Ladies Don't Hate Their Jobs. They Are Lucky To Have One.

Women are taught to feel lucky to have a job, even when that job is quietly burning them out. In this episode, we unpack how workplace stress, silence, and just be grateful culture affect your hormones and why speaking up at work matters.

Music from #Uppbeat
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What is That's Not Very Ladylike?

That’s Not Very Ladylike is the podcast for every woman who was told to be polite, stay calm, or stop being so dramatic, meanwhile her hormones, boundaries, and sanity were quietly falling apart.

Hosted by Tracey Willingham, licensed social worker and the voice behind That Hormone Girl™, each episode starts with one rule: Ladies don’t…and then they do it anyway.

Together, we unpack the unspoken expectations, the emotional labor, the generational BS, and the hormone chaos modern women are carrying and we get honest about what it actually takes to feel like yourself again.

If you’re ready to question the rules, trust your body, and stop shrinking to make everyone else comfortable, you’re in the right place.

Tracey: 00:13

You're listening to That's Not Very Ladylike, the show where every week, we start with one rule, ladies don't, and then we do it anyway. Welcome back to another episode of That's Not Very Ladylike. And today's topic is ladies don't hate their jobs. They're just lucky to have one. So, let's let's just jump in and start talking about, let's name the rule that goes along with this.

Tracey: 01:04

So, ladies don't hate their jobs, right? We're supposed to be grateful, practical, responsible, and especially if the job has benefits, if it pays the mortgage, and especially if other people would kill for that position. So if you feel exhausted, resentful, numb, you don't call it misalignment. What you do is you call it burnout or I just need a vacation because good women don't complain about stability. They endure it.

Tracey: 01:44

So let's kick off with some story time. Gather around everybody. Sit around the circle. I'm going to tell you about one of the worst bosses I've ever had. If you've heard some of my past episodes, I told you guys like, hey, I point out a lot of the bad bosses I've had, but I've had some like amazing life changing bosses.

Tracey: 02:02

But, I mean, y'all don't wanna hear the good stuff, right? You wanna hear about like, I can't believe somebody did that. So, there was a job that I had here in Fort Worth. Front office, major company, and a female boss which I was excited about. I'm like, come on female power.

Tracey: 02:21

Until I learned that she was known for bullying and everyone knew it. It was not a secret. I learned it on the first day but the system does what the system does. She never got in trouble. And as a matter of fact, she got a second office put under her supervision.

Tracey: 02:40

But that's a story for another day and trust me, it will show up in one of these because that one, that one stung. But today is about what it felt like to work for her because she publicly ridiculed me and is the only boss at this point who actually ridiculed my body in front of people like my physical body. I've never had someone do that. Of course, she always pulled up stuff about my performance and here's what's wild. On paper, there was never anything wrong with my performance.

Tracey: 03:14

My reviews were always clean and what that told you was, she didn't have anything because I did my job y'all and I did it well. But every single day, she made sure to make sure I felt like I was failing. And I used to cry all the way to work. And then I'd cry all the way home. And then the Sunday scary started y'all.

Tracey: 03:39

Most of you have probably heard of the Sunday scaries. If you haven't, it's that it's that feeling on Sunday. It's like a heavy dread. Usually starts around two to 3PM on Sundays and it's in the pit of your stomach and it's saying, oh my gosh, I have to go back there. So, y'all, I was proud of myself.

Tracey: 03:57

I made it a year. A year, a whole year, I made it through that bullying. And before I finally looked at my husband and said, I can't do this anymore. Here's the part that actually kind of messed with my head. The high level managers asked me to stay.

Tracey: 04:15

As they always do, right in the system, as they always do. And they say, like, you're valuable. You matter. We need you. But it was too late.

Tracey: 04:28

And y'all, you know, if you've listened to some past episodes, I've warned y'all, I'm a cusser. And this is one of those times, one of the past episodes I talked about, sometimes we have to use some of this language to get the point across. So, I'm about to do it. So, if you're not into cussing, turn this off or if you've got little ears, turn this off. So, they're saying all these things to me but it was too late and I also thought, fuck you for not changing the culture because they knew.

Tracey: 04:59

They knew because we, a lot of the employees, were going to them and saying, you have to this is not performance correction. This is bullying. This is personal attacks. And they'd always say, oh, it's out of our hands. You've got to go to HR.

Tracey: 05:15

So, we went to HR and HR was like, hey, y'all, do you want this job or not? Get back to work. And I talk about this a lot in my Speak Up membership. I have a whole AI coach that people in my membership work with. And a lot of times I put in there and I know some of y'all are going to put some comments and be like, Tracy, that's not fair.

Tracey: 05:34

But HR is not there to protect us, y'all. I mean, I know in some instances, in some severe instances, they do intervene, but every HR comp HR department I've worked with, it was to protect the company. And I'm just going to say it. And I know some HR people are going be like, I get up and I go to work and I'm fair. But also, I think we have to ask ourselves, how fair do you get to be?

Tracey: 05:56

I many of you, I think, are fair. But how fair does the system allow you to be? So that's kind of where I was at. I was like, y'all knew. And so, not only on top of that though, here's the hook that kind of kept me longer than I should have been quiet.

Tracey: 06:13

Is I'd been approved to miss one day a week so I could work on my masters in social work. So who was I to speak up? What other job in Fort Worth is gonna let me off to go to school? And what if I left and I couldn't finish? Because that was the whole point of this.

Tracey: 06:27

I wasn't gonna work in an office like this forever. My goal was to get out there and change lives. I wanted to get my master's done. So I stayed for a while, and I made myself as invisible as I could, but I cried. And finally, I just couldn't do it anymore.

Tracey: 06:43

But here's a secret I wanna tell y'all. I got another job two months later. And guess what? They let me keep going to school. And that boss, that boss became one of the best bosses I've ever had in my entire career.

Tracey: 06:58

And I put a lot of I'm not saying I was 100% awesome leader when I worked later. But I feel like some of my leadership came from that boss. So, also, it's so funny how in the moment I thought, oh my gosh, I'm messing everything up and then bam. Changed my life. But let's look at the emotional cost of this.

Tracey: 07:19

So, here's here's what we don't talk about a lot. So, when you wake up every morning and there, you're already tied in your chest and when your Sunday night starts feeling like grief and when your body tenses at the sound of your email notification, that little ding, that's your nervous system talking to you. And when you live in a brace state long enough, your body starts to adapt. So your cortisol your cortisol stays elevated. Sleep gets a lot lighter and more difficult.

Tracey: 07:48

Your cravings increase. You're eating food that you're like, why did I just eat that? Inflammation creeps in. Even your menstrual cycles, they start getting irregular and your libido can even see like be like peace out, disappeared, I'm gone. And what it is is it's not that you hate working.

Tracey: 08:06

You know, I've had so many women before be like, I guess I just hate working. No, you don't. You hate surviving. But because the paycheck clears, you convince yourself, it's fine. You say things like, I should be grateful.

Tracey: 08:19

Because gratitude has become the duct tape that we use to cover our resentment. And that resentment, unfortunately, is inflammatory. So, when you feel trapped, but you tell yourself, I'm lucky. Your body carries that contradiction. And I love this book and I love this saying and the body always keeps the score.

Tracey: 08:40

But let's also look at a historical context that lies underneath this for a lot of women. So, for most of history, women weren't allowed to work outside the home in ways that created independence. So, and we're going to look at like and I mean, listen, I'm going to break it down and some of y'all going to get real mad but I like to, I want to start talking more about like the different impacts that kind of affect women from different race and so, I'm a white woman and I'm going to be honest, even when ours are tough, it's not going to be what our sisters of other races are dealing, have dealt with, and continue to deal with. So, this might make some of you uncomfortable but it's time that we just start having these conversations. So, white middle class women, we were told our place was to be domestic.

Tracey: 09:33

But here's where it gets worse. Black women were forced into labor, unpaid, or underpaid long before white women were even allowed to work. And enslaved black women, they didn't even get the luxury of debating fulfillment or being asked, do you want to work? They were labor. Immigrant women, Irish, Italian, Chinese, Jewish, worked in factories, laundries, and garment shops in brutal conditions just to survive.

Tracey: 10:05

And y'all, it always hurts me to have to talk about indigenous women. I mean, let's talk, we're displaced from land based economies and then forced into systems that stripped any financial autonomy. So, when we're we're talking about women entering the workforce, we've got to be honest. Some women were fighting to be included in jobs. Other women were fighting to survive the jobs that they were forced into.

Tracey: 10:33

And during the labor movement, women like Mother Jones, she fought for safer working conditions. You had black women like Addie Wyatt who organized both who organized for both racial and economic justice in workplaces that exploited them. Latina activists like Dolores Huerta fought for farm workers' rights. Many of them were women who were underpaid and invisible. Asian American garment workers organized strikes in the nineteen eighties Demanding fair wages and dignity.

Tracey: 11:08

Listen to that. Nineteen eighties. I bet you thought I was going say something like eighteen something. Nope. Not too far back.

Tracey: 11:15

And white women in second wave feminism pushed for access to corporate jobs, higher education, and professional leadership. And all of that mattered because doors were pushed open. But here's the part that lies underneath all this women hate their jobs. Is once women fought their way into stability, leaving it started to look like betrayal. So if your grandmother scrubbed those floors, took orders from someone who was racist, was horrible, sacrificed, worked more than one job, leaving your job, it's starting to look a little bit like betrayal.

Tracey: 11:58

Because if your grandmother scrubbed those floors so you could have a desk job, If your mom worked double shifts so that you could have benefits, admitting that you hate your job feels ungrateful when we look back at our ancestors and all they did for us. So, we don't say it. We start to say things like, well, at least I have one. And that sentence carries generations inside of it. So, let's look at a reframe here.

Tracey: 12:24

So, what if the problem isn't that you hate work? What if the problem is that the way you're working is misaligned with your biology? So women's bodies were cyclical, right? We we have our menstrual cycles. Workplaces are not set around those.

Tracey: 12:41

Women need psychological safety. That doesn't make us weak. That's not like, oh, we need this and men don't. It's because of the systems that are in place. We need psychological safety and many environments run on fear based urgency.

Tracey: 12:57

Women regulate through connection, through community. Corporate culture often rewards detachment. So, we are struggling inside a system that was not designed around our physiology. And wanting something different, it does not make you ungrateful. It's making you honest because there's a difference between stability and stagnation and there's a difference between responsibility and self abandonment.

Tracey: 13:27

And if you're asking, well, Tracy, how would I know about that? Your body knows the difference and you're feeling it. So, if this was allowed to be said the way it should, it would sound like this. I don't hate working. I hate working like this.

Tracey: 13:47

I hate feeling replaceable. I hate being talked over. I hate pretending I'm fine. I hate sacrificing my health for a salary. And here's the boldest one y'all.

Tracey: 14:02

We're going to say it. I am allowed to want more than survival. And I'm going to tell you right now, that is not entitlement, my friends. That is alignment. So, I want you to sit with this.

Tracey: 14:15

Where in your life are you calling resentment, gratitude? And where are you saying, well, at least I have. While your body is whispering to you, but I'm not okay. And if you remove the word lucky from the equation, what truth would surface? And you don't have to quit tomorrow.

Tracey: 14:40

I mean, if you want to and you can, let's go girls. Let's go. When I had to quit some jobs, it was like a knowing and I had to wait six months till something else came up. So, I get it too if you're like, timing because I gotta pay my, I gotta pay my bills. And this isn't about impulsive decisions but I just want to talk about permission because a lot of times, unfortunately, the way we've been conditioned, we need permission.

Tracey: 15:04

So, here's your permission if you need it. You have permission to acknowledge what your body already knows. Because the moment you tell the truth, even privately to yourself, your body starts to soften. And that softening, it's not given the credit that it's owed. Softening is the first step towards change and sometimes the biggest part of the change.

Tracey: 15:30

So ladies don't hate their jobs. They're lucky to have one. But luck should not cost you your health. And if your body is inflamed, exhausted, wired, numb. Before you assume it's just hormones because you all know that's my world.

Tracey: 15:50

If you found me that way, some of y'all may not know but so my my job is I'm that hormone girl and I love to talk about hormones all day. But before we assume it's just those hormones, I want you to ask yourself, what am I tolerating? Because your hormones are not separate from your environment. They respond to it. Let's say it again.

Tracey: 16:13

Your hormones are responding to your environment. They are not separate from it. And the and sometimes, the bravest thing a woman can say is it's not like all endure. The bravest thing you can say is this doesn't work for me anymore. Not whispered.

Tracey: 16:36

Not apologized for. And not wrapped in gratitude to make everyone else comfortable. Just saying this doesn't work for me anymore. And that is the most unladylike thing of all. Thanks for joining me today for That's Not Very Ladylike.

Tracey: 16:57

If today's episode lit a fire, pushed your buttons, or called a little BS on the stories we've been sold, share it with another woman who's tired of being told to tone it down, smile more, or play nice. And help a girl out by making sure you subscribe, leave a quick review, and catch me on Instagram at that hormone girl. And until next time, keep getting loud, messy, and raising hell because being ladylike is overrated.