I started a successful business that is now in its tenth year. Weathering the Bush economic storm pretty well.

Yesterday I get a call (I get these kind of calls fairly often) from a guy selling advertising space on the community board of a local Country Club. He wanted to know if I would be interested in advertising there. I told him I would consider it and let him know.

So today he calls me back. "Did you get a chance to talk to your husband about this advertisement?"

(are you fucking kidding me?!?)

"Um, I don't know why I would need to talk to my husband about advertising for my own business, but I have (just) decided not to advertise with you. Thanks for the call. Goodbye."

I talk to my husband about a lot of things. Dealing with difficult people, math, science. Things he has more expertise in than I do. I have the degree in Business Marketing. He asks my opinion on these kinds of matters.

The culture in Utah is unbelievable. Men just assume that the little lady would go to a penishood holder for permission for everything. I can't help but be angry every time things like this come up.

And today, I am pissed.

I will consider it and let him know, in some men's minds often means I have to talk to my husband but I don't want to say that.

Even I, chauvenist pig that I am, although I might be thinking she probably means she has to talk to her husband, have enough sense not to say it.

Jack

I assume you have a good reason for living in Utah. Just out of curiosity, what is it?

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Are you blaming the victim, btw?

Is it common for successful business owners who are women in your social group to need their husband's permission to buy advertising?

there? he probably didn't think there'd be a good return on his money.

cute

biteoftheweek wrote the following post at 06/26/2008 5:57 PM: Is it common for successful business owners who are women in your social group to need their husband's permission to buy advertising?

No it isn't. The fault is with the guy who was trying to sell you the advertizement. I can almost always tell if a woman, or a man, is the decision maker in the business or if she really does have to clear it with her husband.

She could be partners with her husband and may have to talk to him about it, just as she might have to talk to another woman who is her partner. I can understand a woman, who is partners with her husband, being reluctant to say she has to discuss it with her husband. That indicates that she is not in complete charge of the business. This is an important issue for women.

I have done business over the years with quite a few women-owned companies. They are no different from men. Some are competent and some are not.

I did work for a woman in Maryland who ran her own construction company. She had the brains of an onion. It was well known that her dad had financed the business for her and that he had his hand in it. When she said, let me think on that and I'll get back to you, it always meant, let me ask my dad.

An oaf might have said, gotta go talk to daddy about it, huh? But there was no good reason to do that. I have been in far more situations where it was the dumbass son in that position.

One never needs to point out the obvious. You may be overly sensitive. But part of the fun in owning one's own business is having people know you own your own business. I understand that. You will run into assholes like that salesman as long as you are in business.

Just do what you did with that one, let him know he may have lost a sale because he is an idiot.

Jack

; )

Would I dare in this era of sensitivity? No, I see that you are making a trade off. If it's OK by you, it's OK by me.

You seem to be an intelligent person, so tell me: why in the hell would anyone with half a brain want to live in that horrid time-warp of state?

Get out now, before a just God turns the whole mess back into a featureless salt flat.

Isn't that the place where men can marry as many women as they are up for? lol

Don't worry yer sweet head. little lady*. You just give me this guy's number and I'll straighten 'im out fer ya. ;)

My college roommate freshman year actually used these words on a semi-regular basis. Of course, this is the same guy who would look at the squirrels on the quad outside and say "man, ah wish ah had mah gun raht now."

. . . because I actually will quite often say that I need to mull something over when what I mean is that I need to make sure it's cool with my wife. I don't think it's as much a gender thing as a marital thing.

I was recently invited to an artistic retreat. I was pretty sure I could get the time off from work, and the cost (other than gas and food) is negligible (the retreat itself is free), but the fact is, as a married man, I'm not the only entity with a claim on my time.

Of course, she doesn't exactly want me saying that; she fears it makes her look demanding, shrewish, like a mother figure. And I grok that; if I thought she was telling everyone she had to ask my permission for stuff, I'd have issues with the light in which I might be seen. Thing is, though, it's not really about permission for me. It's about consideration.

But you can get pretty much the same thing in AZ with fewer...um...loons. Not sayin we don't have loons, cause we do...I just think the loons-to-regular-folks ratio is a little higher in your neck of the woods.

I've been to Moab, but that's about as deep as I ventured. My only real experience with Utah folk is that we run an ad in the Salt Lake Yellow Pages. Invariably when asked where we are located and we say, "Phoenix," we get this indignant response:

"Phoenix? Phoenix, ARIZONA? Well...why are you advertising in MY phone book?"

As if we're halfway round the globe rather than a couple hundred miles away. Don't know why the boss maintains that ad, we almost never make the sale once they know we're foreigners.