 2005 study, most women who pull blithely into a career “off-ramp” find the road back far more treacherous than they anticipated. Positions disappear; salaries plummet; professional relationships grow stale. And at the end of the day, only 40 percent of women who try to return to full-time professional jobs actually manage to do so. The rest settle into early retirement or slower paced, lower-ranked jobs. (Pg. 183)

Women simply jump first:

When the choice is between compromising a job and compromising a family, women seem more inclined to focus on the family, men to stick with the job that pays the bills.

Opting-out is particularly high for women who didn’t like their careers that much to begin with or entered them haphazardly:

This mismatch between jobs and desires seems to vary not only with time and gender, but across industries as well. Specifically, there are some fields from which women seem to flee in droves: law, consulting, banking. And some fields in which they stay: medicine, academia, entrepreneurial ventures. Typically, the reasons cited to explain these patterns are the obvious ones – fields like consulting and corporate law, for example, are frequently described as being too demanding on young mothers time and too “male” in their knee-jerk behavior patterns. Commodity trading floors are still rough-edged, often raunchy, places. Would-be partners at major corporate law firms work insanely long hours. (Pg. 187)

Her advice:
Don’t go into a field without first understanding the rules of the game and considering deeply whether you want to play them.

I have mentioned many times before about the number of hours accountants are required to work. When I returned to college to major in accounting I was fully aware of this requirement. It never occurred to me while in my twenties this hour requirement would eventually become cumbersome and if I were to have had children impossible. At the time, my only focus was to enter a career where I’d earn a decent salary.

What rules do you wish you would have known about your chosen career prior to entering it?

The Savvy Reader Book Gift List

As I was contemplating what to buy friends and family this holiday season I realized many of my favorite reads of 2013 would make excellent gifts. Here is my hypothetical gift list:

For my friend and colleague Kate:

Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. This is the best career book I‘ve read in years and one that I wish I’d read earlier in my career. I recommend this book for any woman who is looking to re-charge her career.

As a companion read I would include:

Debora L. Spar’s Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection.Spar is the president of Barnard College and has written a book about how our culture has evolved in the last 50-years. She details how women struggled to gain power, but instead ended up caught in an endless quest for perfection. I found myself nodding in agreement as Spar describes how women today try to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother and the perfect career person. 

For my sister who is the mother of three children under the age of eight:

Crystal Ponti's The Mother of All Meltdowns: Real Stories of Moms' Finest (Worst, Completely Awful) Moments. When I saw the look on my sister’s face as her 4-year old kept insisting he wasn’t wearing pants or shoes on our outing I realized perhaps motherhood is much harder than I realized. After reading the melt-down moments the authors share in this book I hope my sister learns she is not alone and that there is no such thing as a perfect mom or child. Please see Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection from above.

For my niece who will be moving to Santa Monica by herself next year:

Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence. This book explores how fear is a gift that can be used to keep us safe and explains how we can spot even subtle signs of danger—before it’s too late. Gavin teaches us how to listen to and trust our intuition. I recommend this book to anyone who will be living on their own for the first time.

For the niece who is graduating from college this December and has nothing constructive to do until grad school begins next fall:

Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. It could be a coincidence, but after reading this book I snapped out of the funk I had been in for almost a year. I recommend this book - a compilation of Strayed’s Dear Sugar advice columns - to any young adult approaching their quarter-life crises.

For my non-fiction loving friend who read and enjoyed Robert K. Massie's Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman after learning of it from this blog post:

George Parker's The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America. I am currently reading this book and am amazed by how comprehensive it is. Packer follows the lives of several Americans over the past three decades. In doing so he describes how America which was once a super power is beginning to become undone. I recommend this book for anyone who likes to read about current events or who is interested in the increasing disparity between the rich and poor.

 

Please note, I am an Amazon affiliate

What was your favorite reads of the year? Would you give them as gifts?

The Savvy Reader Book Club Choices for October

The Savvy Reader Book Club is an online nonfiction book club created for the serious reader.  At the beginning of each month I select one or two books then host discussion posts covering the books throughout the month.  If you write a blog post about one of my selections I will be happy to include its link in my final post.

The Savvy Reader book club selections for October are:

Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus book Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids---and What We Can Do About It

  

I decided to choose this book after talking to a recent college grad who after spending over $100,000 on a fashion merchandising degree can only find employment as a retail associate; a job that does not require a 4-year degree. This book promises to expose the truth about what is wrong with higher education and is guaranteed to provide interesting conversation.

 

I am also selecting Tina Fey's book Bossypants

 

 

 

I chose this book after learning it was the best book Sheryl Sandberg read last year. After reading a depressing book like the one above we will most likely be ready for a funny book. I've read mixed reviews about this book though.  Some reviewers have found it hilarious while others thought it wasn't funny at all.  Please join me if you would like to find out for yourself.   

 

Have you read either of these books? If so what were your thoughts?  Be sure to stop back in throughout the month to participate in the discussions. 

 

Please Note, I am an Amazon Affiliate