Apparently, women are taking over the world – have you noticed? I recently read a blog post identifying 10 reasons why women are set to take over the world. It was fascinating! Of course, like all good blog posts (with the possible exception of this one!) it was full of scientific facts and evidence as to why men should just accept that our time is up and we’re in fact dying out genetically. If that wasn’t bad enough, apparently, we’re also ill more of the time, we live for less time, we’re more likely to die at work and we can’t get jobs. Even if we muster up the strength to soldier on in the face of unemployment, ill-health and shorter life expectancy, the Telegraph recently reported that by 2025 women in Britain will control up to 65% of the country’s wealth.
Although, perhaps this is in fact a positive thing. The two women that I overheard earlier today would certainly think so. As one friend said to the other; “well, he [presumably referring to her male partner] spends all his money on beer, so what does he have to show for it?” she said, in justification for the multiple shopping bags she was clinging to as she walked down the street!
Whatever the reason, whether they are in fact taking over the world or not, they definitely got my attention today (and no, not for the reason you might be thinking!).
Radio 5 Live was raving about the new, first-ever, female Doctor Who. Who drew the biggest series launch viewing figures in 10 years. It seems I may have missed out by not being one of the 8.2 million people who watched the first episode, with Jodie Whittaker as the first female Time Lord. So many people were talking about this today and absolutely raving about how good Jodie was, and how now is the right time for a female doctor. One caller into 5 Live went on to say it’s about time we saw a female James Bond! Of course, being the BBC, they had to have the naysayers put their two-pence in too, to balance out the feeling of girl power taking over the show.
So, I wondered as I continued my drive (with the radio now turned off – there’s only so many times I can take hearing the same news on repeat), is it a coincidence that on the same day as the nation is talking about women taking over, we also had our first-ever lady installing tanks for us as part of one of our installation teams?
Yes, Susan has done her first day today with our team of installers working on a 962m3 EcoBloc light (with rows of EcoBloc flex for inspection) tank, up near Aberdeen. After over 5 years of carrying out installations for our customers, I don’t know whether I should be embarrassed to admit or proud to announce, that this is the first time we’ve had a female installer?! I’m sure many people might think it’s not even of note-worthy consequence and wonder why I’m sharing it as news, but the fact is that it hasn’t ever happened before in over 5 years and then now, today it has.
Today, being the same day as the girls in our head office in Banbury have decided to organise a ‘girls’ night-out’. Yes, you read that right too – no boys allowed! Girls only.
And maybe this is why they’re destined to take over the world? Because they care enough about each other and getting to know each other by spending time outside of work as a group, which will inevitably improve their communication and sense of team. Whether the night out was done for this reason or not, it will have a beneficial impact on them working together, which will have a beneficial impact on our results as a Company. How likely is this to happen with a group of blokes? It certainly hasn’t happened in our business anyway! Almost every organised event within our Company has ‘girl power’ at its core – I’m not sure much would happen if it was left to the men within the business!
So, along with a massive group of the nation all celebrating a female victory in the case of Jodie Whittaker as Doctor Who, I’m right alongside them celebrating the fact that we’ve now got female representation in every area of our business, now including installations. Our industry is still very male-dominated and thankfully this is fast-becoming a thing of the past. Us men had better take note and do our best to keep up!
