I’m tough, I’m ambitious, and I know exactly what I want.  If that makes me a bitch, okay. 

Madonna

Have you ever been called a bitch?  Did you take it as a compliment or an insult?

When I was a young project manager working in a city’s Transportation Division, I worked with engineers, mostly men, mostly very traditional.  For one of my projects, I was assigned one of the project managers who I considered under performing, based on my evaluation of his past work. 

But there was little I could do about the assignment, so I took on the task of trying to make him look good.  In every situation, I tried to set him up for success and note his accomplishments.  This strategy seemed to help for awhile, but frustration set in, as he failed to make progress on his part of the project. 

An aggressive young project manager decided he could to a better job on this high-profile project and began to work behind the scenes to replace the first project manager.  When the reassignment finally took place, the first project manager thought I had caused him to be replaced.  He said to a co-worker “that bitch” got me fired from the project. 

When the co-worker first reported the comment to me, I was offended and denied any involvement – saying “I was only trying to make him great.”  But, after a bit of consideration, I decided that I was flattered that he thought I had so much power.  It was the beginning of taking the comment “bitch”  as a compliment.