The Secret Sauce
I spend a fair amount of time thinking about associations – like Women in the Fastener Industry – and the value that they bring to members and even those outside the organization. I’m probably a little biased, since I am a member of, and help run, several associations. When I started in the fastener industry, there weren’t a lot of women around, but those who were frequently found themselves running the associations for the industry. Perhaps that ‘s because the women were still thought of as the “secretaries,” and not the “guts” of the business.
Over the years, I’ve watched the industry evolve, with more and more women becoming involved, and I’ve watched many of those women succeed. They have shown they have the organizational skills, the ambition to achieve what they want and, sometimes, perhaps the need to prove to themselves and others that they can do the same job as a man. Eventually, the women serving as association leaders became more respected as the industry began to appreciate the important roles they were playing.
Today, I am proud to see so many women who own and operate companies, whether it’s in the fastener industry or other fields. I have to admit, like many women, I originally planned to work after college only until I started a family. But my personality took me in another direction. While I loved raising my children, I also loved having a job. I started working at 15 and haven’t quit yet and don’t plan to for a long time. The challenges, lessons learned, satisfaction of success and the networking, made possible, in part, by associations I joined, have been invaluable.
The teamwork I’ve witnessed in groups like WIFI has really made me appreciate their value. I’ve seen them create programs that have improved the fastener industry and the people, male and female, working in it. I’ve watched them bring together people with common goals and shared issues in both good times and bad.
I’ve seen men and women in our industry mentor and inspire those just starting out on a new adventure. I am certainly thankful for the new technologies that have made life easier, and sometimes more complicated, in the (net)working world. But it is always the interesting people that I enjoy the most, in whatever group I find myself in. That brings to mind one article out of the many I have read recently about the importance of loving what you do. It ran in Forbes magazine a little over a year ago and it’s entitled: “Why Do So Many People Hate Their Jobs?”
You can find it here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/03/27/why-do-so-many-people-hate-their-jobs/
I found this quote from the article to be of particular interest: “The secret sauce is in treating your job as if you love it, that is the surest way to lead you to a job that you actually love. Treat each day like drudgery, and you will toil forever.”
I wish everyone success in cultivating their working life into a job they really love, if they haven’t already. From my experience, joining an association like WIFI for support and sharing can be an important part of that process.
Nancy Rich
WIFI Board Member
