Knowing Your Value Read Online Free PDF Page B

looked like “forty and washed-up” was now “experienced and gutsy”? Joe had assured me of that every step of the way. But I was programmed differently. I had my doubts.
    The day after the Paris Hilton incident, a top NBC executive,
a woman, called me into her office and asked me to take a seat. Her stern expression told me that this was not a victory lap. She was clearly unhappy that I had ripped up the Paris Hilton script. In a sharp tone she warned me that I would now have a reputation for being a “problem” and “difficult.” She was “concerned” that people “wouldn’t like” me.
    What did I do? I apologized.
    As she paced her office looking like she was about to fire me, her assistant barged in with an urgent call. She left the room. I sat there alone, wondering whether I had apologized enough.
    Five minutes later, the executive returned. I don’t know who had been on the other end of that urgent call or what was said, but her tone and body language had done a sudden 180. “We want to offer you your own show,” she said brightly, “at nine AM, after Morning Joe . A full hour. All yours. You get to cohost Morning Joe , and then you get to host your own show. All yours!”
    I must have had a slight case of whiplash. Clearly I wasn’t thinking straight, because what did I do next?
    I thanked her.
    Seriously.
    My success on Morning Joe meant that I would now be responsible for another hour of television every day. While it may look casual and spontaneous, hosting Morning Joe , a political show with no teleprompter or safety net, is incredibly demanding work. Its success depends on my instincts, my up-to-the-minute knowledge of world events and my mind being clear so that I can ad-lib no matter the
situation. Three hours of extemporaneous discussion and debate were considered a hard slog for any television host or anchor.
    As I looked around the table on the Morning Joe set the next day, I realized what I had done. Joe and Willie stretched and yawned at the end of our three hours and talked about how tired they were and how our schedule was insane. Then they wandered off the set to finally collapse somewhere. I was just getting started on an additional full hour, an hour I would now have to fill every day. By myself. I was still the lowest-paid on the set despite four hours each day on the air. No other anchor on television worked those hours five days a week. At the end of every Morning Joe , at 8:55 Eastern Time, we have a short segment where we all take a turn saying what we’ve learned that day. That morning I should have said “I learned that I am an ass.” How could I have missed this opportunity to ask for what I deserved?
    But as I started talking to women, especially researchers, I heard many stories and statistics that surprised me. The simple fact is that women don’t ask for raises as often as men do. My problem wasn’t just a personal failing, it was a common experience.

    According to our MSNBC online survey, men are more likely than women to ask for raises or promotions, and men ask for more raises or promotions
over the course of their careers than women do.

    More than a quarter of women in our survey described themselves as scared when asking for a raise. Many said they would rather have a root canal.

    Men were more likely to say they feel confident and up for the challenge.

    In the first of many conversations with successful women, I sat down with Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and shared my story. She listened and nodded all too knowingly.
    “We are our own worst enemy,” Jarrett says, understanding exactly how I had been tripped up. “Somehow it’s unseemly for women to promote themselves. We think that there’s a meritocracy that’s hierarchical, and the people at the top make the decisions about what promotions are based on.”
    As a female and an African-American, Jarrett says she always expected to face obstacles in the workplace: “My parents raised me to