Lipstick Jungle

My best friend's boss swears by this book by Candace Bushnell, so I figured I should read it and explain why my best friend's boss acts that way. I got myself a copy back in 2007 but did not have time to read it. I finally managed to read the book, thanks to long wait I had to do at my doctor's clinic. 

Lipstick Jungle is a story about 3 powerful women, Nico, Victory and Wendy. Nico being an enviable editor of a posh magazine had her sight on her boss' job, to become the head honcho of the publishing division. Victory, a hot fashion designer who wanted to make it more big time and who had issues about dating. And Wendy, president of a huge movie company was but having problems about her marriage. 

I liked the book because it gave me a glimpse of how things go at that level of the corporate ladder. It's scary because truth is you really need to protect yourself at work, usually because of politics and greed. The characters in the book had to do quite a number of tricks and sacrifices to be where they were. 

I had a huge argument with my Dad when I started working. He wanted me to be an entrepreneur straight-away. I didn't. And during that time I insisted that I needed to experience corporate life because I thought it was the only way I could learn the ropes. I did and more. I also found myself a mentor who eventually taught me about protecting myself in the big bad corporate world. 

I was going up too fast and getting more and more responsibilities which made some people angry. Di ko pinansin since I thought I was just doing my job and was a self-proclaimed nerd in the office, and besides I enjoyed working and working and working. I did not understand what politics meant and I was fed multitude of lies so that I would just give up and leave. 

I know I'm the type of person who is self-motivated. My work now is a perfect fit since I'm more often than not on my own and just need to check-in once in a while. When I realized back then that I was being worked on I thought long and hard what I wanted to do and reviewed my long-term plans. I was nearing 30 and I had pegged back then that at that age I would either be a consultant already or the mayor of my town (!!!). Since my political career was squashed at age 20 when my Mom refused to allow me to run for the  Sangguniang Kabataan, I ended up with a career.

So much to the consternation of my parents, I took the leap and left the corporate world at age 30 because I realized I just wanted to earn a living without the pretensions and without having to wear lipstick.