Work/Life Balance For Singles

By: Cynthia Diaz

No lifestyle options are easy and while being single, living alone, certainly has its perks, the single lifestyle—as with every lifestyle choice—does have its challenges. There is an incredible amount of freedom in fending for oneself and not having to answer to anyone but, is being solitary all it’s cracked up to be?

Generally, unless one lives the single life, it is difficult to understand that being single is not all “Sex and the City” and impossibly high heels. Often, there are higher expectations for those without spouses and children. Working in corporate America, I have been told that putting in extra hours would be expected during a crunch, not a problem. I think everyone has heard that request at one time or another. It is what often follows that is insulting: “After-all, you’re single. You have no responsibilities.” Being single somehow allows my free time to become someone else’s asset.

Gone may be the days when human resource professionals and hiring managers ask questions about motherhood, marital status, and age, but are those questions part of an underlying thread that runs through the thinking of corporate America? Have women really broken the glass ceiling in how we are treated in the boardroom and what can we do when our private life situations affect our jobs? I’ve worked in a lot of large financial institutions. As a corporate writer and communications specialist, I met with many diverse people from myriad areas in these companies. Because I conduct a lot of interviews with highly placed executives, I tend to be trusted; I tend to hear a lot of interesting conversations. One such conversation had to do with a recent downsizing, the decision-makers were discussing why they cut who they cut. The infamous “Black Monday” choices were performance-based with one exception: I’ll call him Robert.

Robert was married and had one child who was born seriously ill and ultimately succumbed to her illness, a fate no one would wish on anyone. Robert’s consistently mediocre performance floundered and, if he was in the lower percentile before the tragedy (he was), he had dropped to the lowest level of low performers. Management opted to keep him and cut someone else who consistently performed higher than Robert, but who was not supporting a distraught wife and going through the grief-addled horror following the loss of a child.

Some hiring managers I have spoken with have actually confirmed that although one’s marital status and gender are not supposed to play a part in hiring decisions, they do. They are also important factors in firing decisions. Men supporting families can tend to fare better in lay-offs than women, especially single women without children, who have seemingly less responsibilities.

Sadly, sometimes a woman can be womankind’s worst enemy. I had been a Communications Consultant for another large financial institution and making a healthy hourly rate that placed me comfortably in the six-figure salary range. The rate was fair and management was thrilled with what I produced. I was writing everything for a large group and because I can read and write fairly quickly, I was pouring out the work expected of an entire department. I was well compensated and the company saved on paying a full communications department.

Because of the caliber and timeliness of my work, I picked up a number of additional contracts and stayed on for about four years before I was hired at a high VP level as the Director of Marketing and Communications. Again, instead of a team, I worked alone and was writing for a group of nearly 700 people. No easy task and, honestly, I deserved every penny I made.

A colleague, who had been fighting to get me into her department in a subservient role, was called upon to discuss the prevailing rate for someone in my position. Management was looking to make me an offer to come on permanently — the VP position — and my management trusted that she would provide honest feedback.

There was one problem. As a consultant, I made significantly more money than she did at the corporate level. Jealousy got the better of her and the low-ball figure she provided was more in keeping with what one would expect to pay a staff writer or a low-level consultant. I learned that the term “single woman” was bandied about in hushed tones; it was said that I was making a man’s salary and should be knocked down a notch or two. I have often wondered – would these men have gone to someone else to learn what the acceptable rate for my position was if I had been a man? Would there have been any issue about paying me a six-figure salary if my gender was different? Would this woman have let her jealousy get the better of her if I was male? Remember, I was hired in at the highest of VP levels and, certainly, everyone in that grouping of vice presidents earned competitive salaries well in excess of $100,000. My demands were not over-the-top for my level and the expectations in place for me. This woman created a negotiations fiasco for me—I had to decline early offers and feared I would have no job.

In the end it worked out fine, but she hurt business women’s salaries by skewing information based on her feeling that I didn’t deserve a man’s wage. Her uneven behavior cost her. She was transferred to a remote office off of Manhattan and without staff. Prejudice has no easy answer and no quick fix and, while women in the workplace have made great strides, we still have a way to go.

As recently as a few months ago, I heard a man who had been in business for many years say before his retirement, that it was women who ruined America, the economy, and the landscape of America’s workplace. Women should stay home and tend to their families and let the men work and provide. Because of women, men make less money and productivity has suffered. Not everyone agreed, but not everyone disagreed.