Why I Would Rather Be Retired Than Run for President

(Photo Details:  My kitty.  Why? Because she is so cute.)

Here’s a little story.

I graduated from U.C. Santa Barbara with a degree in Business Economics with an Accounting emphasis.  I went to work after college for a “Big 8” accounting firm.  Four years later, after earning my CPA license, I left public accounting to work as the Controller of a venture capital firm.  Several years later, I was promoted to CFO.  And after 18 years of working there, I retired.  Some other facts:

1) When I retired, the guy who replaced me was offered a salary and bonus package that was almost 50% higher than mine.  His bio read much like mine, same college, same major, same Big 8 experience, same venture capital experience.  Except that he graduated a year after I did.

2) Every CFO before me and every CFO after me, was invited to attend in the weekly partner meetings.  I was not.

3) Every CFO before and after me was a man.

But I did very well at this firm, amassing enough money to retire at the age of 44. 

So that’s one story.  Here’s another one. 

When I started my career, I worked in the tax division of a Big 8 accounting firm.  Every so often, a partner would take each of us to lunch.  A “mentoring” lunch where they would share their wisdom on how we could be successful.  One such time, I scored a big “win,” the head of the tax division was my lunch-time mentor.  He spent most of the lunch telling me about how he had the great advantage of looking old when he was younger.  Because he was prematurely gray or prematurely bald or something like that.  I forget, it was so irrelevant to my situation.  He attributed much of his success to this.  

He told me I looked very young so the wisdom he passed along to me was, “Maybe don’t smile so much.”

These are just two of my stories.  Maybe you have some stories too.

While apparently, I smile too much, Hillary Clinton smiles to little.  She’s not relatable, she’s shrill, she doesn’t have the right experience.  Oh yeah, and she doesn’t laugh right.  When I watched the debates on Monday night, I actually yelled expletives not fit to print at the TV when Donald Trump would not stop talking over Hillary Clinton.  I’ve been there too. 

I am not trying to persuade you to vote one way or the other.  You already know how you are voting.  I just wanted to write a post about how this election is making me feel.  I wasn’t even going to write about it but I read these articles today and I wanted to share them, in case you’ve been there too.

Hillary Clinton Will Not Be Manterrupted  (New York Times)

Hillary Clinton’s Everywoman Moment  (New York Times)

Women do ask for pay raises, they just don’t get them (CNN Money)

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