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The other morning I was at work when I received a text from a good friend. It said, “Really, Bri? A Hooters girl?”
I knew he was talking about I Want Her Job.
Then a little later on I had a phone call with another good friend. She said, “It took everything in me not to write a nasty comment on your blog. I really enjoy coming to your site, but I don’t feel like working at Hooters inspires anybody. I am a teacher, and I work with kids all the time to find out what it is they really want to do. Do you really want girls to say they want to grow up and be a Hooters girl? I think that’s just degrading.”
My response to both of them was this, “Did you read the profile?”
The first friend had not read it, and once he did, well, he seemed to understand it a bit more.
The second friend I mentioned read the profile and didn’t change her mind.
She felt like the job was degrading to women and couldn’t believe I would promote it on this site.
I then asked her, “Well, if next week I featured an interview with an anchor from The Today Show or the editor-in-chief of a magazine, would you read it?” “Yes, of course,” she said. And I responded then by saying, “Well, then it didn’t change your mind about the site?” “As long as you don’t feature a stripper … ” she responded before we changed topics.
Here’s the thing. When I made the decision to feature Saskia, I thought about it for a night. I didn’t make a quick reaction. While her job is not one that I had a targeted plan to feature, I was impressed with her viewpoint and her entrepreneurial spirit. Saskia doesn’t just work at Hooters. She trains other girls, she runs a website that gets as many as 500 views a day (which, for the record, is not easy … ) and furthermore, the website that she created led to an opportunity for her to write for the company’s magazine. I admire that drive.
As someone with a background in journalism, I was taught to always consider all sides of a story. The job of a reporter is to not insert your own voice and to present two sides … and even if I couldn’t find the other side of the story, I had to actively seek it out. Now, with blogging, I feel mainstream news has tried to insert more of an opinion into what they do. And beyond that, writers are looking to have more of a voice. Opinion counts these days, but sometimes it’s still best to step back and be the publisher of content that strikes a chord with people, without inserting your own thoughts. And with I Want Her Job, I am striving to motivate, but also to feature women in all types of jobs. Who am I to say what kind of jobs people should love?
The other thing about this site is that as long as you’re a woman, you can be featured if you can convince me of one thing — that you really, truly love your job. And while I realize some jobs appeal to some people and other jobs don’t, I think there’s something interesting in the fact that Saskia has to wake up every morning and no matter how she feels, she has to look her best. As a woman, I’m sure you can understand how exhausting that can be. There are some mornings when I just don’t care if I have mascara on my lashes or if my hair is curled. I’m just not into it for one reason or another. And the fact that she does this is interesting to me.
The bottom line is this: I Want Her Job is here to feature women with all types of jobs who love what they do. We’re also here to support one another. So, keep the comments coming, because we’re not just profiling women who love their jobs, we’re starting a community that has an opinion and motivates us as women.
And if we can’t be one another’s biggest cheerleaders, then who will be?