Women's Work

I am not here today writing this – I wrote this last night – as I am off at a board meeting in Guildford!

Anyway as a woman director and business owner I am often presented with a load of baloney about women in business: I am not a strident women’s libber because I have always felt and (hopefully) behaved in a totally equal way without even thinking about it.  I have always followed the philosophy that if you talk sense nobody notices if you’re a woman or a man.

But in the Sunday press last week there was an article about the best careers for women to enter which was interesting – and if we include men who want flexible careers in the scope then the top tips are:

1. Pick careers with flexible working patterns: medicine, law, and the media for example.

2. Work hard with your colleagues – you have to be able to cover for each other in cases of child illness or sports day.

3. Avoid any business with a long hours, or rigid hours, working culture.

4. Develop an interest in the bosses children.

5. Ensure that you are able to make business calls from the under stairs cupboard so the listener wont know you’re at home

6. Join the BBC where one third of top managers are women, and then leave for the independent stations – Sky and Five are run by women.

And, the best tip of all:

7. Work for yourself!