Nine chairs. I counted them twice at 8:40 this morning, at the long table in the back of a coffee shop on Bank Street, while the pastry box I'd ordered sat in the middle getting looked at by people who weren't invited. By 9:10 every chair was full, and for the next two hours nine women from around North Alabama talked about money and work more honestly than most people ever did in my office in fourteen years of HR.
I'm writing this at the kitchen table at 3 in the afternoon, still a little wired on coffee, because I want to get down how it came together while it's fresh.
Why I did it
Since spring, my phone has been full of the same questions. A friend from the hospital asking whether she should counter an offer. A soccer mom wondering how to go back to work after five years at home. A neighbor asking if 3% was a bad raise. In July I scrolled back and counted: sixteen text threads in three months, and nearly every one came down to one of four questions. How do I ask for a raise? Should I take this job? How do I go back? Is it too late to switch?
Answering one at a time meant I gave the same answer sixteen times, and nobody got to hear anyone else's numbers. From the HR side, the questions people most need answered are almost never the ones they bring to HR. Hardly anyone walked into my office to ask how raises were decided. They asked each other in the parking lot, and they usually got it wrong.
How it came together
The plan fit on an index card: one long table, once a quarter, Saturday from 9 to 11, free, no selling. In August I asked the manager of the coffee shop whether I could have the long table on a Saturday morning. She said yes as long as people bought drinks, and I said I'd order pastries for the table, which made her like the idea a lot more.
Then I texted eight women I knew and asked each of them to bring one person I didn't know. Thirteen said yes. Nine came, which I'm told is a normal ratio for anything on a September Saturday in a town full of soccer games. Five were from Decatur, two from Hartselle, one from Athens and one drove over from Huntsville.
Here's what I said to start: "This isn't a networking event, and nobody's selling anything. Say your first name, your town and one work question you're carrying right now." Then we picked two of the questions and stayed on them.
The first was from a nurse with eleven years at the same place who'd gotten 3% four years running and wanted to ask for more. The second was from a woman holding a job offer in Madison with a Monday deadline. The table did more for both of them than I could have alone. Another woman with the same job title as the one with the offer said her own salary out loud, and you could feel the air change. The woman with the offer left with a written counter and the first sentence she plans to say on the phone.
What it cost
Less than I expected:
- Pastries for the table: $38
- My own coffee: $4.75
- Name tags and index cards: $0, from the back of my desk drawer
- Total: about $43
I logged it under "career" on the September tab of our budget spreadsheet. The real cost was the Saturday morning. Ben had Harper, and Moose sulked at the back door because Saturday mornings are supposed to be his.
What I learned on the first try:
- Name tags with towns on them start conversations before anyone sits down.
- Two hours is right. At 10:50 people were still talking, and at 11:05 they left happy instead of tired.
- I talked too much in the first half hour. Old HR habit: someone asks a question and I start explaining the policy. Next time the table answers first and I fill in.
I won't pretend nine women and a box of pastries is going to change anybody's career. But two of them asked if they could bring a friend next time, and one asked if she could bring her sister, who is thinking about going back to work after her youngest starts kindergarten. That's the whole reason I did it.
The next one is the first Saturday in December. Same table, same pastries, and this time I'll let the table go first.
