NPR. Daryl Fairweather's first job after her economics PhD was at a small consulting firm.
It was a lot of work, but her boss was complimentary.
He called me a workhorse and he said it with a smile on his face.
Okay, that's a little ominous.
A double-edged compliment.
Yeah.
After several months of being a so-called workhorse, Daryl said she started to feel exhausted.
I would be working like up to 100 hours a week.
100 hours a week?
Yeah, that was a tough deadline.
That sounds unhealthy.
Yes.
I mean, it wasn't like that every week, but sometimes it got to be quite a lot.
And I think that all of that stress,
it just felt like I should be getting something more in return for how much I was working.
Daryl had read Sheryl Sandberg's famous book on women in the workforce, Lean In.
In fact, she was going to a Lean In circle support group for young women professionals.
The main message?
Women should negotiate more.
So she decided to lean in herself, try to get a pay raise.